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The documented change in practice illustrated that these teachers were no longer
keepers of the routine (Wien, 1995), programming their teaching according to a
production schedule rather than in partnership with the children.
If teachers take control of their own practice, and of assessing the match
between their values and their pedagogy, then teaching becomes not
performing a job to someone else’s criteria, but instead living in
responsiveness to children and families and sharing a broad sense of
possibilities about all the ways to participate together. Something about
the change is profoundly democratic, if democracy is conceived as full
creative participation of all members of the community. (Wien, 2004, p. 7)
In examining these three child care centres that changed practice from policing to
participation, Wien (2004) found that the emotional tone of the centres changed from
“surveillance in order to enforce the rules and schedule to one of positive, even joyful
participation” (p. 7). The practice of these teachers changed through an implementation
of an emergent curriculum that shared power, illustrating a correlation between emergent
curriculum and teacher development.
Jones (1993) recognized a positive connection between developing teachers and
emergent curriculum. An implication of this view would suggest that a teacher
implementing an emergent curriculum would possess the disposition necessary to selfinitiate
professional growth and development:
Growing teachers is different from training them. Like emergent
curriculum, emergent teacher development is open ended, where
philosophy and practice are defined but outcomes are teacher directed,
where teachers participate actively in the construction of knowledge about
their work, making choices for their personal growth. (p. xi)
Tertell (1998) have chronicled stories of reflective early childhood educators. One
example of a teacher who began to examine questions of curriculum ownership in her
classroom illustrates the progression from the use of themes to projects. Through