Whole Child Development
A preschool director once relayed to me an observation she made at her community center. She watched as a mother plucked her child from the waters of the pool at the end of his swimming lesson, quickly dried him and dressed him right on the deck, and then delivered him, minutes later, to his karate class. She wondered at how passive his role in the whole exchange was, as though he was merely a passenger on the high-speed train that was his life.
I often wonder what other people see in the art being created in an early childhood classroom. What do they make of these splashes of paint and collages covered with glue and seemingly random bits and bobs?
Data doesn’t make the decisions for you.
That was one of the big takeaways from my conversation with Emily Oster, researcher, author, and mother. As an economist at Brown University, Emily explores the science of making good decisions based on the data. In her newest book, Cribsheet, she explores how to apply that science to the decisions that face us as parents.
Sometimes, when people picture what learning looks like, they imagine perfectly quiet children in perfectly arranged rows, sitting perfectly still.
Sounds perfect.
But research tells us that’s not always what learning looks like. Especially when it comes to young children.
The debate over the roles of play and academics in kindergarten is not new. While my first response to this tired argument is always that it is a false dichotomy, a more specific challenge has recently entered the arena and therefore deserves a more specific response.
This year didn’t quite start out the way I had hoped. BUT, I did manage to cross off a goal millions of people set at the beginning of the year, and after only a few weeks in.
The headlines have actually been coming for years, but a new round has been catching everyone’s attention the past few weeks.
“Old-fashioned toys, not video games, best for kids, pediatricians say.”
“So-called ‘educational’ toys rarely really are.”
“Old-fashioned toys better for development than high-tech gadgets, study finds.”
“The best toys are those that support play, new report says.”
Just in time for the biggest gift-giving season of the year, the American Academy of Pediatrics released toy guidelines that suggest that high-tech trends are promoting toys for children that are over-stimulating, ineffective when it comes to development, and in some cases, actually lead to skill delays.
The doctor was running behind (of course), so I flipped through one of the family magazines as I waited in her office. Almost immediately I was taken aback by an advertisement.
I have never met an early childhood teacher who complained about not having enough to do.
Content Copyrighted (2008-2019), Amanda Morgan, All Rights Reserved
