This memo originally appeared in the May 2014 issue of Young Children. Play is essential for children’s optimal development and learning. Through play, children use what they already know to help them figure out new things, see how they work, and master skills. As they do this, children add new social, emotional, and intellectual knowledge and [Click for more…]
More than 15 years ago, I was a founder of TRUCE (Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children’s Entertainment) with other early childhood educations in the Boston Area. Since the beginning, we worked to prepare materials to help parents and others who care about the wellbeing of young children promote healthy play and media use. We felt that [Click for more…]
Dear Secretary Duncan, I am writing to voice my concerns about the deeply misguided route down which you are taking early childhood education in the United States. I feel this more strongly now than ever having just returned from Belfast, Northern Ireland, where I took Wheelock College students on a service learning program looking at [Click for more…]
The “Let’s Move” Campaign to battle childhood obesity targets 4 campaign pillars which are appropriate and laudable strategies. But, Mrs. Obama, these 4 pillars will fail if you do not add an essential 5th pillar to your Campaign: Curbing the power of corporations to market junk food to children I’m sure you know that marketing [Click for more…]
Many early childhood directors are worried about the ways they see young children trying to be sexy, and have bought copies of So Sexy So Soon for their resource libraries. They hoped that parents in the school community would read the book and discuss how they could improve the problems created by sexualized childhood. They [Click for more…]