The Huffington Post – Tara Chklovski
“The science is clear; Children begin learning from birth, developing their vision, hearing, language, and cognitive functions very fast in the early years of life and especially in the first year…Children who receive high quality care in the first few years of life score higher in academic and cognitive tests — even a decade after…Providing child care is one of the most complex tasks (and as we have seen the most under-recognized). A child care provider needs to ensure the child’s safety, health, nutrition, emotional, physical well-being as well as stimulate language and thinking abilities. The latter is becoming more and more important as the total amount of information enveloping us grows at a faster and faster rate. The skills that will be needed will be the higher-order cognitive traits of creativity, curiosity, persistence (or grit) instead of simply rote memory skills…Unfortunately the key providers of this critical type of care and support are paid an average of only $21,490 (in 2013), making child care one of the lowest paying professional fields. This makes it hard for child care centers to recruit child care professionals who have the requisite education credentials.”(more)