Let’s take a short sharp look at Dispositions in early childhood education...

A disposition can best be described as a tendency to act in a certain way. For example some people have a tendency to try really hard when the going gets tough. While others may give up easily, when things are just too hard for them.

A disposition can also be described as a mood or general attitude in life. For example the old saying “That person sees the cup as half empty.” While “that person sees the cup as half full.”

So it’s their attitude and way of seeing things.

In other words;

“How does this child take on learning?” Do they stand back to watch and wait before giving something a try? Or do they bust straight on in and give anything a go without much thinking?

Learning dispositions affect how children approach learning, and therefore the outcomes of their learning. In other words, a child’s attitude or tendency to learn will affect how successful they are in learning.

We all know that the early years are super important for laying the foundations for lifelong learning. We are all continuously learning. But our attitudes, our self belief and our willingness to learn started in our early years.

Think about yourself for a minute...

This week I had to learn how to use a new piece of software so that I could make cool You Tube videos. Now I am NOT a digital native. I was born on the far side of technology, so learning how to use software is really challenging for me. Here is what my thought processes were;

And that is exactly what I did.

If you put your teacher hat on and analyse my learning dispositions here you will see that I was hesitant at first and doubted my ability to learn something so tricky. So my natural attitude towards new learning was self doubt. BUT then when I gave it some time, I started to use some learning strategies to give it a go. I knew that I needed help. And I knew that if I persisted, practiced and kept trying, that eventually I would be able to achieve what I needed to do.

If you were a teacher looking at me as a child, and you were considering my learning dispositions you might say the following in a learning story about me;

The attitudes that I have today about learning, my self belief and my willingness to try were formed in my early years and cemented over a lifetime.

You can imagine, that if I did not have the disposition or willingness to give it a try, or to ask for help, or to explore, practice and persist that it would have been unlikely that I would have learnt how to use that software. And I would have to pay someone else to do it for me. Bummer!

So for early childhood teachers, you can see why understanding children’s learning dispositions is so important. We have a HUGE opportunity to influence and support HOW a child learns. And how a child is shaping their self belief.

There are many many dispositions that are important for children in order to become confident, competent lifelong learners. And it is our job as teachers to support the development of these in the early years.

Now that you know what dispositions are, and why they are so important, the next part of the equation is understanding how we can assess learning dispositions and how we then plan and design our curriculum to support children’s development of these. But that is another session for another day.