The Power Of Stories For Child-Centred Practices In Early Childhood Teacher Education

Abstract

This chapter discusses the power of stories for child-centred practices in early childhood teacher education. It is necessary to reflect critically about why it is essential to give the opportunity to the children to express their own stories and that the future teachers reflect on their own early childhood stories at school. These questions were studied by us when participating as a partner institution in the following European Erasmus Projects coordinated by V. Campbell-Barr, & J. Georgeson (Plymouth University): "Interpreting Child-Centredness to support Quality and Diversity in Early Childhood Education and Care" and "Child-Centred Competences for Early Childhood Education and Care" (2017-2021). We developed several case studies in the first project that produced qualitative and fundamental dates regarding our topic for both projects. We found that becoming aware of the world of children is essential for develop critical practices at school. Early Childhood Grade students must learn to understand this world as if they had children's eyes. The way to understand childhood culture is that students could explore their past experiences and games being children.