CULTURE, LEARNING and TEACHING

According to a recent op-ed by Tom Friedman, Google's hiring criteria focus strongly on the demonstration of soft skills such as "leadership, humility, collaboration, adaptability and loving to learn and re-learn"...the sense of responsibility to step in when needed and the humility to step back and embrace the better ideas of others'... recognizing that in order to be "an effective leader in this environment you have to be willing to relinquish power.”

Many of these skills form the basis of good early childhood pedagogy and it may help if early childhood education beliefs and practices were extended up into the higher grades in schools rather than allowing a test-driven curriculum filter down into early childhood classrooms. 

To read the entire piece by Friedman go to

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-to-get-a-job-at-google.html?_r=1

Read Gail Collins' op-ed on "How Preschool got Hot"

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/opinion/collins-how-preschool-got-hot.html?_r=0

These are exciting days for some of us in New York City with the focus of both Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo squarely on expanding and universalizing Pre-K. But along with the excitement is also the trepidation of how some of the inevitable challenges will be overcome - procuring the funds, finding the space in a densely populated city, maintaining an adequate supply of well qualified Pre-K teachers... As the mayor's office works with early childhood educators and teacher educators in New York City it would serve us all well to keep an open mind and find examples of already implemented early childhood educational models to examine. As an ancient saying goes: Good ideas come to us from all directions. One such model was featured yesterday in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/nyregion/to-expand-prekindergarten-new-york-may-find-model-in-new-jersey.html?_r=0

These are exciting days for some of us in New York City with the focus of both Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo squarely on expanding and universalizing Pre-K. But along with the excitement is also the trepidation of how some of the inevitable challenges will be overcome - procuring the funds, finding the space in a densely populated city, maintaining an adequate supply of well qualified Pre-K teachers... As the mayor's office works with early childhood educators and teacher educators in New York City it would serve us all well to keep an open mind and find examples of already implemented early childhood educational models to examine. As an ancient saying goes: Good ideas come to us from all directions. One such model was featured yesterday in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/nyregion/to-expand-prekindergarten-new-york-may-find-model-in-new-jersey.html?_r=0

About a 100 years ago, John Dewey was concerned that the then existing traditional school curriculum did not reflect the social, ethnic, industrial and economic changes that were sweeping through American society at the turn of the 20^th century. The progressive nature of his pedagogical recommendations aimed toward greater importance being given to who the children in classrooms really were and what their backgrounds were. The questions his philosophy sought answers to were definitely focused on the child: what does the child know? What are the child’s prior experiences? What are the child’s interests? What has the child learned? What further experiences will propel the child’s development and learning? Unfortunately, there were those who took Dewey’s consideration for the individual child to an extreme by giving complete and unlimited freedom to the child. It was in response to this confusion over his intentions that Dewey wrote "Experience and Education" in 1938.

A recent article by Howard Garner about his Theory of Multiple Intelligence is strangely reminiscent of John Dewey’s attempt to set the record straight about Progressive Education. Great ideas are often privy to misinterpretations and distortions over time if they are implemented without being first thoroughly studied and understood within the context of which they emerged.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/16/howard-gardner-multiple-intelligences-are-not-learning-styles/