Check out this sneak peek of my next live discussion on embracing ECEC values as resistance! Join the live discussion Wednesday at 7 pm EDT. Just click on the even in our community calendar!

Aligning early childhood practices and policies with research that supports healthy child development. 👶🏼We know what children need. So why aren't we doing it? 🌻Decades of child development research tell us clearly how young children grow, learn, and thrive. We know they need play, relationships, movement, outdoor time, and joy. We know they need agency and identity affirmation. We know academic pressure in the early years causes harm. 🙈We know all of this. And yet policies, mandates, and curricula continue to move in the opposite direction — as if the research doesn't exist, or doesn't matter, or is inconvenient for other agendas. 🪫This is not a knowledge problem. It is a power problem. 🧑‍🧒‍🧒Early childhood educators deserve to practice what the research actually supports, not what a policymaker, a publisher, or a standardized test demands. Aligning our practice with what we know about child development is not optional. It is our professional and moral obligation. 🫵🏾If you are ready to reclaim that obligation — Free to Teach = Liberated to Learn is your community. Free to join. Built for educators who refuse to leave the research behind. Scan the QR code to join! 🍱As a special collaboration, this live will also stream to the DEY Facebook page. This value stems from the Linking High Quality to Child Development Advocacy Toolkit.

Check out what’s in store for my next live discussion. Join me Wednesday, 5/27, at 7 pm EDT (right after the Using What We Know live guided discussion) on my Facebook page to discuss my third ECEC professional value: Embracing play as the leading activity of development. Learn how you can embrace this value as an act of resistance. To join simply click on the link in our Calendar!

Embracing play as the leading activity of development. 🧙🏿Play is not a break from learning. Play is how children learn. 🛝This is not my opinion. It is one of the most well-supported findings in child development research. And yet play is disappearing from early childhood settings at exactly the moment children need it most, replaced by worksheets, scripted curricula, and academic pressure that has no basis in child development knowledge. ⛹🏽‍♀️I have spent my career defending play. Not play as a reward. Not play as a transition activity. Child-led, self-directed, uninterrupted free play…the kind where children make the decisions, follow their curiosity, and engage with the world on their own terms. 🎴Play is worth protecting. Also save the date for my next live discussion. This Wednesday 5/27, at 7 pm EDT I’ll go live on my Facebook and Instagram page to discuss how to embrace this value as a form of resistance.

Here's a clip from my live discussion on my first ECEC value: recognizing childhood as a unique, sacred phase of life ethat must be nurtured and protected. You can watch the entire discusion on my Youtube page https://www.youtube.com/@FreeToTeachLiberatedToLearn (please like and subscribe) And join me next Wednesday, 5/20 at 7 pm EDT when I discuss value 2!