Early childhood education
In recent years, early childhood education[4] has become a prevalent public policy issue, as funding for preschool and pre-K is debated by municipal, state, and federal lawmakers.
[8] The global priority placed on early childhood education is underscored with targets of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4.
[11][12][13][14][15] The Developmental Interaction Approach is based on the theories of Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, John Dewey, and Lucy Sprague Mitchell.
[26] Maria Montessori was an Italian physician that, based on her observations of young children in classrooms, developed a method of education that focused on independence.
A teacher or older friend lends support to a child learning a skill, be it building a block castle, tying a shoe, or writing one's name.
Teachers can help students achieve their cognitive development levels through consistent and regular interactions of collaborative knowledge-making learning processes.
Although Piaget himself was primarily interested in a descriptive psychology of cognitive development, he also laid the groundwork for a constructivist theory of learning.
[39] A Piagetian approach emphasizes experiential education; in school, experiences become more hands-on and concrete as students explore through trial and error.
Research shows that the level of reflective abstraction achieved by young children was found to limit the degree to which they could represent physical quantities with written numerals.
[44] Piaget's theory implies that computers can be a great educational tool for young children when used to support the design and construction of their projects.
Kolb breaks down this learning cycle into four stages: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation.
[49] The five levels, in his view, are: One of the chief reasons Bronfenbrenner conceptualizes development in this way is not merely to highlight the role of one's context, but to illustrate the multiple determinants of one's developmental trajectory while also capturing their individual agency.
[51] One of the main contributions that Bronfenbrenner's work had on the American childcare system was through his co-founding of the federal Head Start program.
[52] In recent decades, studies have shown that early childhood education is critical in preparing children to enter and succeed in the (grade school) classroom, diminishing their risk of social-emotional mental health problems and increasing their self-sufficiency later in their lives.
There is no subject to be considered taboo, starting with the most basic knowledge of the world that they live in, and ending with deeper areas, such as morality, religion and science.
[57] Participation in ECE, however, has been proven to increase high school graduation rates, improve performance on standardized tests, and reduce both grade repetition and the number of children placed in special education.
Looking specifically at students who attended the Madrasa Early Childhood schools (virtually all of whom came from economically disadvantaged backgrounds), the study found that they had consistently ranked in the top 20% in grade 1 classes.
The study also concluded that any formal early childhood education contributed to higher levels of cognitive development in language, mathematics, and non-verbal reasoning skills.
For example, by age 26, students who had been enrolled in Chicago Child-Parent Centers were less likely to be arrested, abuse drugs, and receive food stamps; they were more likely to have high school diplomas, health insurance and full-time employment.
According to a 2020 study in the Journal of Political Economy by Clemson University economist Jorge Luis García, Nobel laureate James J. Heckman and University of Southern California economists Duncan Ermini Leaf and María José Prados, every dollar spent on a high-quality early-childhood programs led to a return of $7.3 over the long-term.
[12] The Perry Preschool Project, which was conducted in the 1960s in Ypsilanti, Michigan, is the oldest social experiment in the field of early childhood education and has heavily influenced policy in the United States and across the globe.
[69] The experiment enrolled 128 three- and four-year-old African-American children with cognitive disadvantage from low-income families, who were then randomly assigned to treatment and control groups.
Research points to improvements in non-cognitive skills, executive functioning, childhood home environment, and parental attachment as potential sources of the observed long-term impacts of the program.
The Perry Preschool Project advocates for public spending on early childhood programs as an economic investment in a society's future, rather than in the interest of social justice.
"[81] And in the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, states agree that access to "public pre-school educational institutions" shall not be denied due to the parents' or child's "irregular situation with respect to stay.
"[82] Less explicitly, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires that "States Parties shall ensure an inclusive education system at all levels.
"[84] According to UNESCO, a preschool curriculum is one that delivers educational content through daily activities and furthers a child's physical, cognitive, and social development.
Due to difficulties and sensitivities around the issue of measuring and monitoring child protection violations and gaps in defining, collecting and analysing appropriate indicators,[89] data coverage in this area is scant.
In many European countries, children, mostly from low-income and immigrant families, do not have access to good quality early childhood care and education.
"[93] Education during these years has the potential to improve a child's "food and nutrition, health care, social welfare, and protection.
