Children are like sponges, absorbing what they see, hear and experience from their environments. Providing them with access to high-quality education and care (ECCE) can improve education and economic outcomes and set the foundation for lifelong learning.
Out-of-school children often face barriers to exercising their right to an education – including conflict, natural disasters, poverty and geographic isolation. Educated girls are more resilient, reducing vulnerability to abuse and exploitation.
Curiosity
Curiosity is a state of mind that supercharges learning. Kids enter the world with curiosity — eager to observe, ask questions, and make connections. They are natural learners, which is why it’s so important for schools to support their natural tendencies.
Early definitions of curiosity describe a motivated desire for information, but researchers are now finding that there’s more to it than that. For example, studies show that curious children have a tendency to look at things that violate their expectations.
This is how they solve what’s known as the sampling problem. Their limited attentional resources require them to select the most useful information from their environment. This curiosity is often nurtured by caregivers, who encourage their kids to point and gesture, then use verbal language to ask questions. Curiosity also enables kids to engage in hands-on explorations and activities, like making or tinkering, which are key for STEM learning. However, it’s important that teachers take the fear out of failure so that kids feel confident in their ability to learn through trial and error.
Creativity
When it comes to the laundry list of skills and content areas teachers must cover, creativity doesn’t usually get top billing. It’s usually lumped together with soft skills as “nice to have, though not as important as reading or long division.” But the truth is that creative thinking helps kids learn more deeply and boosts their self-confidence.
Children can develop creativity through imaginative play in which they manipulate materials and express themselves verbally or non-verbally. They can also interact with peers, plan (intentionally or not), act and react.
Teachers can encourage cognitive development by facilitating learning through guided activities. Vygotsky’s theory of the zone of proximal development suggests that by sharing meanings relevant to students’ environments, educators can help them explore new ideas and concepts. For example, if a student is interested in drawing, an art teacher can offer lessons to build the necessary skills. This kind of collaboration can make learning more interesting and engaging, fostering creativity and increasing comprehension.
Health
In addition to building protective factors that buffer children from excessive stress, education can increase opportunities for healthy life choices through learning about personal health and well-being. It may also help to build and maintain responsive relationships, which in turn support the development of sturdy brain architecture and resilience.
However, addressing these key factors will require more effective, “upstream” efforts that address structural inequities in access to high-quality education, quality health care, employment opportunities and wealth creation. These inequities are the leading drivers of child and adolescent outcomes.
The National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s (NASEM) 2004 Institute of Medicine report, Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion [27] identified the education system as one major pathway for providing students with functional health knowledge, ideally taught using context-specific and culturally inclusive materials.
Social and Emotional Development
When kids are ready to learn, their social-emotional skills can help them connect with peers, cooperate with teachers and manage emotions. This development helps kids get along in school and thrive at home and work.
Parents and caregivers can support social-emotional development by offering consistent relationships, nurturing experiences and encouraging exploration through play. They can also teach kids practical social-emotional skills, such as taking turns and resolving conflicts.
Educators can incorporate SEL into classroom learning and activities by explicitly teaching these skills, as well as fostering children’s natural social-emotional competence through regular interactions in the classroom. SEL also helps teachers, aides and other adults improve classroom behavior and support students’ mental health.
For more information on how to promote social and emotional development in young children, check out this website from the National Association for the Education of Young Children. This site has many resources on building a child’s social-emotional skills at home, working through challenging behaviors and more.