Early in Life & the Importance of Early Childhood Education | Steve Zwolak | TEDxDelmarLoopED

June 14, 1968 I had my first experience working with young children. In fact, I've been in a field for 50 years. It's pretty scary. I thought things had changed when I started working for the Department of Recreation in Philadelphia and they hired me to train. basketball referee basketball games create leagues. Oh, and by the way, Steve, would you work with these three and four year olds? It's safe as long as I can play basketball, and I have this amazing memory of sitting with those three- and four-year-olds. years in the shadow of the building and I found a box of pasta do you remember the old pasta with the wooden spoon and we took out the cardboard and the children dipped it and half the time they ate the pasta but they didn't eat the pasta, they did their own thing and something like something magical was starting to happen, so that was the beginning of the journey of these 50 years, so I have seen a huge amount of trends happen in this period, some are really exciting, some are quite depressing, I think the

education

of the Early

childhood

right now is probably in its most interesting challenging place, but it's the best opportunity because people are starting to understand the

importance

of what happens

early

in

life

.

I started, I worked at a half-day preschool. program and the biggest challenge we had in that half-day program was a kid losing a sock or spilling their juice, to some extent the classrooms were pretty vanilla in all aspects of that word and the challenges were us. They're pretty minimal, but there was something really appealing and really enticing about understanding what I was seeing, so as I moved up the developmental ladder and started to understand a little more the

importance

of the true impact of

early

childhood

by looking at classrooms. today are significantly different our classrooms today are dimly lit children who are asked to sit and listen for long periods of time that are not in their developmental soul are asked to do skills exercises because they will learn that they have to queue. working with a school right now where kids have to walk up and down the hallways like that, what does that saying say that classrooms are changing, we have more and more dysregulated kids, we have teachers who are fragmented families who are struggling to find the resources for a morning breakfast to find resources to get your children to school on time early childhood and childhood is changing, so when we look at some of the classrooms and we see the struggles that teachers have, we are also looking at a class of teachers who have their own baggage that they bring into the classroom, so we have traumatized children, we have traumatized teachers, we have families with a whole collection of behaviors and baggage that they are struggling with, so classrooms are changing, we are seeing children with angry love.

Angry love is the child who has no other resources to satisfy her emotional needs by throwing chairs across the room. The teachers in the classroom are starting to understand that we're seeing kids who are so dysregulated and saying, hold me, love me. I will do anything to get it even if it means another beating, we are seeing these kids come in with angry love, they are very traumatized and we are seeing teachers who are traumatized and the behaviors are activating secondary trauma in the classroom. We are helping teachers begin to understand that what we need in classrooms today is ruthless compassion.

How to retain the soul of a child even if he is cursing you even if he spits at you even if he is throwing the chair. Do we have the soul of that scared baby? Yes, we are seeing changes in early childhood right now. Some of the trends I've seen are really exciting with a hundred years of observational research and theory, and we know it. all behavior has meaning remember that all behavior has meaning we also know that what happens early in

life

lasts a lifetime, research by Kaiser Permanente and the CDC on early trauma and adverse childhood experiences is charting the life history of The early trauma of some of our children has a direct impact on long-term health outcomes, so what happens early in life lasts a lifetime.

We also know that brain research says that the first five years of life is the most critical time of brain development. most critical time of brain development so let's put these things together what happens early in life lasts a lifetime all behavior has meaning the critical nature of brain development in the first five years so I'd like you to drink this in a moment because it means we can influence a generation in five years we can influence a generation in five years so if we want to change society we must change the way we teach our youngest children we must change the way we teach our youngest children we must change the way we support families we must change the way we teach our teachers we must make teachers understand that they are in charge of the souls of children and that every day is a phenomenon every day is a phenomenon we need to brighten the lives of the children in our care, so as we think about what the impact is of what the research says about early childhood, let's take a look at what teachers are like and what teachers look like today in our state of Missouri to be an early childhood educator. what you need is to be 18 years old free of tuberculosis and not have a serious crime, that's an obstacle, isn't it when you think about research, critical brain development, the first five years of life, all behavior has meaning, all these things do? a difference and yet the standards for teachers who sustain the souls of our children are so low, a real challenge, they are some of the lowest paid and least supported educators you will find in our country.

This is criminal, we must look. in how we invested so recently in the last 15 years recently in my decades in my generation we think about all that research that has been, I'm going to say, ignored until it's more current and more current, but we have economic data that says that every dollar invested in early childhood has a 13 percent return on investment. Every dollar invested in early childhood has a 13 percent return on investment. So what I'd like you to do tonight is go home and look at your own wallet. How many of you get a 13 percent return on your investment?

Well, we have to think about investing in our youngest children's families and teachers with a completely different perspective on how we are going to invest in them, so what are we thinking? What we are doing at the Loum Institute right now is thinking about what is within our control. What is under our control at this moment. We spend hours working with teachers and helping them understand, so we look at five critical components that teachers need to know, first and foremost. To understand the emotional development of children in their classrooms, they must understand the emotional development of children.

Now, that's a one-way piece. I mentioned earlier that we often have teachers who come in traumatized. Teachers teach who they are. Think about the teacher who caused you difficulties? Was it you or was it them? So we need to help teachers understand who they are. Understand their personal baggage that they bring to the classroom. Understand the implicit biases they bring to the classroom. Do you know that in the field? of early childhood

education

that preschoolers are expelled three times more than any other grade level, three times more than preschoolers at any other grade level, plus African American preschoolers are expelled three times more than any other culture in preschool, what is it? the history we have to help teachers understand who they are what the emotional baggage is what the social baggage they bring to the classroom what they see through their lenses if they teach who they are we also want teachers to begin to understand the temperament of the children and their own children's temperament is that fierce and fearful child is that feisty child is that flexible child in front of me we also have data that says that early childhood educators have a tendency to have a B for being more temperamental fearful profession, so when you have a teacher who has a fearful temperament and works with struggling or traumatized children, he has a tendency to oppress children, so we have to have teachers who begin to understand their inner souls, we also have to have teachers . to begin to understand family stories, what happens in the family, if we have teachers who will want to make appointments with families and they are late or missed their appointment, but they have spent their entire life not working within the same system, so we have We have to have teachers look at family stories and create a synergistic experience for families and to be able to meet families where they are.

We must also take into account what is happening in our environment. Our environment is so explosive today and there is so much toxicity and yet that is where the great opportunities are for us teachers to sit with the children and be with them to nourish their souls so that they feel emotionally safe because we know from research that when children are emotionally safe, they will be socially safe. Because they know they have an emotional partner who will help them if they feel emotionally safe and socially secure, they will take academic risks. Our systems tend to want to teach children with their heads, but we have to teach them with our hearts and souls.

First, when they enter kindergarten, they are ready and resilient to take on the next adventure and school should be an adventure, not a hateful experience, so when we look at teachers, children and families, we must look to a Holistic Lens and elevate the field of early childhood education and give our children the hope they need for a better day, so we ask that when you leave here start thinking about how you are investing your time, talent and treasures in early childhood. education that will compound the investment as they enter elementary, middle and high school, so we thank you for thinking and absorbing that and hope that you will take the necessary steps to maintain the Sun.