Position Statement on Mud

DRAFT OF A POSITION STATEMENT ON MUD

Revised DRAFT:  Beach Cities Association for the Education of Young Children

Early Education Action League Committee Recommendation: Position Statement

Early Care and Education – The Integration of Mud into the Curriculum

May 9, 2012

Introduction:  The Early Education Action League Committee arose from the concerns of Beach Cities Association for the Education of Young Children (BCAEYC) that critical early childhood experiences were rapidly vanishing from the landscape as programs sought to become increasingly responsive to the often inappropriate demands of policy-makers, parents, the business and technology world, and K-12 educators.  In this new landscape, early childhood experiences with unstructured play, the natural world and the outdoors became less valued.  This reduction in the “currency” of such essential elements as sand, water and mud play, easel painting, exposure to tools, reasonable risk, big body play and more has not been lost upon the children – who have in turn become increasingly enamored with technology, crafts, and adult-directed play options.
The Early Education Action League (EEAL) Committee of BCAEYC has committed itself to serve as an outspoken and assertive advocate for children.

The Position:  Mud is a magnificent medium for exploration that merits inclusion in the early care and education program on a daily basis.  For the purposes of this Position Paper, “Mud” shall be considered to include sand, dirt, clay, cement, and other sensory rich experiences utilizing “naturally” occurring materials in the presence of moisture or water such that children can engage in rich sensory experiences with or without intention or adult contrived learning outcomes.

The History and Human Uses of Mud:  Mud can be justified as a learning material in a number of ways.  Docia Zavitkovsky, one of the great play advocates of our time wrote about mud in her 1996 article, Docia Shares a Story: Developmentally Appropriate Experiences.  Historians, bloggers,and alternative health adherents support the use of Mud.

• Mud has been used since ancient times as a “remedial” agent for health issues.  Today, “Mud Therapy” has been practiced by alternative medicine adherents for muscle relaxation and skin care.  Some researchers have even concluded that exposure to bacteria and viruses through Mud support the development of a healthy immune system and can even “activate the neurons that produce serotonin – a key chemical in many bodily functions…” (Discovery Children’s Centre,  n.d.).
• Mud has been used by children as a dramatic play activity for generations.  Children, imitating their parents, have made “pies”, built “houses”, and created settings for dramatic play.  Mud and clay pre-dated play dough as a medium for creating representations of real and imagined objects.
• Using “earth” or dirt to build homes goes back to prehistory.  In the form of “adobe”, mud has been a choice for building for centuries.  Adobe and mudbrick structures are durable and make up some of the oldest manmade structures in the world (U.S. Department of the Interior/Natural Park Service, n.d.).
• Mud has been used as an art medium in cultures from around the world (Denver Art Museum, n.d.).
• Today Mud Day is celebrated by early care and education colleagues around the world on International Mud Day (World Forum Foundation, n.d.).

Recommendations:  Mud has widespread relevance to young children.  Its value includes both instructional and free-experiential contexts.  Mud has been an important part of the human work and play experience throughout history.  As such, our recommendation is that Mud be an integral and daily component of all early education programs as either a choice during free play and experience, during direct instructional time, or as an intentional medium for exploring social, sensory, scientific, mathematical, literacy, social science, or anthropological/cultural contexts and experiences.

• Mud shall be offered in the form of sand and water play both in indoor and outdoor sensory experiences.
• Mud shall be offered regularly in the form of clay as an option to play dough.
• Mud shall be offered in the form of free-choice experiential forms to children in unstructured outdoor settings.
• Mud shall be included as a construction material, just as blocks and other materials.  Towards this purpose, appropriate tools such as molds, and hand-tools shall be made available.  Additional tools such as an oven or other method of “baking” the Mud or clay shall be considered.
• Books, photos and other literacy supports shall be provided that depict mud in various use for work, play or exploration.
• Parents shall be informed of the value of Mud.
• Teachers shall receive professional development that supports and encourages the inclusion of Mud in the curriculum.

Final Thoughts:
According to Richard Louv, even adults suffer from nature deficit disorder.   As our world changes ever more rapidly in response to technological advances, we grow ever more removed from nature.  Mud is elemental.  Mud has been an important part of human experience throughout our existence.  Children benefit from Mud in myriad ways, from health and biochemistry to sensory integration to social-emotional development to cognitive development.  Mud belongs in early care and education programs.  It belongs in the hands and between the toes and in the sensory table, and the science area.  It belongs in the arts and crafts area, the construction area and the quiet area.
Years ago, in the Advocacy Center at CAEYC’s Annual Conference, a huge block of clay lay at the ready for conference goers to engage with.  Alas, it is apparent that we have lost our sense of wonder.  That marvelous, wonderful block of clay – that piece of Mud – was touched cautiously and rarely.  The fear of getting messy has infiltrated even our profession.
And so it is with passion and urgency that we submit this Position Statement on our ancient friend – Mud.


Sources:
Children’s Discovery Center.  n.d.  The Mud Book
Denver Art Museum.  n.d.  Marvelous Mud: Clay from Around the World, retrieved fromhttp://exhibits.denverartmuseum.org on May 9, 2012
Gill, Tim.  n.d.  Rethinking Childhood.  http://rethinkingchildhood.com
Keeler, R.  2011.  Marvelous mud
Louv, R.  2011.  the Nature Principle
Palmer, Sue.  n.d.  Sue’s Blog.  www.suepalmer.com
U.S. Department of the Interior/Natural Park Service. n.d.  Preservation of Historic Adobe Buildings, retrieved from www.nps.gov on May 9, 2012
World Forum Foundation.  n.d.  Celebrate World Forum International Mud Day, retrieved fromhttp://worldforumfoundation.org on May 9, 2012
Zavitkovsky, D.  1996.  Docia Shares a Story: Developmentally Appropriate Experiences

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Statement of Grievances

EEAL was created by a group of like minded individuals that grew increasingly dissatisfied with NAEYC. Instead of sitting back and complaining, we took action and became involved with a local AEYC affiliate. Despite our best efforts and active participation, we felt powerless as decisions were made that did not seem to take into account the best interests of children and the professionals that care for them. We spent many years "fighting the good fight" and encouraging our collegaues to hang in there. In early 2012 we decided that we were done playing nice and we drafted a formal letter to NAEYC stating our grievances. When we did not hear back from them for several months, EEAL was born. Check out our Statement of Grievances and let me know what you think.

Statement of Grievances

By the Board of the Beach Cities Association for the Education of Young Children (BCAEYC)

April 25, 2012

After much deliberation, the Board of BCAEYC has determined that it is in the best interest of the profession and the members of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) for the Board of BCAEYC to publicly state our grievances with NAEYC.

This Statement is made without malice, in the hopes that NAEYC will survey its membership and consider the opinions of the membership in regard to a number of significant matters of concern and appropriately address these concerns.

NAEYC, having failed to this point to appropriately address such matters has compromised the integrity of the association and its members.  The Board of BCAEYC is therefore committed to making these concerns public and is hereby requesting that NAEYC respond in kind.

A Brief History:

NAEYC has a wonderful history of being a professional association that was driven by ECE practitioners and was responsive to the needs and input of the membership.  This value system resulted in an association that once proudly counted more than 100,000 members worldwide.  The association, through no fault of its own, has seen these numbers fall as the Economic Crisis has rippled across the country.  However, we believe that NAEYC has contributed to this loss of support by way of some misguided actions and policies.  NAEYC is not alone in this trend.  Programs and Initiatives across the country, in their efforts to secure funding and political support, have endured “vision drift”.  The Board of BCAEYC has determined that it will not acquiesce to vision drift and will hold both the association leadership and its membership responsible.

In addition, NAEYC has engaged in a number of decisions that indicate its intent to move away from the grass-roots culture of an association driven by the needs and input of its membership in favor of a corporate and institutional culture.  It has made important decisions without adequate consideration of the capacity, needs, and input of the members and member-affiliates.  Such decisions include but are not limited to:

·         Re-affiliation

·         Accreditation

·         Position Statement on Technology and Young Children

Vision Drift:

Like the more commonly discussed “mission drift” in which an agency or association alters its mission in an effort to secure support and funding – NAEYC has suffered “vision drift”.  The young child and the ECE professional were once central to the vision of NAEYC.  Below is NAEYC’s Vision Statement.

Vision Statement

NAEYC's efforts are designed to achieve these ends:

• All children have access to a safe and accessible, high quality early childhood education that includes a developmentally appropriate curriculum; knowledgeable and well-trained program staff and educators; and comprehensive services that support their health, nutrition, and social well-being, in an environment that respects and supports diversity.
• All early childhood professionals are supported as professionals with a career ladder, ongoing professional development opportunities, and compensation that attracts and retains high quality educators.
• All families have access to early childhood education programs that are affordable and of high quality and actively participate in their children's education as respected reciprocal partners.
• All communities, states, and the nation work together to ensure accountable systems of high-quality early childhood education for all children.

The Board of BCAEYC believes strongly that NAEYC has lost sight of this stated vision in a number of ways:

·         Developmentally Appropriate Curriculum:  We believe that the new Position Statement on Technology and Young Children contradicts best practice as suggested by many of NAEYC’s member leaders.  In addition, highly respected entities such as the Academy of American Pediatrics oppose screen time for children under two years of age.  The Board of BCAEYC submitted a letter of opposition to this newly revised position statement during the period in which public feedback was invited.  We have received absolutely no response to our concerns from anyone at NAEYC.  At the same time, we have received a significant amount of feedback from other members and colleagues in support of our opposition.  We have received virtually no feedback requesting that we withdraw our opposition.

·         Developmentally Appropriate Curriculum:  The NAEYC Accreditation All Criteria Document, 2012, consists of 86 pages of measures.  The very volume of these measures has resulted in an oppressive amount of work and reflection that is required of a program.  This labor intensive effort often times effectively acts to reduce the developmentally appropriate practice of a program as it drains the attention and energy of candidate program staff away from the children.  This phenomenon is also seen in State and Federally-funded programs and the membership of NAEYC has long been critical of this unintended consequence.  However, instead of streamlining Accreditation in response to such concerns, NAEYC has redoubled the complication of Accreditation – adding expense and increased time commitments once dedicated to the children.  This notion of adding quality by subtracting resources is driven by those that have lost touch with direct services for children and their families.

·         Supports Diversity:  Criteria 6.A.05a calls for at least 75% of teachers to have a minimum of a baccalaureate degree or equivalent by 2020.  Whitebook, et al, 2006, identified that teacher language and cultural diversity in inversely related to educational attainment.  In other words, it becomes increasingly unlikely that an NAEYC Accredited program can support the linguistic and cultural diversity of the community which it serves.  Whitebook et al, 2006, also discovered that highly qualified teachers were well-represented in private programs – yet this group least reflected the cultural and linguistic demographics of California.  This would seem to indicate that accredited programs are more common to affluent communities than to communities at risk.

·         High Quality:  As indicated above, Accreditation requirements may have the unintended consequence of reducing the cultural and linguistic diversity of a program.  However, the presence of teachers that reflect the language and culture of a community is an indicator of quality (Kagan, S, 2009)

·         Support as professionals with a career ladder…ongoing professional development opportunities…:  NAEYC has, through its insistence that California AEYC, dismantle its highly successful State-Section-Chapter model in favor of a State Affiliate-Local Affiliate model, reduced the opportunities for ongoing professional development.  The Section structure in California was an important step in developing leadership.  Since the Section model was discarded, it has been increasingly difficult to find leaders that are interested in making the leap from a leadership position at the local level to a State leadership role. 

·         Supports Diversity/Support as professionals with a career ladder…ongoing professional development opportunities…:   NAEYC’s decision to charge registration fees to presenters at the National Conference has likewise reduced professional development opportunities for its members.  Where innovative, emerging leaders in ECE once submitted workshop proposals to NAEYC in the hopes of having their conference experience partially “subsidized” by a complementary registration – today’s conferences are dominated by sessions by seasoned and well positioned leaders, those employed by well-funded programs, or those with services or products to sell.   The diversity of the real world ECE delivery system is silenced by this current practice.  The sole criteria for workshop proposals needs to be the content of the workshop – and not the ability of the presenter to afford the trip.

Note:  These are significant compromises to the vision of NAEYC and as such must be examined seriously rather than being dismissed as a matter of nuisance by a renegade Affiliate Board.  The Board of BCAEYC is a high quality, diverse, dedicated group of leaders that represents a cross-section of the ECE delivery system and includes representatives from colleges, family child care, private programs, state-funded programs, consultants, and ECE students.

Customer Service:  As mentioned before, the history of AEYC is that of a membership driven, grass-roots association.  Affiliate leadership was, and is, an act of volunteerism and dedication.   When the National Office fails to provide the necessary and expected quality of support, it strains the nature of the National-Local Affiliate relationship.  BCAEYC has experienced a number of customer service challenges.

·         NAEYC has made repeated requests of our Treasurer to submit the same documents for electronic deposit of monies to our Affiliate account.

·         NAEYC has misplaced paperwork submitted by BCAEYC related to educational awards.

·         NAEYC has failed to respond to our letter in opposition to the Technology and Young Children position statement with any invitation for dialogue.

·         NAEYC has increased the Affiliate share of expenses for insurance, etc, without increasing the quality of its customer service.

·         NAEYC has failed to respond to repeated calls from the field to address the onerous nature of Accreditation with any invitation for true and meaningful dialogue.

These failures contributed directly to BCAEYC Board members making the deliberate decision to decline NAEYC’s recent invitation for a dialogue in Santa Monica.  Given its history, this invitation appeared to be disingenuous. 

BCAEYC has committed its energies this upcoming year to holding NAEYC accountable to its membership.  We will continue to advocate and encourage our colleagues to do the same.  We not only look forward to your response – we expect a well-considered response that invites greater collaboration between the National and the local affiliates.

This day, April 25, 2012, the members of the Board of BCAEYC,

Stacey Smith-Clark

Michelle Moen

Linh Terry

Angela Beck

Gregory Uba

Catherine Scott

Jenn Palma

Jessica Cardenas

Jocelyn Tucker

Lindsey Evans

Carol Minami

Lori Davidson

Serena Sun

Morma  Arambula

Ronnie Silverstone

Sources:

Kagan, Sharon L, 2009, American Early Childhood Education: Preventing or Perpetuating Inequity?

NAEYC, 2012, All Criteria Document

Whitebook, M. et al, 2006, California Early Care and Education Workforce Study, 2006

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