How do you build leadership in early learning? According to Maurice Sykes, Executive Director of the Early Childhood Leadership Institute, it goes beyond the usual skills and benefits from an eye towards equity and social justice: “[making] sure that children, regardless of zip code or surname or gender, have access to high quality programs.”
The high costs of early learning presents one of the biggest obstacles to accessing childhood education. It’s a challenge Amy O’Leary is attacking, not only as NAEYC Governing Board president, but also as director of the Early Education For All campaign of Strategies for Children, which seeks to make publicly-funded, high-quality early education available for all Massachusetts three, four and five-year-olds.
When Diane Trister Dodge began working with Head Start, she created her own learning materials with mimeographs and homemade filmstrips. That creative focus on training teachers helped Diane become founder of Teaching Strategies and now President of the Dodge Family Fund, promoting the early childhood profession and programs that help children in poverty to be successful.
As the importance early childhood learning becomes more widely understood, so, too, does the importance of early learning educators. As she describes, that’s just part of what inspired Clinical Associate Professor Tonia R. Durden to help design and launch the inspiring Birth to Five Program at Georgia State University.
Early childhood education is imperative and challenging under any circumstances. Families formed through adoption, families with LGBTQ members, and children who are gender fluid bring their own unique challenges – and opportunities. Robin K. Fox, Interim Dean of University of Wisconsin-Whitewater College of Education & Professional Studies, discusses what teachers, parents, and children need to know – and how they can apply that understanding every day.
From her earliest days, teaching has been part of Carol Brunson Day’s life. And since those first lessons through her time in the classroom and as NAEYC Past President, she has been a relentless, powerful activist for equity, access, and high-quality education for children.
How do can the children’s individual identities evolve naturally and fully in the face of stereotypes that can often plague our communities and societies? As Julie Olsen Edwards, author ‘Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves’ explains, some of that help can come from teachers – and how they think about their curriculum.
Edward Manuszak wears many hats, but the two most important are Superintendent of Dundee (MI) Community Schools and as the AASA Early Learning Cohort Co-Chair. In both roles, he works to deliver excellent learning opportunities. So why is Manuszak among the first to say that “Early Childhood Matters Most?”
What does it take to build 24-hour childcare? It starts with a promise. It continues with commitment. And to listen to Rosa Marie, President of Marvelous Minds Academy, there’s only one way it can end: With doors opening to serve families who need it.
How do you know if you’re part of an early learning community? Cailin O’Connor, Senior Associate at the Center for the Study of Social Policy, introduces the Digital Progress Rating Tool, a new ELN offering [or new offering from ELN, CSSP and the National League of Cities] that helps stakeholders evaluate their efforts, chart progress, explore tips, and create a step-by-step action plan to create a thriving Early Learning Community.
It’s the not-so-secret secret: Higher rates of poverty occur for U.S. children in rural communities rather than urban ones. Yet delivering the benefits and tools of brain science to these areas is difficult in terms of cost, location, infrastructure. As Senior Specialist Lindsey Lockman Dougherty, Save the Children – in partnership with the Vroom Initiative – is doing something about that.
In preschool and kindergarten, play – including “make believe” play – helps lay the foundation for many competences children will need for the rest of their lives. So how can we get adults out of the way? Elena Bodrova, PhD, co-founder and Tools Knowledge Advisor at Tools of the Mind, explains.
