At the Institute of Child Development we attempt to provide a quality early childhood education experience for your child. We believe two major goals of early childhood education are to help children achieve autonomy and self-control through:
- Self-selected center learning experiences and projects.
- Encouraging children to be responsible for their personal needs, wants, actions and behaviors and examining the consequences of their actions.
We also seek to develop children's understanding of the physical characteristics of objects in their world. In so doing, we hope to foster an understanding about the relationships among these objects.
The teacher's role at the Institute is to serve as a guide, a resource, and a facilitator for the child. By this we mean that the teacher facilitates a child-centered environment by initiating activities and projects for children which are developmentally appropriate, purposeful, meaningful, and foster learning through self-selected play. Children will learn best through a process of discovery, enabling them to build theories about how their world operates. The teacher acts as a guide when she questions the child, encouraging him or her to think more deeply about a problem or situation. The teacher acts as a resource person for children, offering suggestions as needed, yet encouraging children to develop ways for children to solve problems for themselves and to take responsibility for their actions. We believe peer interactions are critical in helping children develop socially, creatively, physically, emotionally, and cognitively. Through peer interactions children construct cognitive and social knowledge, acceptance of others, and an appreciation of individual/cultural differences.