Who is Chris Athey?
Chris Athey has been studying children and theories of knowledge for more than 50 years, with a particular interest in how young children 'come to know' things. She describes herself as a 'constructivist teacher' and says, 'Constructivists are child-centred teachers who are trying to become more conscious and more theoretically aware of what is involved in the process of "coming to know"' (Extending Thought in Young Children, p30).
Chris was born in the north-east of England in 1924. She left school two weeks before she turned 14. After various jobs, including helping on her aunt's farm and 'toasting teacakes in a sweet factory', Chris embarked on teacher training.
While working in factories, she became involved in the trade union and labour movement and attended Workers Educational Association classes. In 1946, before starting teacher training, she noted the titles of some of her reading: Freud: Problems of Neurosis by Adler; Growing Up in New Guinea by Margaret Mead; A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf; and Thinking to Some Purpose by Susan Stebbing. Chris says that these last two books have had a lasting effect on her attitudes and thinking.
What has Chris Athey contributed to the field of early childhood education and care?
After a year of studying philosophy, psychology and economics at Hillcroft College, Surbiton, Chris was accepted for the emergency teacher training course at Wall Hall, Hertfordshire. Early on she had some tough teaching experiences and describes teaching '60 seemingly seasoned thugs' with very few resources. However, as a supply teacher in London, she decided, 'I was not going to be a bully. I was going to "begin with the learner". I invented a Froebelian principle before I had even heard of him.'
Chris went on to study at Regent Polytechnic and to teach eight-year-olds at the Froebel Institute prep school. She studied for the Froebel Trainers Diploma with Molly Brearley and Honour Southam, head of the Education Department at Goldsmiths College. Through these distinguished women she heard of Piaget. 'I was immediately engrossed because he was maintaining that intelligence was not fixed and unchanging and that intelligence could be created'.
Chris gained a distinction and became a lecturer at the Froebel Institute. She also gained a distinction in a Master of Education degree at Leicester University. Her study was about humour in children and built on the work of Piaget.
Molly Brearley ensured that staff gained experience of working with children under five. One inspirational headteacher whom Chris worked with, Barbara Furneau of Kennington, has had a lasting influence on her. They were working with 'parents living in a rundown block of flats, temporary accommodation for the homeless'.
Chris's greatest contribution to the field is the Froebel Early Education Project, of which she was director from 1973-1978. During the project, and over a period of two years, she and Tina Bruce studied 20 children alongside their parents. The workers shared information about schemas (or repeated patterns of behaviour) with the parents, and the parents provided information about their children's explorations at home. Parental involvement was the key ingredient to the progress children made.
Chris and her team challenged the traditional idea that young children 'flit' from one activity to another and have to learn to concentrate. They found that young children are not 'flitting' but are 'fitting' ideas together, based on their explorations of the environment.
Schemas have provided early years educators with insights into children's thinking. Children use their repeated actions to 'search for commonalities'. For example, an interest in 'jagged teeth', 'stairs' and the letter 'W' demonstrates a child's interest in the zig-zag form; they might also be drawn to 'stegosaurus', 'a king's crown' and a 'saw'.
Identifying this provides clues for parents and workers about how to extend their learning through the 'form' as well as the 'content'.
What are Chris Athey's key messages?
Chris consistently communicates the same messages:
- Early education is important in its own right and not just as a preparation for later learning.
- Children bring their cognitive concerns (or current schematic concerns) to the learning situation.
- It is the task of the teacher to 'seriously consider what the child brings to the learning situation, as well as what he or she wishes to transmit' (Extending Thought in Young Children, p31).
- The constructivist approach is 'bottom up'. It provides a 'can do'
- approach to early learning.
- 'Thought is internalised action', and later learning can be traced back to and always builds on earlier learning (Extending Thought, p33).
- Parents and professionals need shared experiences in order to work together for the benefit of children
- 'Nothing gets under a parent's skin more quickly and more permanently than the illumination of his or her own child's behaviour' (Extending Thought, p66).
How does Chris Athey's work influence practice in early years settings?
The movement that started with the Froebel Project, of looking at Piaget's research and using information about schemas or repeated patterns to understand young children's thinking, is slowly gaining ground. Chris was the keynote speaker at a conference at the Pen Green Centre in October 2004, when contributors from China, New Zealand and the UK all spoke about young children's schematic interests.
Chris has influenced many prominent people in the field of early education including Tina Bruce, Cathy Nutbrown, John Matthews, Mollie Davies, Rosemary Roberts and workers at the Pen Green Centre. There is also a great deal of interest in her work in Germany.
Chris is still working regularly with adults and has an amazing way of combining rigour, enthusiasm and genuine curiosity. She is interested in and excited by research into the brain.
When Chris began her major study, we knew very little about the cognitive development of children aged two to five years old. She set out to study 'the quality of educational interaction between teacher and child, parent and child, and parent and professional' (Extending Thought, p3). She was ahead of her time in wanting to understand the learning process in young children. Many of us are proud to know and work with her.
Cath Arnold is deputy director of the Pen Green Research, Development and Training Base, Corby, Northants
Suggested reading
- Arnold, C (1999) Child Development and Learning 2-5 years: Georgia's Story. Sage, London
- Arnold, C (2003) Observing Harry: Child Development and Learning 0-5 years. Open University Press, Maidenhead
- Athey, C (1990) Extending Thought in Young Children: A Parent-Teacher Partnership. Paul Chapman, London (second edition out April 2006)
- Bruce, T (2005) Early Childhood Education (third edition). Hodder Arnold, London
- Nutbrown, C (1999) Threads of Thinking (second edition). Paul Chapman, London
- Whalley, M (ed) (2001) Involving Parents in their Children's Learning. Paul Chapman, London
