The National Association for Educating Young Children has been a
resource for best practices with young children since the 1920s.
NAEYC can be counted on to publish useful research for people helping
little people. Recently, I came across several papers published by NAEYC that show early
childhood through the eyes of the classroom-focused researcher. It is a
collection of research conducted by pre-k teachers and administrators
conducted in their own classrooms. Right away you can tell the flavor of this
research is going to be more like good ol' home cooking than the
complicated gourmet usually presented by the economic researchers like Janet Currie and Steven Barnett that we know and love in Pre-K Now.
get me wrong, this is serious research about the environment, social
justice, and child psychology — all important issues. But with titles
like "Exploring the Forest: Wild Places in Childhood" ,
"If I Were President: Teaching Social Justice in the
Primary Classroom", "Do You Want to See Something Goofy? Peer
Culture in the Preschool Yard", you can be
sure that each read will have less of the wonky language prominent in
heavier works.
Here is an excerpt from Anna Golden's "Exploring
the Forest" that makes me want to run, not walk, to my local pre-k to
see what they are doing with nature.
The
preschoolers leave the school building and wait, pressing up against the
playground gate. When I open the gate, they take off like horses let
out of a stable where they have been shut in too long. I follow behind
them, trying to keep up in the bumpy and overgrown forest.
the talk about long-term and economic benefits of pre-k aside, these
pre-k teachers remind us that there is something to learn from our
youngest students.
Great read!