The Sacred and the Profane in Early Childhood: An Englishman's Guide to Context and Policy

The change in family structures throughout the post-natural world (‘post-natural’ is used in the way that Anthony Giddens [BBC Reith Lectures, 1999] uses the term, i.e. when even child-rearing is largely no longer ‘natural’ and when institutions, technology and commerce have increasing sway over all dimensions of life) is briefly discussed together with some pressures that now inhibit, inform or constrain modern child rearing. The decline in the birth rate throughout Europe, Scandinavia, North America, and Australasia and the accelerating divorce rate are also seen as part of this changing context. Within these broad social changes comes the recent research on brain development during the early years of childhood. The extreme plasticity of the brain is discussed, as is the paradoxical and now somewhat archaic tendency for formal systems of education to invest in childhood after much of the formative learning is over. The article proposes that for ‘fitness of purpose’ we need educators and carers of vision and compassion, yet articulate and well read. It sees early childhood care and education as indivisible. The article notes that both policies and commercial interests may sometimes cause tension between indoctrination and education and between ‘accountability’ and professionalism. It sees professionalism as inherently ‘problematic’ and rightly about judgement, not about certainty. It insists that teachers and carers should be well educated, not merely trained, and suggests that without the intervention of effective, knowledgeable early years professionals, societies may increasingly lack a collective identity, unity and, perhaps, actual humanity. It builds upon this to suggest that integration of the prime services is best clustered around that of effective childcare and early education and that a professional yet ‘seamless approach’ to families, especially those in poverty, will handsomely repay child achievement and societal and family cohesion in the long term.