 | Educational Philosophy
Based on extensive research in the field of early childhood education, brain development, and 100+ combined years of our experience with children, Pretend City's educational philosophy is as follows.
Simply put: Kids learn best when they're actively having fun at it!
Pretend City's educational philosophy is based on principals put forth by the developmental pioneer, Piaget and repeatedly validated through vast educational research about how children learn most effectively. This learning theory is called constructivism. Research tells us, and our own experience proves that children learn best by discovering and constructing their own knowledge through hands-on fun learning experiences — i.e....meaningful play. Play is a vital catalyst to a child's language development and language is the conduit through which we learn most everything.
Along with another noted learning theorist Vygotsky, we believe that for a variety of reasons, children learn most effectively in a social setting with other learners. We know that learning with other people can be motivational because the interplay between learners provokes additional
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| interest, support, and challenges. In addition, a rich variety of play experiences with others, is the very foundation whereby young children learn how to engage in social relations with others. Play is where children learn to effectively negotiate with their peers in order to get their needs met while still respecting the needs of others. Effective social interaction, from sharing to compromise to conflict negotiation, is the basic human currency for all society and is imperative for success in school.
These two learning theories when combined produce what we know to be the most effective model for educating young children. It is called Social Constructivism and is the educational framework supporting all learning that will happen in Pretend City.
We believe that it is through these types of active learning experiences that a child's brain develops optimally. The latest brain development research offers a compelling argument for the need to increase active early learning experiences in order to optimize the brain's development and functioning. Without significant active learning opportunities in early childhood, critical connections in the brain are compromised. Active learning through play experiences is essential for healthy brain development and provides the most effective means for young children to learn!
We know that these concrete active learning experiences lead to higher order abstract thinking. For young children, learning needs to be concrete before it can become abstract. Play-based active learning allows children to concretely explore their world, to discover new information, to develop language, and to utilize their ideas in meaningful ways to help them construct their own understanding of the world and how it works. Through this type of concrete learning, information is processed and synthesized, concepts are solidified, and vital abstract thinking skills are developed. Children are then able to use abstract ideas to reason, follow logic, strategize, hypothesize, and decipher information critically.
Our experience and research supports the fact that children's learning experiences are greatly enhanced by knowledgeable early childhood staff. Early Childhood professionals, as facilitators of meaningful play, can enhance learning for both children and their parents through "scaffolding" their experiences. This is a learning method in which an educator assesses the interests that a child is indicating through their play and offers further opportunities and experiences for the child to learn more about the particular area of interest. Scaffolding is an effective way to enhance parent/caregiver learning as well and a way to effectively model a teaching method that parents can use with their children in other settings.
We know that a fun environment that is purposefully developed to foster the kind of learning that is transferable to the real world, will have a more lasting educational impact on children. Engaging parents and caregivers of young children in the learning process through play-based activities (along with formal parent education) enables adults to become more skilled at and strategic about enriching their children's learning experiences. When parents and caregivers learn new educational-play skills and garner ideas about how children can learn in ordinary settings such as a grocery store, children are positively impacted by their museum experience on a long-term daily basis.
We believe, as does Howard Gardner the originator of the theory of Multiple Intelligences, that children learn through a variety of different modalities. For example, some children learn best through movement, others by working with logic, others through touching and manipulating information, still others by verbally processing information with others. The museum will, by careful design, offer children many different forms of active learning experiences because we know that children are motivated to learn when they do so in the specific manner that they best utilize to process information.
This highly effective, multi-dimensional educational philosophy, when put into practice through the children's museum's exhibits and programs, will produce exciting success-building outcomes in the lives of children. These outcomes or learning objectives, are called Pretend City's Brain Building Blocks and are as follows:
- Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
- Creativity
- Interconnectivity of the world and Processes of everyday life
- Teamwork, Negotiation, Collaboration and Leadership
- Awareness of the World's Unlimited Possibilities
- Building a Lifelong Love of Learning
- Cause and Effect
- Appreciation for Diversity
Pretend City's educational philosophy is research-driven, experience-rich and will effectively help young children to learn in a way that is lasting and fosters a life-long love of learning. It is through these supported experiential learning methods, that are purposely designed into the museum, that children will construct their own meaning about the world and how it works and their parents will learn innovative ways to continue that exciting learning process in the real world. When learning is fun the spark is ignited for a child to feel a sense of mastery and confidence in himself as a competent learner — a recipe for life-long educational success!
Pretend City's educational philosophy has been developed by:
| Linda Hunter M.A., M.F.T. | Director of Education, Pretend City |
| Virginia Mann Ph.D. | Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research, University of CA at Irvine |
| Sharon Seidman Ph.D. | President — Orange County Association for the Education of Young Children (OCAEYC)
Child & Adolescent Studies Faculty,
CA State University, Fullerton |
| Bill Habermehl | County Superintendent of Schools,
Orange County Department of Education |
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