One of the most frustrating things in education today is how much experts know about how to teach children but ignore what they know works when it comes to setting policy. Nancy Carlsson-Paige, an early childhood education expert, has talked and written about this for years as it relates to the education of young children, and she is back here with a new piece that contrasts the key elements of a new learning framework she saw in Canada that uses best practices with what is done in the United States.
Carlsson-Paige is a professor emerita of education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass., where she taught teachers for more than 30 years and was a founder of the university’s Center for Peaceable Schools. She is also the author of “Taking Back Childhood” and a founding member of a nonprofit called Defending the Early Years, which commissions research about early childhood education and advocates for sane policies for young children. The mother of two artist sons, Matt and Kyle Damon, she is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Legacy Award from the Robert F. Kennedy Children’s Action Corps for work over several decades on behalf of children and families.