Progressive Teachers of Young Children: Creating Contemporary Agents of Change

Abstract

This article describes how an Early Childhood Teacher Education program in Hawaii builds upon a history of progressivism in the field of early education in the U.S. to encourage students to become critical thinkers and agents of change. Reflecting through the historical lenses of educators such as Jane Addams, Patty Smith Hill and Lucy Sprague Mitchell, two progressive teacher educators call on their students to become ―transformative intellectuals‖ (Giroux, 1988) and move from being agents of surveillance to agents of change (Foucault, 1972, 1995). Student data from blogs and action research projects illustrate how students challenged habituated practices in the field of early child education (ECE), which has been rapidly moving toward a narrow focus on academic readiness and the standardization of children and programs as a consequence of No Child Left Behind legislation and the Race to the Top competition for federal funds.