ABSTRACT
Below, is a quotation from a letter that a teacher (and a mother) sent to one of the authors of this book after reading her interview in a teachers' magazine. In the letter, the teacher told about her four-year-old goddaughter who had expressed her irritation about the daily ‘report’ that the educators of her early childhood education (ECE) centre had written to her parents. The goddaughter had said that the description of her peer relations was false. The discussion that the teacher had with her goddaughter and the interview she read made her present the following questions:
I wonder why we document a child's peer relations and emotions and hence, define the child. How do we justify it? As an adult — for example, as a teacher like myself — I would not like to get a note from the headmaster to be taken to my family at the end of the day telling that I have discussed eagerly with Rita, the Swedish teacher; but I have been avoiding Peter, the gymnastics teacher, who is a bachelor, since he has a crush on me; or that I have been sitting at different lunch table from Margot, as I have not been getting along with her after she got the position I applied for; or that I have been really down because of my recent divorce or glowing with happiness after just becoming a grandmother.
