New Perspectives on Theory-to-Practice:Implications for Transforming TeacherEducation and Child OutcomesKaren VanderVenAbstractNoting the importance of the relation-ship between theory and practice tothe quality of early childhood educa-tion, this paper deals with two issues:(1) translating available empirical andtheoretical knowledge into effectivepractice, and (2) what Lilian Katzswork, collectively, would then indicatefor a model of teacher and caregiverpreparation that would yield the bestpossible practitioners. The paperpoints out that to transform teacherpreparation, certain streams of thoughtcan be considered as a way to recon-ceptualize the theory-to-practice issuein a way that can serve to generate aconceptual schema for framing LilianKatzs far-ranging work in early child-hood education into a new, transfor-mational model for teacher preparation.Among the notions to be consideredare a reciprocal process for integratingtheory and practice, the concept of themental model, hermeneutics in devel-opmental work, and nonlinear dynami-cal systems theory. The paper thendiscusses the Katzian Early Child-hood Teacher Preparation System, in-cluding guiding principles, goals, cur-riculum, delivery, professional devel-opment, indirect practice, and facultycharacteristics.Lets call a one-year moratorium on dinosaurs. Lilian KatzAs a nation, were simply not taking advantage of how much we havelearned about early development over the past 40 years. This statementby Jack Shonkoff, chair of the committee formed by the National Acad-emies (2000) and produced by the National Research Council andInstitute of Medicine (http://nationalacademies.org/), along with theincreasing body of compelling evidence that proper preparation of earlychildhood teachers and caregivers is directly related to positive develop-mental outcomes for children (e.g., Children at the Center, 1979; Buell,1999), pose a profound challenge to early child education today.This challenge is to take what we already know about what promotespositive and healthy development and ensure that it is applied in directpractice. We all know thisall we have to do is to review the observa-tions we make daily in various early childhood programs. Despite thewealth of research on child development and developmental practice, andthe books and journals full of descriptions of prototypes of marvelousprograms, the fact remains that at point of service (while there arecertainly exceptions) early childhood programs in general are of poorquality. Since well-prepared practitioners are related to positive out-comes, the challenge is to prepare a knowledgeable and competentdirect workforce of teachers, caregivers, and child development special-ists, along with indirect practitioners: advocates, directors, administra-tors, trainers, educators, and researchers (VanderVen, 1994), whocollectively can create a system of better quality direct practice.Now a major 20th-century contributor to early childhood theory, re-search, and practice, Professor Lilian Katz, is being honored for alifetime of contribution to early childhood education. Given the challengedescribed above, is there a way we can look at her work to see what ittells us about how to address the challenge? On the premise that theanswer is yes, this paper will deal with the two issues at hand: (1)translating available empirical and theoretical knowledge into effectivepractice, and (2) what Lilian Katzs work, collectively, would thenindicate for a model of teacher and caregiver preparation that wouldyield the best possible practitioners.253254Karen VanderVenThus, this paper will propose (1) a new way to con-ceptualize the theory-to-practice issue; and, apply-ing it, (2) present the model to be called the KatzianEarly Childhood Teacher Preparation System(following Katz herself, the term teacher will beused to refer to a variety of practitioner titlese.g.,child care worker, developmentalist, caregiver).To aid in the construction of the framework for theproposed model, an attempt was made to access allextant written work of Lilian Katz; a compilation ofthe pieces found is in the reference list. These workswere reviewed with an eye to identifying salientthemes in each work and synthesizing meta-themesacross works. (By definition, this activity was reduc-tionistic: when attempting to summarize an extensiveand varied body of work, subtleties inevitably areomitted. The author takes complete responsibility forerrors of omission and acknowledges that the meth-odology itself is subject to the pitfalls that accruewhen theory is translated into practice.)The Theory and Practice IssueThat there is a breach between theory and practicein the child-caring fields has continually been ac-knowledged (e.g., VanderVen, 1993). Students canspend hours taking courses, yet when confrontedwith direct practice situations, they are unable toapply their learning into changed practices. Simi-larly, staff can sit through numerous inservicetraining experiences and continue the same unin-formed practices that the training sessions weresupposed to modify. If early childhood teacherpreparation (for purposes of this paper defined asincluding primarily formal education) is to improvepractice, then we need to rethink or, to use the wordsof those also espousing a transformed look at earlychildhood education, reconceptualize it (e.g.,Kessler & Swadener, 1992). Such a reconceptualiza-tion needs to be transformational rather than additive;that is, to look at core values, content, deliverystructures, and the like, rather than simply addingmore to the current system. A transformed way ofproviding teacher preparation must be developed ifcollectively the early childhood workforce is going tobe successful in promoting positive developmentaloutcomes for children by translating theoretical andempirical knowledge into changed practice.To initiate this process, certain streams of thought canbe considered as a way to reconceptualize thetheory-to-practice issue in a way that can serve togenerate a conceptual schema for framing LilianKatzs far-ranging work in early childhood educationinto a new, transformational model for teacherpreparation. Among the notions to be considered area reciprocal, rather than either-or, process for viewingtheory and practice (VanderVen, 1993); the conceptof the mental model