Plan, Observe, Evaluate, Plan, Over and Over: Emergent Curriculum According to Betty Jones

01/12/2024

Plan, Observe, Evaluate, Plan, Over and Over: Emergent Curriculum According to Betty Jones

Caring is expansive and inclusive, available to all, and strengthened by the diversity of humanity.
Carol Garboden Murray, Illuminating Care

"All curriculum plans are tentative, and children modify them by their response. Like the universe, curriculum is always expanding," wrote Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Jones in her 1987 "Emergent Curriculum Framework" which remains both relevant and resonant today.

Sources for emergent curriculum, according to Jones, include:

Teachers' interests
Children’s interests
Things in the physical environment
People in the social environment
Curriculum resource materials
Serendipity: unexpected events
Living together: conflict resolution, caregiving and routines.
Values held in the school and community, family and culture.

On 'Living together,' Jones wrote, "Cooperation, expression of feelings, conflict resolution and all the daily tasks of living together are potential curriculum for young children. Physical care, self-help skills, eating and resting and washing and dressing are the everyday life experiences that nurture the growth of young children. Caregiving and the resolution of interpersonal issues are not interruptions to the curriculum, they are basic curriculum."

Jones' legacy comes through in many current works. In Illuminating Care, Carol Garboden Murray outlines seven 'lamps of care,' beginning with "Care is education." She writes, "Care and education are united. Care is intellectual, physical, social and emotional development. The pedagogy of care helps us shape a unique identity as early childhood teachers. We recognize the inseparability of care and education."

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