The Importance of Early Childhood Education

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the onset of early childhood education encompasses the formative moment of a child's first social experience of coping with people and settings outside of the family. The author points out that nursery, preschool and kindergarten environments are the locations of a child's most nascent external social development, when their peer interaction increases, play becomes cooperative and social and individually initiated friendships are formed. The paper relates that, because of the importance of treating whole development, early childhood curriculum must be structured around play as an educational tool, incorporating physical, dramatic and celebratory play in both structured and unstructured settings.

From the Paper:

"The romantic ideology of cultural transmission reflected the words of Rousseau, Frobel, Gesell, and Feud, but ignored the needs of behaviorism addressed by progressive trends. Piaget introduced a construction of education for the young child that addressed not only the child's developmental stage, but also the educational needs of that child and how natural activities, like play, might further the role of the teacher. Such work gave rise to the guidelines established in "Develomentally Appropriate Practices" (Bredekamp, 1986) issued by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. However, in proposing these guidelines a basic new question is posed: What does the early childhood teacher teach and how well is it taught?"

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