The electric teacher: Philosophical pathways to being an empowered early childhood educator

Abstract

Imagine your shock when you discover that you are not a real teacher, you have just been programmed to think you are real. You are an electric teacher. But do not worry, being an electric teacher can be an authentic journey in teaching and learning. In this article I would like to explain how. idea of the electric teacher comes from a Philip K. Dick short story entitled The Electric Ant. central character discovers he is a programmed machine. A crisis ensues as he feels shocked and upset, yet he is unsure (now) whether these can be called feelings, because, after all, he is a programmed being. So the question becomes, how do we know we are not programmed? Or perhaps, what in our lives as teachers suggests that we might or might not be programmed? These philosophical questions have a strong connection with technology. I believe that such philosophical questions have an important contribution to the ongoing debates regarding both technology in early childhood settings and what it means to be an educator and/or teacher. first section of this article refers to the literature on critical reflection and the nature of the critical pedagogue to claim that a philosophy of technology is essential in understanding and relating to technology in the widest sense. article then explores arguments for enhancing the knowledge and attitudes of early childhood educators in relation to technologies, suggesting that negative expectations of the early childhood teacher continue to undermine their engagement with (and often old) technologies. Significant sources for developing a philosophy of technology are then explored with attention to an influential thinker in the philosophy of technology, Martin Heidegger, and to the role of science fiction in offering an educator the space to think differently about technology. This article does not examine the costs and benefits associated with technology in the early childhood curriculum--an issue that has attracted immense amounts of popular and scholarly opinion and research, particularly with regards to such as personal computers, educational software, the Internet, digital cameras, and more (I'll use the term ICT to cover all these). It might seem that the questions concerning technology in early childhood have recently taken such immense proportions as a result of the new technologies around, but this ignores the fact that influential early childhood curriculum developments centred around the ability of certain educational (think, for instance, of John Locke's alphabet blocks, Froebel's gifts, and Montessori's didactic apparatus) in eliciting certain educational outcomes from the young child (Gibbons, 2007). focus in this article is on the programming of the electric teacher's relationship with technology, a programming that occurs through their teacher education and professional development. This programming, or construction, has a significant impact on how an educator understands their self, their role as an educator in the specific context of ICT, and their wider educational relationships. Philosophy might assist in revealing this programming. Yet, unlike the electric ant, whose response to discovering his programming was attempting to switch himself off, this article suggests a positive sense of such awareness, an electricity of being a teacher in a technological world. importance of critical reflection in teaching practice I am the sort of educator who is generally suspicious of an overstating of research. And there is a lot to be suspicious about with regards to the research on technology in early childhood education. However, I am not referring just to the ubiquitous claims of advocates for ICT in the early childhood curriculum. There is a significant quantity of literature that seeks to challenge and/or resist the potential roles for ICT in early education (Bolstad, 2004). …