A study of the life history of the private kindergarten principal who implements eco-early childhood education

This study examines the experience of transitioning to eco-early childhood education from the life history perspective of a private kindergarten principal. Research participants were sampled to suit the purpose of this study, and principal Choi, who has operated eco-early childhood education in the field for more than 20 years, was selected. Data were collected through three in-depth and two follow-up interviews and analyzed using Mandelbaum's framework. As a result, Principal Choi has created her identity as a teacher based on trust and recognition at college and workplace and reached a turning point in encountering eco-early childhood education as a solution to educational problems. Efforts were made to transition and adapt to ecological early childhood education, including supporting the growth of teachers as ecological early childhood educators, ecological early childhood education linked to families, and establishing horizontal relationships with teachers. She also learned the aesthetics of waiting according to the natural order from eco-early childhood education theories. These results suggest that the head of an early childhood education institution must change the physical and human resources to start eco-early childhood education and that there is a mutually cyclical relationship in which the life of an educator also changes in the process of these changes.