DEY is a non-profit organization working for a just, equitable, and quality early childhood education for every young child. DEY publishes reports, makes mini-documentaries, issues position statements, advocates on policy, and provides early childhood educators and advocates with valuable resources. 

There has been an increasing push down of the academic skills to 3, 4 and 5 year old children that used to be associated with 1st – 3rd graders. This results in fewer of the direct play and hands-on experiences that lay the foundations for later academic success. At the same time, there is an increasing over-focus on rote academic skills in the early elementary grades. This includes more and more teacher talk rather than child talk in early childhood classrooms and often involves teacher-led instruction focused largely on memorizing facts and information. Young children need to see facts within meaningful contexts, to invent their own ideas and problems to explore and solve, to share their own solutions. These practices reflect a loss of trust in the intellectual capacities of young children – and an institutionalized crushing of their insatiable love of learning

The majority of early childhood classrooms are driven by myriad of developmentally inappropriate standards-based tests and check lists that ignore children’s needs, capacities and cultures, and do not honor their uniqueness as learners. This brings great harm to our children by portraying them as deficient. The heaviest burden falls on those who live in poverty and with the fewest resources. There has been a dumbing down of teaching and teacher knowledge, which is being increasingly replaced by commercial scripts that can be followed mindlessly. Less prepared teachers who are more willing to follow commercial scripts and manage data are entering the field of early childhood at the same time that increasingly frustrated experienced teachers are leaving. 

DEY is working to rectify these misguided practices.

Defending the Early Years

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