Gesell Program News

Over the month of July, teachers were incorporating play into their classrooms. Teachers in the New Haven Public School Systems Play Pilot Program were taught on how to use play principles to guide students in learning and the exploration of topics in the classroom. Throughout the play-based program, students have become more interested in what they are doing and want to learn more.

The play-based curriculum program that took place in July, has changed the way New Haven Public Schools look at education. Teachers see that with the play-based curriculum, they are not wasting their time or energy to get the kids to sit down and focus. Instead, teachers have students who want to learn and are interested in the topics they are exploring.

All work and no play makes the city’s youngest children unprepared to learn in school, or so said dozens of experts, parents and students. At a Board of Alders Education Committee meeting Wednesday on the role of play in early childhood education, school district officials acknowledged that classrooms could be doing more.

Early childhood educators should not sleep on the effect of naps on learning. Children ages 3 to 5 years old should get 10 to 13 hours of sleep, including naps, every 24 hours, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. No data exists on how many schools still offer nap time, says Peg Oliveira, executive director of the Gesell Institute of Child Development. However, it is now one of a number of practices that were once considered normal in early childhood classrooms but have been traded for academic activities, she adds. While not all young children may need to nap, virtually all would benefit academically from taking a pause to process information, Oliveira says. This is in line with research that shows the benefits of mindfulness and meditation.

Some of the students who most need that time to rest may be less likely to get it, according to Peg Oliveira, the executive director of the Gesell Institute of Child Development, which studies early learning and school readiness. Nap time "is a victim of the increased academic pressures in early-childhood classrooms," Oliveira said. "In schools that have the luxury of students who arrive in kindergarten ready for the demands of kindergarten, they feel they can relax a little bit and provide time for naps and play. But these tend to be more affluent [public] and private schools. ... The places that feel pressure to show academic gains for students feel they don't have the luxury to give kids these ... cognitive breaks."

Clinical psychologist and pediatrician Arnold Gesell wrote these words nearly a century ago, in an article titled “The Significance of the Nursery School,” published in 1924 in the inaugural issue of Childhood Education. The words were true then, and they’re truer now. The ladder is still missing at least a few rungs. One is universal access to preschool and kindergarten. In Gesell’s words, “Nursery school [would] furnish a more solid support for the educational ladder” (1924, 18). Other rungs include early learning environments that truly acknowledge the full range of unique developmental and environmental needs of young children; full support for children from birth through age 3 and their families (including paid family leave); wages and working conditions that reflect the importance and high level of responsibility of early childhood educators; and sufficient appreciation of and investment in the potential of the rapidly developing young brain.