Summary of Erika Christakis's The Importance of Being Little

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 A five-year-old girl was fascinated by a nonfiction picture book about birds of prey, and spent a lot of time studying them in her classroom. She became an expert on bird shadows, and noticed a cartoon image on each page that didn’t make sense. She wondered where the bird was going to get salt. It’s not just children who can make those connections. I recently heard an interview with Mandy-Rae Cruikshank, a young actress who voices the character of Baby Hazel in the Pixar films Inside Out and Finding Dory. When I was writing this book, I asked Mandy-Rae if she would share some thoughts about the ways in which her work with her character, Baby Hazel, and her research into human emotions informed her work as an actor. She wrote the following in an email: I think that working with the Pixar team has taught me the most about how it’s possible to accurately translate or distill human emotions into animation, or to use real human emotions as a basis for animating fictional characters. -> Abby, a five-year-old girl, was fascinated by a nonfiction picture book about birds of prey.

#2 The key to scaffolding is to be there for your child when they are working at their edge, and to activate your own knowledge and experience as well as their interesting insights.

#3 Young children need to be educated, and they need to be educated by someone who understands them and their needs. This understanding takes place on two levels.

#4 The preschool paradox is the puzzling misalignment between children’s inborn ability to learn in virtually any setting and the inadequate early learning environments and suboptimal learning we so often find.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Oct 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798350033038

IRB Media

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Insights on Erika Christakis's The Importance of Being Little

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I had a conversation with a five-year-old girl named Abby about birds of prey. She was fascinated by one of those nonfiction picture books with large color photos and esoteric information, and she spent hours poring over it.

#2

Abby was working at the edge of her intellectual abilities, trying to understand the joint axes of serious/funny and real/pretend. She would not have made those connections without another person there to help her.

#3

The American education system is flawed, and in particular, the definition of smart and slow children is flawed. Most young children are highly educable, and they need to be able to have a relationship with someone who understands them.

#4

The mismatch between what we offer and what children need starts early, and it can be traced to a growing reality gap in early education. While children have inborn ability to learn in any setting, they often lack the adequate early learning environments and suboptimal learning we so often find.

#5

While preschool is still not common in the United States, it has been turned into a more narrow educational opportunity focused on cognitive skills, to the exclusion of broader learning goals.

#6

The traditionalist mind-set assumes that the young child contributes little to his own intellectual development. This approach is often aligned with a teaching method called direct instruction, in which the teacher is the one imparting skills.

#7

The overuse of DI is especially prevalent in low-income and nonwhite classrooms, where family stress is much more prevalent.

#8

The opposite of DI is permissive adults who harbor naïve ideas about what young children can accomplish on their own, absent careful teacher preparation and guidance. These child-directed classrooms draw their inspiration from a valid source: the theory of constructivism, which states that children are capable of building their own meanings from their experiences, knowledge, and interests.

#9

There are three types of preschool environments: those that are DI-heavy, those that are child-driven, and those that are a mix of the two. The third type, which is a mix of Vygotsky’s theory of child development and American preschool teaching methods, is the best way to help children learn and grow.

#10

The key difference between a high-quality and low-quality preschool environment is the way adults are with children and their attention to children’s thinking processes. In a high-quality program, adults are building relationships with children and paying attention to their language.

#11

The frustration that many American children