What's wrong with early childhood?

Okay....

I don't usually use my blog as a place to push my opinions or agendas. It's just meant as a place to update you on anything baby related. Since we are currently in a holding pattern with that I find that I am not blogging. So in the hopes that you actually just like to "hear" what I have to say - I will blog on about other random things that cross my mind.

So, most of you who read my blog are early childhood people like me or you are friends/family who know how passionate I am about great lives for great kids! (All kids are great!) You also probably know that my job takes me into many center based programs, family homes, DOE programs, etc. This is leading somewhere I promise.

On the visits I have gone on lately I keep finding this horrible trend. You see...there is a whole host of "teachers" out there who apparently had dreams of controlling a group of children in the name of education in a formal classroom setting. In the preschool environment it comes across like this... total unrealistic behavior expectations, total directive conversations, no social talking, old-school developmentally inappropriate practices, hateful tone and completely illogical consequences as it relates to discipline.

Early childhood has changed, people! We know better to do to our kids what was done to us. We now really know how children learn best and how to engage them. We know more than ever about their tiny yet very impressionable brains. Therefore, as Becky Bailey would say..."we can no longer teach children for a time when we were born for they were born at a different time."

I know some of you are saying...but I turned out okay! Nonsense! Change is good and necessary. As we learn new and better ways to do things we need to do them. If ditto sheets and rote learning didn't scar you for life, well great...but there is a much better way. This can be likened to surgery. If you had to have your appendix out tomorrow would you like to have the procedure done the way it was 50 years ago? Heck no! See...knowledge is power!

So I am trying to say...If you want to have a classroom of small children to be your audience...if you want to "teach" children how you were taught...if you want a classroom with star charts and behavior systems...if you want an arena to exercise your control... then you should find a job outside of early childhood programs!