Early Childhood Corner: March 2001

Abstract

As teachers of young children, we perceive a tension between the demands of parents and elementary schools—that young children be academically prepared to enter increasingly challenging kindergarten programs—and our philosophy of early childhood education—that fourand five-year-old children should experience creative nurturing in a setting that encourages free expression of childhood through spontaneous play. In the early childhood education community, we have embraced the Reggio Emilia approach, the idea that a successful curriculum grows from the children's own interests and that effective projects encompass multiple disciplines and may develop and change over an extended period.