Early Years Pioneers: Lilian Katz

Who is Lilian Katz?

Lilian Katz was born in London but moved to California with her family when she was 15 years old. She married and had three children before gaining a BA degree from San Francisco State University in 1964 and a PhD in Psychological Studies from Stanford University, California in 1968. In the spring of 1968 she took up a professorship at the University of Illinois, where she remains Professor Emerita of Early Childhood Education.

I met Lilian when I took a Masters course with her at the University of Illinois in 1969. In those 37 intervening years, I have been variously her student, colleague, co-author and collaborator.

In 1970, she became director of the ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) Clearinghouse for Early Childhood and Elementary Education. Since her retirement from teaching in 2002, Lilian remained active as ERIC director until 2004. Since then she has continued this information dissemination work at the University of Illinois as co-director of the Clearinghouse on Early Education and Parenting.

Lilian was founding editor of the Early Childhood Research Quarterly for six years and is currently editor of the first online peer-reviewed bilingual early childhood journal, Early Childhood Research and Practice.

She is author of more than 150 publications including articles, chapters, and books about early childhood education, teacher education, child development, and parenting of young children.

She is internationally known in the field of early childhood education, having held visiting posts at universities in Australia, Canada, England, Germany, India, Israel, the West Indies (Barbados campus) and many parts of the US. Her writings have been translated into many languages. She continues to write, be involved in research, work with teachers as a consultant, and speak at conferences worldwide.

What is her contribution to the field of early childhood education?

Lilian Katz is an outstanding communicator, bridging research and practice in several ways. Her original and powerful ideas emerge from her understanding of the world of theory and the practical experience of those working with young children. She juxtaposes topics such as mothering and teaching, self-esteem and narcissism, culture and heritage. Several of her papers published in scholarly journals have been collected in Talks with Teachers of Young Children (see box).

Lilian worked to raise the professionalism of early childhood educators, laying the groundwork for the National Association for the Education of Young Children's code of ethics and standards for professional practice.

Much of her work came to fruition during her term as NAEYC president (1992-94) when she helped revise the influential position paper on developmentally appropriate practices.

The ERIC Clearinghouse for documents on Early Childhood and Elementary Education archives, of which she was director for 33 years, remain an invaluable resource for early childhood educators in the US.

Lilian provides in-service workshops and courses internationally on the Project Approach to teaching and learning. Her ideas remain of particular interest to those who believe in the ability of young children to be directly involved in the development of their own intellectual capacities.

She has been a tireless interpreter of the work of the early centres in Reggio Emilia, Italy, since her first visit in 1991, helping English-speaking teachers appreciate the ideas behind the practices there.

Lilian leaves an important legacy in the students she taught in 32 years at the University of Illinois. Her postgraduates have gone on to teach throughout the world.

Lilian Katz's main messages

Lilian has made an important distinction between academic and intellectual development - that we tend to overestimate children academically while we underestimate them intellectually.

Just because young children can do something does not mean they should do it. Young children have lively minds involved in the serious work of making sense of their experience. The early childhood educator has primary responsibility to engage those minds in worthwhile projects and to develop their interests in topics drawn from their own experience.

A second message concerns the importance of dispositions as learning goals.

Children are born with the dispositions to be curious, to investigate, to question, and to make the best sense they can of available evidence. As we teach young children the academic skills they need, we should be careful not to do so in such a way that we undermine their disposition to use them.

Another priority for Lilian is young children's social development. Those who do not develop a basic level of social competence in early childhood are at risk of social challenges for the rest of their lives. In an early childhood classroom there can be opportunities for teamwork, leadership, appreciating others, mutual support, conversation, and the sense of belonging to a community of learners with important work to do. Children can learn to find their place in the group, to be contributors, and to feel that they belong.

A fourth message is to do with communicative competence and the value of projects. Lilian believes that in order for children to share their experiences and interests through language, they must have worthwhile things to talk about. In-depth studies of local real-world topics can provide the content of such conversations in early childhood classrooms.

There is much interest in most settings' neighbourhoods - roads, trees, houses, parks, shops and vehicles. These provide field sites for investigation and adult experts who can talk with children about their observations and work.

Finally, there are two complementary messages in Lilian's 'Last Class Notes' (Issues in Early Childhood Education, see box.) Lilian urges teachers to cultivate their own intellects and nourish the life of their own minds. She urges teachers to consider themselves as developing professionals, to become career-long students of their own teaching.

Lilian also challenges teachers to learn from the children in their care. 'Remember that adults know more about almost everything than a small child does - except what it feels like to be that child, and how the world makes sense to him or her. Those things are the children's expertise, from which a teacher must learn to be able to reach and teach them.'

Sylvia Chard is Professor Emerita at the University of Alberta, Canada

Suggested reading

• Katz, L G (1995) Talks with Teachers of Young Children. A Collection. Ablex.
• Katz, L G & Chard, S C (2000) Engaging Children's Minds: The Project Approach (2nd Edition). Ablex
• Early Childhood Research and Practice Journal, (ed. Katz, L G) http://ecrp.uiuc.edu
• Dianne Rothenberg, ed. (2002) Issues in Early Childhood Education: Curriculum, teacher education and dissemination of information. Proceedings of the Lilian Katz Symposium. http://ceep.crc.uiuc
• edu/pubs/katzsympro.html
• Bredekamp, S, & Copple, C (1997).
• Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs. (ERIC Document No ED403023). Washington DC: NAEYC