Abstract:

The Covid-19 pandemic period has become a challenge in many areas of our lives, requiring to adapt ourselves to changed conditions in a short time. The goal demanding a lot of effort also fell on the entire education system, which had to reorient and reorganize itself from a synchronous to asynchronous learning process. The rapid transition to blended or distance learning at home became a challenge for educational institutions, looking for new ways and means to further ensure a sustainable educational process by employing digital resources and analysing well-being and problems of parents and children.

Many research papers distinguish and analyse educational process participants’ efforts and problems caused by the consequences of the pandemic, but the field of pre-school education is not widely presented and analysed. In this study, we focus on the experiences of pre-school educators, revealing the peculiarities of their adaptation in this process of change in their relation to parents and children, seeking to ensure sustainable continuity of activities of all educational process participants in distance learning.

The aim of the study is to reveal the manifestation of the impact of distance education on children and parents under the conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic in the aspect of pre-school educators’ experience. The researchers’ team conducted a study, seeking to perform an analysis of the situation of pre-school education in Klaipeda city after the COVID-19-related quarantine was announced in Lithuania. The qualitative research involved 15 pre-school education teachers from public and private educational institutions.

The qualitative content analysis has revealed that the sudden change caused by unforeseen conditions affected the participants of the educational process, posed new challenges for all involved in pre-school education: the administration of educational institutions, teachers, and parents. Creating educational settings and revising the content and nature of activities, the interaction between children, parents and teachers, their involvement and roles acquired a different nature. According to teachers, the main tasks were parental involvement in educational activities and arousing children’s and parents’ interest in the (self-)educational process itself. The most striking feature is that children lacked contact with other participants of education and the educational institution’s settings: they were confused and did not understand the situation, longed for and needed communication with others and wanted to be in the kindergarten settings. Distance education in the pre-school class posed difficulties for parents as well. They were particularly short of time because they had to carry out not only their professional but also daily activities at home as well as get involved in the preschool children’s educational process. It has also turned out that parents paid more attention to their children, which created opportunities to get to know their children better. Teachers note that at first, parents were actively involved in their children’s education, but later, the connection became intermittent because, according to teachers, parents got tired. In summary, it can be stated that the better the relationships between parents and teachers, children and parents, the better the distance education experience and the more effective involvement of parents.

Keywords:

Covid-19 pandemic, distance education, pre-school educators, impact on children and parents, experience.