Care and Education: A False Dichotomy

In the introduction to Illuminating Care, Carol Garboden Murray writes,

I want to tell you about two messages I heard from society, from my friends and advisors, when I was a young adult going to college to study early childhood development. First, I was told,

‘Don't!–don't become an early childhood teacher. Early childhood education is glorified babysitting, and you should aim higher.’ They said, ‘If you want to be a real teacher, you should work with older students.’ Once I persisted to achieve my goal, and I became an early childhood teacher, the second message I heard was, ‘Don't talk about care.’ At conferences and leadership institutes, I was told, ‘You will never be understood or respected if you use care to describe your work. Don't call your school a child care center, call it an early learning center. You are more than just child care, and you should use the language of education.’

But care was the thing that fascinated me the most in my study of human development. I recognized the false dichotomy that education and care were separate. I wasn't willing to rank care, hide care, or disguise care. I wanted to name care and to show that even the most basic rituals of caring between adult and child require dignity, respect, presence, dialogue, and intelligence.’

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