This paper features the results of theoretical research of the problem of education and development of a preschooler as a behaving actor in a preschool educational organization, conducted by the Early Childhood Education Department of the Institute for Childhood of the A.I. Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia for several decades. The purpose of this study is to define conceptual approaches to the education and development of a contemporary child as a kindergarten behaving actor.
Axiological understanding of the child as an actor capable of authorizing, entering and developing activities in accordance with its own idea, vision, image and result, as well as the ability to evaluate and change it has been applied. The basis of the research was outlined by the ideas of personality-centered and developing education, approaches of actor-oriented and non-linear construction of educational content and forms of support for preschoolers in the educational process.
The result of the study reveals the initial idea about the child as a behaving actor of a preschool age, developed by the St. Petersburg scientific school of preschool pedagogics, the provisions of the collective actor, the principles of education and development of the child as a behaving actor, the principles of updating the content of preschool education and age-correlated methods of its learning by children, the principles of personally-oriented interaction between the teacher and children, event-based, unusual and situational approaches to education. The new competence of a contemporary early childhood education teacher shall be efficiency, flexibility and variability in the organization of the personalized educational process. The conducted research allows to see the necessity of changes in early childhood education based on the changes that have occurred in the childhood over the last decade.