Professions identify the goals of their work with the good of humanity at large, placing strong emphasis on social ends in contrast to the more tangible or immediate ends served by tradespersons, merchants, or entertainers. On this criterion, we ought to be doing very well. The service ideal and client-centeredness of professions seems clearly characteristic of teaching in general and early childhood teaching in particular. The client is autonomous in that he or she does not dictate to the practitioner what services are to be rendered or how they are to be received. Ideally, professionals who practice in large organizations or institutions are also autonomous with respect to their employer, who does not dictate the nature of practice but hires the professional to exercise judgment based on specialized knowledge, principles, and techniques.
Issues concerning autonomy with respect to clients are complex for the early childhood educator.
All of us are challenged by the paradoxical situation of wanting to strengthen and increase parent involvement in children's education while at the same time wishing to exercise our best professional judgment as to what is in children's best interests. We still have much to learn about how to be more sensitive to parents without being intimidated by them. To laypersons, parent involvement seems so simple that our apparent resistance to it is difficult to understand. A large part of the parent involvement problem is that parents are not a monolithic aggregate. Understandably, parents do not all agree on what goals and methods are appropriate for early childhood education.