Wise Practice: The Need to Move beyond Best Practice in Early Childhood Education

‘Best practice’ implies that there is a readily identifiable set of standards that act as performance indicators and set a benchmark when determining quality. Given recent interest in work being undertaken with young children in the programs at Reggio Emilia and Stockholm (Dahlberg, Moss & Pence, 1999) it is timely that early childhood educators move beyond ‘best’ practice and explore the concept of ‘wise’ practice. The basic premise for a move is that ‘wise’ practices are always contextually located and enacted by knowledgeable, thoughtful, and sensitive professionals who are attuned to each child's emotional wellbeing.