Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/a-strong-future/5026864/
A strong future is rooted in understanding and learning from our past. As NAEYC moves toward celebrating its nearly 100 year history, in the wake of the pandemic, I think about the decades our field has spent committing itself to ensuring that child care is recognized as essential for child development, as much as for workforce development.
Together, we have anchored our work in economic and neuroscientific research that unequivocally states that cognitive, social, emotional, language, health, and physical well-being are all established in children’s earliest of years, and if environments exist to capitalize on what we know about learning and development, we can create a strong foundation that yields tremendous benefits that last a lifetime.
Together, we have lifted up the economic and brain science of early learning and advocated for all families to have equitable access to high-quality, developmentally-appropriate early childhood education. We have recognized and valued the skills and complex work this field does each and every day. We have worked to create a profession where individuals, including the Black and brown women who comprise a majority of our current workforce, can choose to do the work they love without sacrificing their own financial health ...