What If Everyone Understood Child Development?

In my recent readings of Early Childhood blog posts I came across the following “poster” advocating for developmentally appropriate programming:

Let Me Play

I’ve long been an advocate of deepening the understanding and support of play-based learning in early learning.

This leads me to wonder…

If our education system and society as a whole truly understood child development, what impact  would it have on our interactions with children and our programming decisions?

As educators if we truly supported the value and importance of play-based learning for our youngest learners, what changes would we make in our classroom environments and teaching practices?

As early childhood classroom teachers I believe we often, almost innately, understand the value of play and all the learning that is supported through play-based environments but we struggle with advocating for play-based activities and learning in our current education system.

February 3, 2014Permalink