num_pages: 400
description: A bold challenge to the conventional wisdom about early childhood with a pragmatic program to encourage parents and teachers to rethink how and where young children learn best by taking the childs eye view of the learning environment Parents of young children today are embattled: Pick the wrong preschool and your child wont get into the right college. But our fears are misplaced according to Yale early childhood expert Erika Christakis. Children are powerful and inventive; and the tools to reimagine their learning environment are right in front of our eyes. Children are hardwired to learn in any setting but they dont get the support they need when learning is defined by strict lessons and dodgy metrics that devalue childrens intelligence while placing unfit requirements on their developing brains. We have confused schooling with learning and we have altered the very habitat young children occupy. The race for successful outcomes has blinded us to how young children actually process the world acquire skills and grow says Christakis who powerfully defends the preschool years as a life stage of inherent value and not merely as preparation for a demanding or uncertain future. In her pathbreaking book Christakis explores what its like to be a young child in America today in a world designed by and for adults. With school-testing mandates run amok playfulness squeezed and young children increasingly pathologized for old-fashioned behaviors like daydreaming and clumsiness its easy to miss whats important about the crucial years of three to six and the kind of guidance preschoolers really need. Christakis provides a forensic and far-reaching analysis of todays whole system of early learning exploring pedagogy history science policy and politics. She also offers a wealth of proven strategies about what to do to reimagine the learning environment to suit the childs real but often invisible needs. The ideas range from accommodating childrens sense of time to decluttering classrooms to learning how to better observe and listen as children express themselves in pictures and words. With her strong foundation in the study of child development and early education and her own in-the-trenches classroom experience Christakis peels back the mystery of early childhood revealing a place thats rich with possibility. Her message is energizing and reassuring: Parents have more power (and more knowledge) than they think they do and young children are inherently creative and will flourish if we can learn new ways to support them and restore their vital learning habitat.
language: English
title: The Importance of Being Little: What Preschoolers Really Need from Grownups
publisher: Viking