FACULTY RESEARCH
Reinvesting in
our children
Numerous longitudinal studies
demonstrating these robust returns
from investment in early childhood
education have been analyzed, reana-
lyzed, and meta-analyzed. No credible
study contradicts their results. In
fact, the evidence is unassailable
that every dollar invested in early
childhood education produces a
return of
at least
seven dollars.
The value of
relationships
If the nation is going to invest
resources in early childhood
programs, however, it will become
increasingly important to consider
the efficacy of different pedagogical
approaches. Although children
receive some benefit from programs
that prioritize direct instruction
of traditional academic skills,
an impressive body of reliable
comparative data now shows
that the most effective programs
employ social constructivist
practices. In social constructivist
early learning environments,
educators encourage children to
develop their natural capacity to
construct knowledge by building
meaningful relationships with their
families, caregivers, teachers, peers,
and surrounding communities.
Inspired by world-renowned
early learning centers in Reggio
Emilia, Italy, outstanding social
constructivist programs throughout
the United States provide exemplars
of such an environment. In these
programs, teachers trust children with
the freedom to form relationships,
engage in role playing and shared
projects, and represent their
knowledge through multiple forms of
expression. These educators recognize
that the most effective curriculum
is not standardized, canned, and
consumed. Rather, deep and lasting
learning emerges organically
from a child’s valued experiences,
questions, and curiosities. Educators
also provide authentic assessment
of that profound learning through
documentation—the practice of
making visible to many stakeholders
the process and products of
individual and community growth.
The most recent neuroscience
research reveals precisely how and
why an investment of resources in
this particular kind of early childhood
education program has produced,
and will continue to produce,
remarkably strong educational,
social, and economic benefits. It
turns out that children are not
innately passive and easily overcome
by destructive or competitive
emotions. To the contrary, children
are naturally capable, curious, caring,
and empathetic. Neuroscientists
have discovered specific “mirror”
neurons in the premotor cortex of
children’s brains that are activated
and strengthened in the same way
whether children have an experience
themselves or observe others having
the experience.
Children are hard-wired to
pursue the meaningful relationships
that are critical to the development
of their mental processes. These
relationships can first be seen in the
wondrous nonverbal communication
that occurs when a primary caretaker
responds reflexively to an infant’s
crying, cooing, mimicking, laughing,
smiling, and gesturing. But such
profound attachment relationships
are also reinforced or repaired in
social constructivist early childhood
education programs. The programs
help to build a child’s natural
desire and capacity for attachment
(the ability to form and maintain
emotionally significant, reliable,
and enduring bonds with others),
intersubjectivity (the ability to
perceive, respect, and respond to the
thoughts, feelings, and intentions
of others), cognitive integration
(the ability to marshal associations,
intuitions, calculations, and
memories), and executive function
(the ability to control impulses,
maintain focus and persistence, and
make and implement flexible plans).
These relationship-building
capacities are indispensable to the
development of discipline, synthesis,
creativity, respect, and ethics. It
is these particular habits of mind
and heart—reinforcing traditional
academic skills—that significantly
increase the chances that a child
will grow to experience lifelong
success and well-being, regardless
of the child’s race, ethnicity, or
socioeconomic status. Because these
habits of heart and mind also have
proven to be vital to the effective
and ethical practice of law, social
constructivist learning strategies
may offer an intriguing model for the
development of best practices in legal
education as well.
In the most effective early
childhood education programs (and
in the most effective law schools, such
as Loyola) students learn to become
leaders, active participants in their
own governance, and contributing
members of their communities;
to collaborate, problem solve, and
construct their own knowledge; and
to build meaningful, enduring, and
fulfilling relationships. By investing
in these social constructivist early
childhood education programs,
therefore, the nation would achieve
significant educational, social,
and economic returns, develop a
compelling learning model, and come
closer to realizing and reflecting a true
image of children.
■
Better understanding children’s capacities
yields more effective early childhood
education—and a ripple effect of benefits
A nation’s image of
its children has important
implications
for the kind
of early education system
the nation supports.
Michael Kaufman
is associate dean for academic affairs and director of the Education Law and Policy Institute at Loyola
University Chicago School of Law. His book
Education Law, Policy, and Practice
(3d ed., Aspen, 2013) is the leading text in the
field. In his latest book,
Learning Together: The Law, Policy, Pedagogy, Economics, and Neuroscience of Early Childhood
Education
, which he coauthored with his wife, Sherelyn Kaufman, and alumna Elizabeth Chase Nelson (JD ’10), Kaufman makes
a comprehensive and multidisciplinary argument for investing in early childhood education programs, particularly those
designed to build in children the capacity to construct knowledge through meaningful relationships.
mkaufma@luc.edu
BY MI CHAE L KAUFMAN
W
hat is our image of
children? Are children
passive recipients of
information who are vulnerable to
destructive emotions and must be
trained to meet uniform standards
of behavior? Or are children instead
capable, curious, creative, caring,
connected, and led naturally to
develop meaningful relationships
from which knowledge and well-
being are constructed?
A nation’s image of its children
has important implications for the
kind of early education system the
nation supports, and for the kind
of regime the system becomes. A
country that values the development
of each of its children would invest in
effective early childhood education
programs for all of them.
Yet there are substantial racial,
ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities
in access to early childhood
education programs in America.
Those disparities create early barriers
to a child’s educational, social, and
economic success that are extremely
difficult to overcome. Some courts
have found that a state’s failure to
provide adequate and equitable
educational opportunities violates
the state’s constitution, and have
ordered the state to remedy its
constitutional violation by expanding
early childhood education programs.
Early investment =
robust returns
These courts, along with
farsighted and fiscally prudent
policymakers, have recognized
that the most cost-effective way
to mitigate the inadequacies and
inequities in American education is by
investing in effective early childhood
education programs. More than
120 separate empirical studies have
demonstrated that such investments
produce dramatic benefits for
children and for the country. Children
who attend an early childhood
education program at age three or
four realize significant educational
benefits in the form of school
readiness, academic achievement,
grade completion, high-school
completion, and reduction in the
need for remedial and special
education services. These children
also realize social benefits in the
form of lower rates of externalizing
behavior, emotional impairment and
disturbance, involvement with law
enforcement, crime, imprisonment,
mental and physical illness, and
health care expenditures, and
more stable marriages and familial
relationships. Moreover, children who
attend early childhood programs far
surpass later-starting counterparts
in achieving significant additional
economic benefits, including
sustained employment, taxable
income, and home ownership.
FALL 2014
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LOYOLA LAW
