Early Childhood Education (BS)
What is A Early Childhood Education (BS) Degree?
The field of Early Childhood Education (ECE) covers the teaching of children from birth through age 8, which is the third grade in U.S. schools. A subset of the field is called Infant/Toddler education, a specialty area dealing with kids 0-3 years old. ECE emerged in the eighteenth century in highly literate areas of Europe and continued to expand to the US in the nineteenth century. Today it is well known that early education of children can be critical to their success. Early childhood education sounds important, doesn’t it?
Earning this BS degree will prepare you to teach infants through age 8 year old children—these are kids from preschool through the 3rd grade in most school systems. In addition to general education, you’ll study child growth and development, child psychology, classroom management, learning through play, gender and role development, fostering language skills, and family/community relationships. Classroom observations in the field during the third year of study will probably be required, and practice teaching under supervision in a school or other placement will occur in the final stages of training. The BS degree in Early Childhood Education will probably be sufficient for teacher certification in most geographical areas.
