Preschool and Beyond

Preschool and Beyond is recorded at Discovery Child Development Center, with Mike DeLotte hosting conversations about the preschool years. In the recent run he is joined by guests, and the titles name each subject plainly: play, challenging behavior, thinking skills, advocacy, travel. The advice is concrete. Across the two-part Learning Through Play interview, Lisa Murphy pushes back on the view that play and school readiness are at odds. She calls herself a fan of cultivating resiliency and is wary of bubble-wrapping children, while stating that no child should ever be put in harm's way. She also suggests putting out Play-Doh and blocks so children can reconnect. The second part includes a pointed passage on how adults talk to children. If it is time for bed, the advice goes, say so instead of asking. Quizzing a child with questions the adult already knows the answer to is a test, not a conversation, and a child who is never given time to express themselves may stop doing so, a risk that grows as they head toward the teenage years. That second part was put out for families spending long stretches at home under social distancing, as a source of new activities to try. The conversation with Ray Pica, author of Acting Out, takes on the habit of keeping children seated for much of the day, treating it as counterproductive for learning. The examples are playful and specific: a double hand clap as a secret code for stop, look and listen, or a challenge to show how slowly a turtle moves. Movement, the argument runs, need not mean mayhem, and engaged children cause fewer problems at transitions than children told to stand quiet and still in a line. The show also steps outside the classroom. In 'Advocating for Early Childhood Education with NC Senator Jeff Jackson', early childhood education is framed as a long-term investment that still has to be treated as urgent, the conversation acknowledges that its return can take around twenty years to become obvious, and the senator is asked how parents and educators can get the issue onto legislators' radar. In 'Traveling with Children - Episode 42 (Season 2 Finale)', Ashley Steele, co-author of Family on the Loose, recalls a trip to Japan with a fifteen-month-old and a four-and-a-half-year-old, where what some would call overpreparation paid off. 'Teaching Kids to Think - Episode 46' favors small grants of independence, such as letting children pick the route of a walk or buckle their own seat belts. One thread runs through more than one of these conversations: adults in a hurry can crowd out the very independence and self-expression children need. For a teacher who wants something to try right away, 'Avoiding Challenging Behavior Through Active Learning Games and Activities - Ep. 50' is the obvious place to start, while a parent may prefer to take the Learning Through Play pair in order. Either way, the takeaways are things a parent or teacher could try the same day.