This book offers a powerful, new road map for early childhood teacher preparation through a relational pedagogy that honors students' life experience and that leads to deep reflection and learning.

In Living Stories: Nontraditional College Students in Early Childhood Education, Susan Bernheimer takes the reader into her journey with a group of nontraditional college students. Bernheimer's struggle to find a meaningful approach to teaching the students about early childhood development and care is infused with the insights and wisdom that come from listening to, and valuing, the remarkable stories of her students' lives. This book offers a powerful new road map for early childhood teacher preparation through a relational pedagogy that honors students' life experiences and that leads to deep reflection and learning. The approach is embedded in students' strengths and knowledge and is successfully inclusive of an increasingly diverse student demographic. Bernheimer provides an inclusive model of education that builds upon the strengths of all students.

Autorentext

Susan Bernheimer is an educator, researcher, and trainer on contemporary issues in early childhood education and formerly a member of the human development faculty at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, California, from 2001 2015. She taught early childhood teacher preparation to impoverished college students for over ten years. Bernheimer received her doctorate from Claremont Graduate University. She is the author of New Possibilities for Early Childhood Education: Stories from Our Nontraditional Students (Peter Lang, 2003) and Voices of Early Childhood Educators (Peter Lang, 2016).

Inhalt

Acknowledgments - Foreword by Jacquelyn Green - Introduction - A World in Flux - Inside the Cultural Divide - Reflection on Life Stories - Gateway to New Realities - Vision of Hope - Journey Into Higher Education - Shifting Priorities for Classroom Teaching - Hear My Voice - Challenges of a Relational Pedagogy - Stepping Into the Future - Index.