Margaret McMillan's Essay: A Social Activist's Contribution To Early Childhood Education.

Background and Early Career

Margaret McMillan was a renowned social activist who has huge contribution to the development of early childhood education. She was actually an educator, teacher as well as a child and family advocate who had developed many reforms for the development of the condition of the children and fought for the children’s causes (McMillan 2018). She also had a huge contribution to the development of legislation not only in the local level but also in the national levels of England.  She along with her sister had founded an exceptional open-air nursery that later became famous as the Rachel McMillan Nursery school and Training centre at n international level (Pound 2017). The research that she had conducted in the nation of the United Kingdom had helped her to develop some of the social determinants that affect the quality development of children and even affected their education. Therefore, the assignment will mainly help to enlighten the different aspects of early year education that was considered important for development of children. Her works would be critically appraised and the effects of her theory in modern day education would be discussed in the assignment.

In order to shed light on her theory, it is important to develop an idea about her background that made her to formulate certain aspects for development of children. Margaret McMillan had a rough childhood as the sudden demise of her father resulted in complete disruption of the life of the family. At that time, McMillan was getting her education in the United States (Clough and Nutbrown 2015). At this uncertain event, her mother took her and her sister Rachel to Scotland where she completed her education and started working as a governess to a rich old woman. She was always keen to be a socialist as the different issues faced by the society in the different parts of the United Kingdom made her to think about ways how she could help them. In such a time, her employer gave her a condition that whether McMillan would choose the inheritance of her property or pursue her socialist career. This made her come under a dilemma where she ultimately chose to be a socialist. From this activity of her, one can easily understand the inner love for society and humankind. She had always tried her best to develop the conditions off the society so that human beings develop better quality education and lead successful lives. Therefore, she left the women and formed an independent labour party. Luckily, she got the opportunity to visit a number of schools being an elected member of the Bradford school Board. During such surveys, she came across a number of shocking events that made her start thinking for the quality of life of the children who are undertaking education. The first things that he noticed among the schoolchildren of the schools were the presence of curable diseases as well as malnutrition among the children (David, Gorouch and Powell 2015). Many other aspects also came to her notice that included complete lack of sunlight and fresh air in the school classrooms making them claustrophobic and unhealthy place to study and spend time in. Several other such instances made her take the decisions that she would try her best to develop the conditions of schools for the early year education. She also saw that proper medical and dental care were also absent that affected the quality of the lives of the children. All these made her put forward certain important aspects that when incorporated resulted in better health of the children.

Observations on Children's Health and Living Conditions

One of the most important criteria that he had out forward was the development of the health of the children both physically and mentally. It is indeed an important factor as the researchers have provided an explanation about the link that is present between development of better health and its impact on gaining education and better future lives. Researchers are of the opinion that differences in the household resources as well as different types of community factors and healthcare issues between the different socio-economic classes have the potential to affect the environments as well as the practices of their families and different communities (MacBlain 2018). These in turn are responsible for the improper access of the children through nutrition, health as well as development. Therefore, the aspect that McMillan had observed in the school and developed idea about the possible effects of improper health of the children on their brain development and education has been indeed a fact. Such information observed and put forward to the society in such strenuous times of social inequality in united sates was indeed praiseworthy.

One of another important observation that he had undertaken was the improper condition of the slums that affected the living condition of the children largely. She had told the society the conditions by which the slums children were living at that time would have negative impacts not only on the life of the children but would also affect the future of the nation as well. Researchers are indeed of the opinion that how the children are educated in a nation has great impacts on the future of the nation as they have the potential to develop themselves as experts and help the nation to develop the GDP and in turn the economic condition of the nation (Singer and Wong 2018). Better the knowledge, skills and professionalism developed by individuals, betterment of business, agriculture, manufacture, production and others take place. However, before that, all individuals need to be healthy and educated and early year education lays the main foundation of every child’s education. Therefore, at that early age, when such researchers had not yet used to take place on the societal norms and development, she had put forward the concept. She had advised that important steps that need to be taken is to develop proper interventions for making the lives of slum children better. Therefore, she had put forward a number of activities that had helped the condition of the children learning in schools much better (Follari 2015). She had instructed the schools to initiate systems of bath for the children to maintain their hygiene and initiating the system of school meals so that they can develop proper nutrition. She also requested schools to understand the importance of the development of the medical inspection as well as treatment so that the health status of the children gets better and that children can live healthy and playful lives. Researchers are of the opinion that nutrition, attachment, proper playful interactions, different types of games and enough independence in the early childhood have positive impacts on brain development of the child (Jarvis, Swiniarski and Holland 2016). According to McMillan “‘Every slum can become a garden.  Every slum child is a power-house of energy.  Once given a chance of real growth, this Human Power, inspired by Higher Powers yet, can settle every kind of problem, financial and otherwise’. Researchers are of the opinion that every society should try to overcome the barrier that exists between different socio-economic classes so that all men irrespective of their status can achieve education and live healthy lives. McMillan had successfully recognised that in order to develop safe and prosperous nation for the future, the drivers of the future generation that is the children should be taken care of. Poverty, discrimination and stigmatisation affect the mental health and physical health of children and such children can never develop high quality life for such individuals. Therefore, children be provided with all those interventions that help to make them healthy first and then gain education. She had also stated that 'What is important is not the giving of instruction, but the preparation of a suitable provocative environment, an environment where new chances are made possible'. She was herself a believer of developing interventions so that children are exposed to a developed environment rather than only speaking about interventions without taking initiatives (Holland and Jarvis 2016). Her argument was accepted by the state who stated that if they are stressing on the compulsory education for all, they should be also advocating for the responsibility of proper nourishment in schools. One of the initiatives she had taken was the formation of the Deptford Clinic in 1910 that used to serve a number of schools in different areas. The clinic was seen to provide help in dental care, surgical aid as well as lessons in the breathing and posture. She has also established Night camp where children of slums could wash their clothes and wear clean night clothes (Brwon and Maye 2017)_. She along with her sister Rachel also opened founded the open air-nursery and showed that only one child out of 30 got sick mainly because of the different precautions they had taken. Therefore, the disorders did not spread from one to other.

The Importance of Early Childhood Education

Some of the principles that she had put forward are even considered important and are incorporated in present day care of the children and education. One of the most important belief of McMillan that is even believed in the present day that children learnt best through their first hand experiences and that active learning is one of the most beneficial aspect for developing high quality education. Another of her belief that is also incorporated in modern day early child education was that parents play an important role in development of children and hence their contribution should be valued and they should be made an active part of education system (Treloar et al. 2017). In the present generations also, most schools prefer interactive sessions with the teachers so that their knowledge of child nurture can be known and accordingly their knowledge can be enhanced. Many of the authorities also take active steps to counsel families in ways by which they can develop proper environment in their homes so that brain of the child is developed well (Gorson and Browne 2015). Many of the schools provide efficient nutritious meals to their children and provide them education about how to develop healthy body and healthy mind by undertaking proper balanced meals.

One of the most important initiatives she had also taken was to train the teachers in an effective manner so that they can learn to identify the importance of various needs and requirements of children. Finding appropriate teachers in times of Margaret after the World War 1 was becoming very difficult. Therefore, she took initiative of setting up sessions where teachers were taught the correct methods of evaluating a child’s need and teaching them and developing them in better ways. Just like her principles, today also, teachers are trained to understand the behavior of the children first through observation and then developing interventions unique to the need of the particular individual. Researchers have indeed praised the fact that her vision which she developed at that time through her observation only are now scientifically proved and had formed the basis of foundation of early year education (Nutbrown and clough 2014). Margaret believed that a nursery school teacher has great responsibility because it is her who develops the brain and nervous system of the children. This has been in turn proved later when researchers had conducted different brain based experiments where such theories have been proved. She also stated that teachers of very young children have the most important objective than any other teachers and therefore they should have finer perception as well as a wider training and outlook. She had always paid much importance to garden as space for helping the children to explore their activities, urges to develop knowledge, learn and get close to nature. This has been still the most important aspect followed in modern education where teachers are asked to help children develop their motor activities through playing in the garden, their explorations, their venturing tendencies, their interaction with nature and others. These help them to develop their cognitive power, helping them for mental development, interaction powers as well as physical strength and motor development (Eliot 2016). Just like the principles of Margaret, present day schools also providing emphasis on outdoor plays and their classrooms are called shelters just like the ay Margaret had advised. Present day, schools are also following her principles where children have no examinations to sit as well as no formal structure. Children are seen to play, run in free open spaces, feel the sun and wind and thereby explore the nature. These help children to be fit and fine and take them capable to gain basic knowledge through realization and identification of facts.

Continuing Impact on Modern-Day Education

From the entire discussion, it is seen that Margaret McMillan had been one of the best early year education reformist which had great contribution in shaping the early year education system in Britain. She had successfully indentified that in order to educate children, it is first important to develop proper environment for the children where they get healthy food and can maintain hygiene. She had established many centers that not only educated teachers but also provided meal service, dental care service and many others for children. Many of the principles of the reformist like open gardens, involvement of parents in education, developing nutrition and any others are also incorporated nowadays in schools as that helps in educating children and developing potential for them.

References:

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Clough, P. and Nutbrown, C., 2015. Rachel and Margaret McMillan: practice and politics. In The Routledge International Handbook of Philosophies and Theories of Early Childhood Education and Care (pp. 61-72). Routledge.

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