Defending Childhood

This book brings together a group of extraordinary educators and scholars who offer important insights about what we can do to defend childhood from societal challenges. The authors explain new findings from neuroscience and psychology, as well as emerging knowledge about the impact on child development of cultural and linguistic diversity, poverty, families and communities, and the media. Each chapter presents experiences and suggestions from different disciplines about what can be done to ensure that all children gain access to the support they need for optimal physical, social, intellectual, and emotional development.

Defending Childhood features:

• New knowledge from the neurobiological, behavioral, and social sciences about how children learn.
• Effective teaching strategies that support learning and provide for the needs of the whole child.
• Examination of a broad range of issues that affect childhood, including violence, media and technology saturation, and a school culture of endless testing.
• Suggestions for policies and practices for an equitable educational system.

Contributors include Barbara Bowman, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Delis Cuéllar, Tiziana Filippini, Matia Finn-Stevenson, Eugene García, Howard Gardner, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, James J. Heckman, Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek, Mara Krechevsky, George Madaus, Ben Mardell, Sonia Nieto, Valerie Polakow, Aisha Ray, Robert L. Selman, Jack P. Shonkoff, M.D., Edward Zigler

Beverly Falk is professor and director of the Graduate Programs in Early Childhood Education at the School of Education, The City College of New York, and author of Teaching the Way Children Learn.

“This is an insightful and passionate review of current thinking and possible directions for supporting children’s education and care.”

—Young Children

“These pages make clear that the way to foster effective teaching is not with curriculum mandates and pacing guides but with professional learning opportunities that prepare expert educators to take advantage of and create teachable moments.”
—From the Foreword by Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University