June 14 1968 I had my first experience working with young children I've now actually been in a field for 50 years pretty scary thought things have changed when I was I started my work for the Department of Recreation in Philadelphia and I was hired to coach basketball referee basketball games create leagues oh and by the way Steve would you work with these three and four-year-olds it's like sure as long as I got to play basketball and so I have this incredible memory of sitting with those three and four-year-olds in the shade of the building and
I found a case of paste do you remember the old paste with the wooden spoon and we would get the construction paper out and the kids would dip in and half the time they ate the paste but they would eat the paste they would do their thing and there was something kind of magic beginning to happen so that was the beginning of the journey of this 50 years so I have seen an enormous amount of trends happen in this period some are really exciting some are rather dismal I think early childhood education in this day
right now is probably in its most interesting challenging place but it's the best opportunity because people are beginning to understand the importance of what happens early in life we I started I worked in a half-day preschool program and the biggest challenge was that we had in that half-day program was a child would lose a sock or they would spilled her juice that was kind of the extent the classrooms were pretty vanilla in all aspects of that word and the challenges were we're fairly minimal but there was something really inviting and really a tantalizing about understanding
what I was seeing so as I danced up the up the developmental ladder and begin to understand a little bit more the importance of the true impact of early childhood looking at classrooms today are significantly different our classrooms today are dimly lit children being asked to sit and listen for lengthy periods of time which are not in their developmental soul they are asked to do skill drill things because they will learn they have to stand in line I'm working with a school right now where the children have to walk up and down the hallways like
this what is that saying there is that the classrooms are changing we have more and more dysregulated children we have teachers that are fragmented families that are struggling to find the resources for a morning breakfast to find the resources to get their children to school on time early childhood and childhood is changing so as we look at some of the classrooms and we look at the struggles that teachers have we're also seeing a breed of teacher that have their own baggage that they bring in the classroom so we have traumatized children we have traumatized teachers
we have families with a whole collection of behaviors and baggage that they're struggling with so the classrooms are changing we're seeing children with angry love angry love is the child who has no other resources to get their emotional needs met by throwing chairs across the room the teachers in the room are beginning to understand that we're seeing kids that are so dysregulated and they're saying hold me love me I will do anything anything to get that even if it means another beating we we are seeing these children come in with angry love they're highly traumatized
and we're seeing teachers that are traumatized and the behaviors are activating secondary trauma for the classroom we're helping teachers begin to understand that what we need in classrooms today is ruthless compassion how to hold the soul of a child even though they're cussing at you even though they're spitting at you even though they're throwing the chair how do we hold the soul of that frighten that frightened little baby yes we are seeing changes in early childhood right now so some of the trends that I have seen and it's really exciting with a hundred years worth
of of research and observational theory and we know that all behavior has meaning remember that all behavior has meaning we also know that what happens early in life lasts a lifetime the the research that has been done by Kaiser Permanente and the CDC about early trauma and adverse childhood experiences is mapping out the the life history for some of our children early trauma has direct impact on learn long-term health outcomes so what happens early in life lasts a lifetime we also know that the brain research says that in the first five years of life is
the most critical time of brain development the most critical time of brain development so let's put these things together what happens early in life lasts a lifetime all behavior has meaning the critical nature of brain development in the first five years so I'd like you to drink this in a moment because it means that we can influence a generation in five years we can influence a generation in five years so if we want to change society we must change the way we teach our youngest children we must change the way we teach our youngest children
we must change the way we support families we must change the way we are teaching our teachers we must have teachers understand that they are holding the souls of the children in their charge and that every day is a phenomenon every day is a phenomenon we need to brighten the life for the children in our charge so as we think about what the impact is that what the research says about early childhood let's take a look at what the teachers are with what the teachers look like today in our in our state of Missouri to
be an early childhood educator all you need is to be 18 years of age free of TB and not have it felony now that's a bar isn't it when you think about the research the critical brain development the first five years of life all behavior has meaning all of these things make a difference and yet the standards for the teachers that are holding the souls of our children are so low a real challenge they are some of the most lowest paid and under supported educators that you'll find in our country this is criminal we need
to look at how we invest so recently within the past 15 years recently in my decades in my generation we think about all that research that has been I'm gonna say ignored until more more current and more current but we have economic data that says every dollar invested in early childhood has a 13 percent return on investment every dollar invested in early childhood has a 13 dollar return on investment a 13 percent return on investment so what I'd like you to do this evening go home and look at your own portfolio and see how many
of you are getting at 13 percent return on your investment okay we need to think about investing in our youngest children families and teachers with a completely different lens on how we're going to invest in them so what we what we are thinking what we are doing at Loum Institute right now is think of what is in our control what is in our control right now we we spend hours working with teachers and helping teachers understand so we see five critical components that teachers need to know first of all teachers must understand the emotional development
of the children in their classrooms they must understand the the emotional development of children now that is a one directional piece earlier I mentioned that we often have teachers who are coming traumatized teachers teach who they are think back to the teacher that you had that caused you struggles was it you or was it them so we need to help teachers understand who they are understand their personal baggage that they bring in the classroom understand their their implicit bias that they bring in the classroom do you know that in the field of early childhood education
that preschool age children are expelled three times more than any other grade level three times more than any other grade level preschoolers in addition african-american boys preschool boys are expelled three times higher than any other culture in preschool what is it what's the story we have to help under help teachers understand who they are what's the emotional baggage what's the what's the social baggage that they bring into the classroom what are they seeing through their lens if they teach who they are we also want teachers to begin understanding temperament of children and their own temperament
of children is that child fierce fearful is that child feisty is that child flexible who's in front of me we also have data that says early childhood educators have a tendency to have a B to be a more of a fearful temperamental profession so when you have a teacher that comes out of a fearful temperament and they were working with feisty kids or traumatized kids it's they have a tendency to oppress child so we have to have teachers begin to understand their inner souls we also have to have teachers to begin understanding the family histories
what's going on in the family if we we have teachers who will want to schedule appointments with families and they're late or they missed their appointment but they have spent a lifetime of not working within the same system so we have to have teachers look at the family histories and create a synergistic experience for for for families and to be able to host families where they are we also need to take into account what's going on in our environment our environment is so explosive today and there's so much toxicity going on and yet that's where
the great opportunities are for us for teachers to sit with children to be with them to nurture their souls so they feel emotionally safe because we know in the research that when children are emotionally safe they will be socially safe because they know have a they have an emotional partner to help if they are feeling emotionally safe and socially safe they will take academic risk our systems have a tendency to want to teach children to the head but we have to teach to the soul and the heart first so when they when they enter kindergarten
that they are ready and they had the resiliency necessary to take on the next adventure and school needs to be an adventure not an odious experience so as we look at teachers children and families we need to look to a holistic lens and elevate the field of early childhood education and give our children the hope the hope that they need for a better day so we ask you when you leave here to begin thinking about how are you investing in your time talent and treasures in early childhood education which will compound the investment as they
go into the elementary middle school in high school so we thank you for your thinking and drinking that in and hopes that you will make the steps necessary to hold the Sol's [Applause]
