An interesting article in Forbes that highlights the impact that some widely practiced parenting styles and behaviors might have on children....
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:
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: