Being Little Matters
Neil Mufson, Head of School

 

In my last piece, I wrote about the child perspective Taylor Swift takes on in her song “The Best Day” and how her lyrical memories suggest that what matters most to young children are simple activities, togetherness, and parental presence. Just after publishing that piece, I came across an interview with Erika Christakis, former faculty member at the Yale Child Study Center, and author of the bestselling book, The Importance of Being Little: What Young Children Really Need from Grownups. Christakis believes, “the notion that there is something of value in being a little kid – with little kid desires and, above all, needs – seems to have fallen out of favor… Parents express enormous anxiety about their children’s futures, and seem to be curating their children’s life experiences in a way that would look quite unnatural and even rather joyless to previous generations.”

 

Christakis maintains that our society currently is also undergoing an “adultification” pandemic , or the failure to see the world from a child’s perspective. “It’s eye-opening to reflect on the many ways that adults inflict adult pacing, adult expectations, and adult schedules on young kids. And for what reason? Young children sleep less and have far more transitions in their days than in previous generations – and most would agree that developing brains aren’t really designed to cope with adult schedules and pacing.”

 

What Christakis sees as some of the most effective counterpoints to adultification are parents mindfully questioning their unconscious practices and schools recognizing that “quality education is about relationships” and intentionality. “Caring teachers who understand child development and who know and are attuned to the children in their care” are amongst the most important markers of educational quality, as are classrooms in which “rich, open-ended conversation is critical” and where “children experience warm, empathic oral language – to converse playfully, to tell a rambling story — listen to high-quality literature… ask meaningful questions… and take advantage of children’s natural curiosity.”

 

The ideal educational environment Christakis describes sounds a lot like Primary Day to me. Here our entire enterprise is focused on meeting the needs of young children. We are developmental experts, our teachers are masters at building meaningful relationships with our students, and children are immersed in a language- and math-rich environment that fosters curiosity, nurtures development, and promotes taking on “just right” challenges.

 

In my short time here I have quickly grown to admire the discerning nature of our parents. Primary Day does not focus on flash or sizzle or cavernous spaces. We focus on substance. We are intimate, personal, academic, and extremely nurturing. The high expectations we hold for our children make sense for our learners. Our teachers and program listen to what our children tell us. If I had to sum it up, I’d say we understand “the importance of being little.”