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Studies on learning, cognitive development and teaching have highlighted the importance of  learning based on the relationship among individuals and the learning environment  (context). Knowledge emerges as a result of activities engaged and shared in an environment  that connects individuals, materials, cultural tools, and symbol systems. (Strozzi, 2001;  National Research Council, 2000)

Knowledge and understanding are constructed through social interactions. Classrooms  are inherently social places wherein teachers and children negotiate the curriculum  together. The aim is to construct a teaching and learning environment in which children  and teachers are given opportunities to make decisions, pursue authentic questions and  concerns, connect what is known to the unknown, and be successful as they explore, test  ideas, and discover through play, informal learning activities, and projects. Guided  participation in the activities of children is the primary role of the teacher, and play  and the expression of ideas through interactions with adults, peers, and the environment  are the primary business of children (Hill, Fu, & Stremmel, in press; Fu, Stremmel, & Hill, 2002).

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When economist James Heckman was studying the effects of job training  programs on unskilled young workers, he found a mystery.

He was comparing a group of workers that had gone through a job training  program with a group that hadn’t. And he found that, at best, the  training program did nothing to help the workers get better jobs. In  some cases, the training program even made the workers worse off.

The problem was that  the students in the training program couldn’t learn what they were being taught. They lacked an  important set of skills which would enable them to learn new things.  Heckman, a Nobel-Prize-winning economist, calls these soft skills.

You  might not think of soft skills as skills at all. They involve things  like being able to pay attention and focus, being curious and open to  new experiences, and being able  to control your temper and not get  frustrated.

All  these soft skills are very important in getting a job. And Heckman  discovered that you don’t get them in high school, or in middle school,  or even in elementary school. You get them in preschool.

And that, according to Heckman, makes preschool one of the most effective job-training programs out there.

As  evidence, he points to the Perry Preschool Project, an experiment done  in the early 1960s in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Researchers took a bunch of 3- and 4-year-old kids from poor families and randomly assigned them to one of two groups. The kids in  one group just lived their regular lives. And the kids in the other  group went to preschool for two hours a day,  five days a week.

After preschool, both groups went into the same regular Ypsilanti public school system and grew up side by side into adulthood.

Yet  when researchers followed up with the kids as adults, they found huge  differences. At age 27, the boys who had – almost two decades earlier – gone to preschool were now half as likely to be arrested and earned  50 percent more in salary that those who didn’t.

And  that wasn’t all. At 27, girls who went to preschool were 50 percent more  likely to have a savings account and 20 percent more likely to have a car. In  general, the preschool kids got sick less often, were unemployed less  often, and went to jail less often. Since then, many other studies have  reported similar findings.

These  results made me think: What is going on in preschool?

So I visited the Co-Op School, a preschool in Brooklyn. Eliza Cutler, a teacher there, said the kids do a lot of the same things the Perry Preschool  kids did back in the 60s: They play, they paint, they build with blocks,  and they nap.

If you didn’t know where to look, you wouldn’t see the job skills they’re learning.

Yet  they are learning valuable skills: how to resolve conflicts, how to  share, how to negotiate, how to talk things out. These are skills that they need to  make it through a day of preschool now. And they are skills they will  need to make it through a day of work when they’re 30.

If  they learn these skills now, they’ll have them for the rest of their  lives. But research shows that if they don’t learn them now, it becomes  harder and harder as they get older. By the time the time they’re in a  job training program in their twenties, it’s often too late.

Heckman  is an economist so he thinks about this as a cost-benefit analysis. To  him, the message is clear: If you want 21 year-olds to have jobs, the best  time to train them is in the first few years of life.

http://www.naeyc.org/ece/research/abecedarian.asp

Curriculum uses children’s literature to teach life lessons

By Kevin Williams, Camera Staff Writer
January 21, 2003

Once upon a time, there was a curriculum style called the “Storybook Journey.” Created by a kind, early childhood specialist named Sue McCord in 1980, it is now practiced in the kingdom of Boulder and in other faraway states.

Those teachers who favor this tool use children’s literature as a focal point for learning. The themes, lessons and characters in a particular story are brought to life in the classroom through songs, props, cooking, art projects and play-acting.

“A story has such a meaningful and magical way of inviting a child into a setting,” says McCord, 65, who lives in Boulder and used to teach at the Children’s Learning Center at the University of Colorado. “I like them to marinate, just sit there and soak up all the things in the story that give them chances to explore and play.”

From an educational perspective, teachers say they like it because it engages the child as a whole, tending to physical, social, cognitive and emotional needs. And because the classroom revolves around one book for at least three weeks, children at different developmental levels can take the story in at their own pace.

That’s particularly helpful when teaching speech-delayed children or kids who speak other languages, says McCord, who now instructs other educators on how to use the “Storybook Journey.”

Designed for children as old as 5 years old, it’s by no means the only effective way to teach preschoolers, McCord emphasizes, just one method with which she has found success.

At Children’s House Preschool, near downtown Boulder, the “Journey” has reached its intended destination.

Four-year-old Ethan Weil lies prone on a plastic mat, his tiny eyes squinting through wire-rim glasses at the “paramedic” tending to his burn wounds. Fellow classmate Christian Wood, 4, bends over him, a plastic stethoscope around his neck and a plastic syringe in his hand.

The two are acting out the latest book that was read to them, “A Chair For My Mother,” by Vera B. Williams, which is about a family who lost all their possessions in a fire. In the story, the mom is saving up coins from the diner she works at to buy a new chair for the apartment.

Children’s House teachers Elaine and Suzanne McCarthy, who are sisters, allow the kids in the classroom to experiment with the ideas in the book. Ethan and Christian have moved beyond the fire itself to what might happen if 911 was called, Elaine says.

“They’re the ones who tell us what they’re going to do with the information that we bring,” she says.

In past weeks, the kids have built fire engines out of everyday household items, made evacuation plans for their homes and cooked things you might find in a diner. Next week, the class will move on to a new book.

Children’s House is one of many local centers, including Boulder Day Nursery, Children’s Learning Center and Friends ‘n Fun Children’s Center, using the “Storybook Journey.” It’s one of the few that incorporates it so fully, McCord says.

Ideally, children will have “real hands-on experience with what they’re hearing in a story,” she says.

Instead of crossing a plank bridge like a character in Billy Goats Gruff, for example, children could traverse a climbing apparatus or something as simple as a piece of tape on the floor.

Exploring diversity is a key part of the “Journey” as well, whether it be differences in the way people look, where they live or how they think.

McCord throws out the Three Little Pigs as a reference, explaining how all the pigs are different – colors, sizes, the types of houses they live in – and how that’s OK.

The diversity component is especially important for Children’s House, which has been catering to preschoolers for 33 years. Of the 27 students enrolled, five are from Mexico, one is from Holland, one is from New Zealand and one is from Bosnia.

“Because it’s so thematic, you can participate in any of this without having the same language,” Elaine says. “You understand what’s going on … it kind of envelopes us all.”

True to her words, the preschoolers in her Thursday morning class seem to understand the concepts associated with “A Chair For My Mother.”

Their voices rise in excitement as they “call” the fire department or shout out directions on building a fire wall. Elaine and Suzanne stand nearby, guiding the kids ever so slightly in their words and actions.

“The teacher is just critical,” McCord says. “Because this is not a journey that says, ‘This is how you pack your bags and this is where we’re going.’ This is one where you watch and observe the children and you move through the journey with them, not for them.”

Which is exactly what Sherri Weil was looking for when she searched for a preschool for her speech-delayed son, Ethan.

“(He’s) getting the sense that there’s adventure in books, drama in books, messages in books,” Weil says. “It’s living a story with the kids.”

She says the repetition, using the same book for weeks, is “definitely complementary to his therapy.”

Watching Ethan play after he gives up his role as a burn victim, it appears that, if nothing else, he’s having a good time. He now sits at a tiny plastic cash register, ringing up some of his fellow classmates who are “buying” shoes, part of a smaller theme associated with the latest book.

As he sits there, his teachers begin to hum and sing:

“It’s pick up time, it’s pick up time, we’ve had a busy day. Share the work and show you care, everything has its place. Use your eyes and use your hands, we need all our space.”

Something amazing happens.

The kids become quiet and start putting everything away in its proper order, another class drawing near its end.

Happily ever after is no fairytale in this classroom.

Copyright 2003, The Daily Camera. All Rights Reserved.