I have been thinking about my last post a lot. I was thankful to remember that one of my real heroes Kathy Glazer just published a hugely important document. Kathy, as Executive Director of the Governor’s Working Group on early childhood education, spearheaded an effort to create a new document on early childhood development for Virginia. The result of that effort, Virginia’s Milestones For Early Childhood Development is an incredible document. Here is a brief overview
photo from Gillian Robinson
“Broadly defined, the Milestones are a set of child development
indicators and strategies for adults designed to support the growth
and development of young children from birth to kindergarten
entry. Specifically, the Milestones are organized by domain area
(e.g., Social and Emotional Development); within each domain are
related strands (e.g., Relationship with Others) and indicators,
examples, and strategies arranged in a gradual progression by
approximate age range (i.e., birth to 18 months; 18 months to 36
months; 36 months to 48 months; and 48 months to kindergarten
entry). These age ranges are intentionally broad because young
children’s development is highly episodic; such flexibility, therefore,
permits variation within developmental ranges.”

But, what I am totally excited about is the organization of the strands in approaches to learning. The Five strands are:
Strand 1:
Persistence
Strand 2:
Curiosity and Initiative
Strand 3:
Creativity &
Inventiveness
Strand 4:
Reasoning &
Problem Solving

Now those are some ideas I can get behind. What if school standards were organized like this? What would we teach kids then? I will use this new document as a guide as I look at my students’ development. Perhaps this broader perspective will remove some of the “deficit” from “normal” child development.