Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/celebrating-a-life-for-children/5014430/
What do you consider to be the most dramatic change in our field during your career?As I look back over the last 40 years of my involvement in the early childhood field, the most dramatic change is that the field has come into being. So often we view the progress made from the perspective of what is available today, forgetting the long history of development. In 1960, in Ypsilanti, Michigan there was one play group operated by parents in the local Episcopal Church basement and an elite play nursery offered to the Ypsilanti Normal School faculty for their children. Head Start did not begin until 1965. When I established the High/Scope Perry Preschool Project in 1962, some university consultants advised us not to provide the program because we would harm the disadvantaged children we wished to serve.
Now, of course careful longitudinal research has documented that high quality service programs for disadvantaged children and their families can make a positive change in the life chances of such children. Thus for me, the greatest change has been the growth and acceptance of high quality early childhood education as a major method of helping poor children and their families. In 1960 there ...