The Early Childhood Center
Progressive Education, ECC & Your Child
In a world in which three-year-olds can find their way on an iPad, we give them blocks.
In a world in which four-year-olds squeeze apple sauce from a pouch, we peel and cut fresh apples and cook applesauce with them.
In a world in which some preschoolers are being prepared for test taking, we have no ditto sheets, workbooks, or computer learning programs.
What does this mean for your child?
The long answer to this question involves a lot of thought, observation, and discussion.
The shorter answer is this: the Early Childhood Center remains true to the progressive education model, which is based on the centrality of direct experience in learning, the view of the child as the center of the educational experience, and the making of meaning and construction of knowledge through experience and reflection, as both the goal and the means of education.
Educational fads and opinions come and go; educational innovations and mandates come and go; educational policy changes with political, historical, and economic realities. But the goals and methods of experientially based, developmentally appropriate education have not changed.
This means that the Early Childhood Center, like Sarah Lawrence College itself, holds true to its beliefs, even as each teacher finds their own way to put them into practice—and as all teachers seek new ways of bringing those beliefs to bear on each individual child in the community of the classroom and the school.
Jan Drucker
Beloved Former Consultant to the Early Childhood Center
Psychology faculty member 1972-2021
Teachers at the ECC are there to watch, guide, and facilitate; they do not direct or force a child to do anything they are not interested in. It has been an incredible learning experience as a parent as well. I wouldn't trade this experience for the world!
ECC Parent