The theoretical part covers the findings and reflections of various authors, that I wanted to gain an insight into the broader context of the topic I have been dealing with throughout my dissertation. The first part of the theoretical part includes an explanation of work and life in a public and Montessori preschool. The following describes socio-emotional development and how we promote it in public preschool and Montessori pedagogy. The research aimed to determine the attitudes and experiences of educators of public and Montessori kindergartens regarding the promotion of the social and emotional development of children. I was interested in how and how they promote this area of development and the comparison between public and Montessori kindergarten. I included two educators from public and two educators from a private (Montessori) kindergarten in the research, and I conducted a semi-structured interview with them. The results proved that both public and Montessori preschool teachers attach great importance to the field of social and emotional development of children in kindergarten, but teachers from public preschool, more often plan activities in this area than Montessori educators. I also found that in addition to the planned activities, both educators from the public preschool as well as educators from the Montessori pedagogy most often spontaneously encourage social-emotional development in everyday kindergarten situations. The educators of the public preschool believe that the Curriculum for Kindergartens (Bahovec idr., 1999) sets a basic framework for promoting the social and emotional development of children, but they say that this area could be presented more clearly and want more concrete guidelines for this area. In the conclusion, I answered the research questions, critically evaluated the conducted research, and gave some suggestions for reflection to pedagogical workers regarding the promotion of social and emotional development of children in the preschool period.
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