ED3GUH: Growing Up Human: Early Childhood Development and Educational Futures

Module code: ED3GUH

Module provider: Institute of Education

Credits: 20

Level: 6

When you’ll be taught: Semester 1

Module convenor: Dr Geoff Taggart , email: g.taggart@reading.ac.uk

Pre-requisite module(s): BEFORE TAKING THIS MODULE YOU MUST TAKE ED2BCY (Compulsory)

Co-requisite module(s):

Pre-requisite or Co-requisite module(s):

Module(s) excluded:

Placement information: NA

Academic year: 2025/6

Available to visiting students: Yes

Talis reading list: Yes

Last updated: 3 April 2025

Overview

Module aims and purpose

The industrial age which produced climate change was maintained by a particular conception of the human being which schools have helped to shape. Education systems prioritise mind over body, reason over affect, work over play and competition over collaboration. Yet this endeavour works against the grain of human development. Taking an anthropological perspective, this module investigates the evolution of childhood as a critical phase that lays the foundation for human flourishing. In their physicality, prosocial

lity, emotional expressiveness and fusion of work and play, young children provide a template for healthy development and suggest an alternative model for education in a sustainable world. This module provides an opportunity to visit an early year’s setting and to learn the relevance of early childhood development for all stages of education.

This module aims to enable students to:

• Broaden and deepen their understanding of educational aims and purposes
• Synthesise their understanding of the industrial causes of climate change with their understanding of the industrial origins of modernist education systems
• Use a critical framework to appraise educational systems as they have arisen within modernity
• Draw upon their knowledge acquired in ED2BCY and apply it to an early years context
• Critically review research in child development, cultural/anthropological studies and relevant scientific fields as they pertain to young children.
• Understand, experience and critique the educational paradigm presented.  For example, visits to local early years settings give students an embodied understanding of the holistic learning which young children are primed to engage in.
• Reflect upon these encounters and compare them with their own educational experiences.
• Envision and articulate educational futures which are informed by good practice in child development

Module learning outcomes

By the end of the module, it is expected that students will be able to:

1. Critically evaluate research in early childhood development
2. Present, reflect upon and discuss experiences of early years pedagogy
3. Demonstrate a critical understanding of the ways in which industrial capitalism has shaped values and practices in education

Module content

1. The evolution of childhood

Humans are exceptional among mammals in experiencing a very prolonged childhood. This childhood is a developmental window for children to experience various positive environments which will shape their physical and neurological growth in an optimum way. 

2. Attachment

Humans are hardwired to seek out and value supportive and nurturing relationships and this phenonmena seems to remain central throughout life.

3. The nature of play

Even though all mammals enjoy play and learn from it, young children demonstrate superior creativity. They are also able to express playfulness through language, which also has cognitive benefits.

4. Pioneers of early childhood pedagogy

Writers and educators such as Pestalozzi, Froebel, Steiner, Montessori and Malaguzzi had a vision about society as well as ideas about preferred ways of teaching young children. Their ideas seem particularly relevant when contemplating alternatives to unsustainable societies today.

5. Modernity and schooling

The institution of the school, funded through taxation, is an invention of the modern state, itself a product of new forms of industrial capitalism provoked by 18th revolutions in technology.  Early schools were modelled on factories. This session investigates the way in which modernity and postmodernity continue to exert a strong influence on schools.  Childhood trauma is shown to be a phenomenon which neoliberal culture intensifies.

6. Child development

We can understand a lot about the way in which children acquire physical dexterity, cognitive flexibility and pro-social attitudes. Yet, as a relatively recent discipline, ‘child development’ has a significant Western and modern bias, privileging and anticipating the growth of individuality and rational, logical thought at the expense of community identity and creative thought. 

7. Early childhood education in the UK

The UK offers a particularly vivid illustration of the way in which the early years are marginalised within the policy and funding of education, reflecting long-entrenched modernist priorities.

8. Visit to local early years setting.

9. Climate change and the aims of education

 The need for continual growth which underpins capitalism is also responsible for climate change. Schools, as products of modernity, develop dispositions in children which favour a competitive, capitalist economy and stand in contrast to the prosocial personality which, in the absence of economically-induced trauma,  evolution primes us to adopt.  If climate change is to be addressed, the modern nature of the school needs to be questioned and early childhood education offers an alternative vision.

10. Bringing it all together- focussing on the assignment.

Structure

Teaching and learning methods

The module is a combination of interactive classroom presentations, group work and local visits to Early Years settings.

Study hours

At least 18 hours of scheduled teaching and learning activities will be delivered in person, with the remaining hours for scheduled and self-scheduled teaching and learning activities delivered either in person or online. You will receive further details about how these hours will be delivered before the start of the module.

Please note the independent study hours above are notional numbers of hours; each student will approach studying in different ways. We would advise you to reflect on your learning and the number of hours you are allocating to these tasks.

Semester 1 The hours in this column may include hours during the Christmas holiday period.

Semester 2 The hours in this column may include hours during the Easter holiday period.

Summer The hours in this column will take place during the summer holidays and may be at the start and/or end of the module.

Assessment

Requirements for a pass

Students need to achieve an overall module mark of 40% to pass this module.

Summative assessment

Penalties for late submission of summative assessment

The Support Centres will apply the following penalties for work submitted late:

Assessments with numerical marks

• where the piece of work is submitted after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): 10% of the total marks available for that piece of work will be deducted from the mark for each working day (or part thereof) following the deadline up to a total of three working days;
• the mark awarded due to the imposition of the penalty shall not fall below the threshold pass mark, namely 40% in the case of modules at Levels 4-6 (i.e. undergraduate modules for Parts 1-3) and 50% in the case of Level 7 modules offered as part of an Integrated Masters or taught postgraduate degree programme;
• where the piece of work is awarded a mark below the threshold pass mark prior to any penalty being imposed, and is submitted up to three working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline), no penalty shall be imposed;
• where the piece of work is submitted more than three working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): a mark of zero will be recorded.

Assessments marked Pass/Fail

• where the piece of work is submitted within three working days of the deadline (or any formally agreed extension of the deadline): no penalty will be applied;
• where the piece of work is submitted more than three working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension of the deadline): a grade of Fail will be awarded.

The University policy statement on penalties for late submission can be found at: https://www.reading.ac.uk/cqsd/-/media/project/functions/cqsd/documents/qap/penaltiesforlatesubmission.pdf

You are strongly advised to ensure that coursework is submitted by the relevant deadline. You should note that it is advisable to submit work in an unfinished state rather than to fail to submit any work.

Formative assessment

Formative assessment is any task or activity which creates feedback (or feedforward) for you about your learning, but which does not contribute towards your overall module mark.

Feedback given on first draft of the reflective account submitted

Reassessment

Additional costs