Modern societies reward our teachers across the different teaching levels. These rewards are financial and status in society. Here are the two extremes: our tertiary educators receiving the highest status/salary; whilst the lowest paid and lowest society status belong to our early childhood and ‘Kindy’ teachers (from now on I’ll be referring to both labels as simply Kindergarten). In other words if you are looking for high salary and status, go for being a tertiary lecturer; if not possible then a secondary school teacher; if unable to then become a primary school teacher; and finally - if all else fails - become a Kindergarden teacher!
Consider the two extremes of tertiary and Kindergarten teachers. Tertiary educators (I’m one of them) are not required to get undergo any kind of training to receive practical teaching skills, let alone any kind of theory of teaching and learning. It used to be argued that since tertiary students are no longer children, that this training did not matter. This view point is slowly changing but we are not there yet.
Psychologists have successfully argued that the children Kindergarten teachers are trying to teach are a fundamentally different type of ‘human’ than an adult. What psychologists mean by that, is that they think in a different way, not just with less experience or less vocabulary. To use a cooking analogy, a chocolate cake and a cheese cake are both cakes but they are made up of of different ingredients and baked in different ways.
There is also very convincing evidence to suggest that the most complex learning occurs in the first 5-7 years of life. So Kindergarten teachers (in order to be successful) need to think with two heads at the same time: the first as an adult with all their teaching training; the second is to be able to think inside the head of a toddler who is thinking in a completely different way. Most of us have enough trouble just trying to think with one head!
So let’s review:
- The most dense and most complex learning occurs in the first 5-7 years of life.
- Kindergarten teachers – require complex training and the ability to think simultaneously in at least ‘two’ heads (or ‘operating systems’); lowest paid, lowest status.
- Tertiary educators – little or no training in teaching skills; highest pay & highest status.
You see where I’m going with this right?
I’d like to suggest that modern societies are rewarding our educators completely the wrong way around. Surely, if we require our educators to do the job well, we should pay our Kindergarten teachers the most and they should be regarded in our society with the highest status, because they require the highest training and intellect to do the job well? Tertiary educators the least. Everything between the two extremes slide on the appropriate salary and status scale. I suspect this will happen at about the same time as world peace envelopes the globe.