The Importance of Being Little summary

In any given business meeting you’ll see a bunch of adults sitting around being quiet – and if you go to a modern preschool, you’ll probably see the same thing. Today’s preschools are meant to meet the needs of parents, not children.

A driving force behind this change is the increasing anxiety and responsibility parents feel for the safety of their kids. Over the last half century, public health data has become more easily available. Naturally, parents armed with this information have grown increasingly worried about the safety and well-being of their children, which is why they want preschools to be safe places. And what could be safer than just sitting around quietly?

So, the needs of adults trump those of children when it comes to early education. But this is really a result of our general inability to see that every environment is a learning environment for young children. Kids are remarkably adept at teaching themselves what they like.

In fact, by forcing a strict curriculum onto creative children, we actually damage this natural ability. So why do we do it?

Today we know more about children’s minds than ever before. We also clearly understand the importance of high-quality education. But then why aren’t we allocating resources to make these ideas a reality?

The fact is that teachers today have the hefty responsibility of closing the achievement gap and educating future generations, yet they remain some of the worst-paid workers in the country.

You might not think that the time you spent playing at recess taught you anything. But the truth is that play is a fantastic way for children to learn – and the best part is they actually enjoy it.

So, while there’s a common misconception that play is the opposite of book learning, play actually serves a critical function in the development of children. For instance, play is essential to building cognitive abilities like memory.

Would you rather the children in your life had an enthusiastic passion for learning or an ability to recall facts? Most people would opt for the former – but how can we guide the future of education in this direction?

We can start by making sure that childcare is informed by the needs of children and focused on their personal development. To do so we need to visualize our goals for young kids and build the learning environments necessary to realize them. At the core of this process is the need to move away from an academic preschool curriculum to one that puts the development of children first.