I received a call the other day from one of the producers of the TV show 20/20 who is thinking of doing a show on universal preschool. The ideas I shared with her are given below. In my view, the single most important issue that has to be addressed in any discussion of early childhood education is the type of education that is provided. The pressure for universal preschool comes from the misguided belief that an academic program for young children is the best preparation for later academic success. Yet this assumption is not supported by any research or by experience in the classroom. There is, in fact no research to support this assumption and a great deal which gives evidence that such programs may well do more harm than good e.g.(Elkind 1987) (Hirsh-Pasek 2009). Likewise although the proponents of an academic preschool program argue that children need to know their numbers and letters to succeed in first grade, this is not what teachers have learned. First grade teachers say what children need to succeed in first grade are: the ability to follow instructions; the ability to start a task and carry it to completion; and the ability to work cooperatively with other children. Given those skills the numbers and letters come easy.

Like most early childhood educators I believe in the value of early childhood education. And, like them, I also believe that young children should not be looked upon as being in the wings of life rather than on its stage. Early childhood is a period of life as important in its own right as any other period of life. As such the programs for young children should be adapted to their level of intellectual, social and emotional development. This is the insight that all the grandmasters of early childhood education, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Montessori, Steiner and Piaget shared in common. They all argued that young children learn best through play and that formal instruction in the tool subjects should not be introduced before the age of six or seven. Scandinavian countries and Russia have followed this precept and their children have, for example, few reading problems. In France, where they have universal preschool starting at age three, at which age they introduce formal instruction, they have some 30 percent reading problems.

In short, the central issue with the universal preschool is what kind of educational programs are best suited to the needs of young children? The imposition of the elementary academic curriculum at the preschool level is as inappropriate as imposing the junior high school curriculum on elementary school students, or the imposition of the high school curriculum on junior high school students. The curricula at each of those grade levels is adapted to the maturing needs and abilities of the students. Exactly the same should hold true for young children and that is what the play preschool provides. The need for a universal preschool comes from changed family values that have made divorce, two parent working families and single parent families the norm. But healthy early childhood education outside of the home does not have to be justified on the basis of purported academic benefits. The play preschool encourages young children to realize all of their intellectual, social and emotional abilities to the full. That is all one could ask of any level of schooling.

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Elkind, D. (1987). Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk. New York, Knopf.

Hirsh-Pasek, K. M. G., Roberta; Berk, Laura E.; Singer, Dorothy G. (2009). A Mandate for Playful Learning in Preschool: Presenting the Evidence. New York, Oxford University Press.