蜜桃影视

Top Takeaways is a series of recaps from important conversations, town halls, webinars and virtual events about early learning.

Listening to Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek talk about education can feel like the first time you visit one of those frozen yogurt places where you add your own toppings. You start with a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but it鈥檚 all so good, you don鈥檛 know quite where to stop.

On May 6, she gave a virtual talk, Reimagining Education: A View from the Science of Learning, for the University of Maryland鈥檚 听补苍诲听 during which she offered many morsels of knowledge. Here, then, are more than the usual takeaways.

1. The kids will be okay. She started her presentation with the questions she鈥檚 heard a lot in the past 18 months: 鈥淲ill we have an entire generation of social misfits? A generation of children who will never catch up?鈥� Covid has unearthed a lot of angst, and the hand-wringing continues about the long-term consequences. According to Hirsh-Pasek, however, 鈥淜ids are the most resilient things in the universe.鈥� Which doesn鈥檛 mean, she cautioned, there won鈥檛 be more work for a lot of us.

2. This is precisely the opportunity needed to reimagine education. Hirsh-Pasek urged her audience to apply the science of learning to do what it takes for children to thrive in the 21st century. She cited a that summarizes the situation we鈥檙e in: 鈥淭oday鈥檚 students learn very much the way their parents and grandparents did鈥攕itting in rows in front of a teacher who delivers subject content until a bell rings and they shuffle to the next class. That worked in an economy that needed factory and office workers equipped to do rote jobs. But that world no longer exists.鈥� Instead of maintaining the status quo, she said, we need to recognize that 鈥渢he future belongs to creators, empathizers, pattern recognizers, meaning makers, artists, inventors designers and storytellers.鈥�

3. It鈥檚 not about testing. Teachers, parents and students loathe them. Many experts are coming around to the belief that standardized tests fail to gauge the qualities that students need in the 21st century. She lamented the fact that since No Child Left Behind, the early education industry continues to embrace testing, owing to what she called a misinterpretation of the core curriculum. 鈥淲ith testing,鈥� she said, 鈥淔ailure鈥檚 a bad thing. In learning, failure鈥檚 a good thing. Because you dust yourself off and change your approach.鈥�

4. Build relationships. The opposite of testing, said Hirsh-Pasek, and 鈥渢he root of every developmental science model we have,鈥� is the formation of strong, trusting relationships between parents and teachers, kids and parents. Early literacy is a case in point. 鈥淧honics are not the way the brain works,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he brain works through building relationships early on, so that when they do learn the phonics skills, the letter sound corresponds with something they know about.鈥�

5. Play is the way. Hirsh-Pasek enthusiastically cited the work of Pasi Sahlberg, the Finnish-born professor of education policy, now influencing systemic change in Australia, who about her favorite subject: 鈥淚t seems now,鈥� he writes, 鈥渢hat learning through play is becoming a new normal in post-pandemic educational recovery.鈥� She elaborated on the concept of guided play, in which the parent or teacher plays like a peer, asks open-ended questions and complements children鈥檚 action with relevant information. 鈥淓ducation goes beyond the school walls,鈥� she continued. 鈥淚t goes into the communities, and we’re calling it .鈥�

6. Get to know Erika Christakis and Susan Engel. Hirsh-Pasek strongly recommended Christakis鈥檚 The Importance of Being Little: What Young Children Really Need from Grownups and Engel鈥檚 The Intellectual Lives of Children .

7. Discover the Six C鈥檚. For Hirsh-Pasek, the recipe for both successful teaching and urgently needed education reform boil down to collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation and confidence. As she and co-author Roberta Golinkoff write in a that came out around the same time as their influential book Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us about Raising Successful Children, 鈥淓ach of these skills is interrelated and builds on one another, continually improving across a person鈥檚 life span. Each is malleable, and each is measureable. Further, each is as adaptable to the classroom as it is to the boardroom. Collectively, they offer a dynamic and systemic way of achieving a new vision of successful education.鈥�

This story originally published on Early Learning Nation and is now archived on 蜜桃影视. Learn more here.