Quotes from David Elkind

“The child is a gift of nature; the image of the child is man’s creation. The image of the child, rather than nature’s gift, determines educational practice in any historical epoch. And the image of the child, man’s creation, is as often wrong as it is correct….Our task as educators of young children is not simply to be true to nature’s gift but also to fight against the false images that threaten the healthy education of young children."

“Clearly there is a growing mismatch between school and young children. And it is becoming increasingly apparent that the problem lies not in young children but in those parents who demand early academics and those schools that have transformed the kindergarten into a one-size smaller first grade. This is the real problem with “earlier is better” educational psychology. It implicitly assumes that young children are just smaller versions of older children. It denies the enormous transformations that mark the development of intelligence between the preschool and elementary years. Even ancient peoples recognized that children did not reach the “age of reason” until six or seven years old. The distance between the preschool and the elementary school is not a step; it is a leap.”

“If children are exposed to formal education before they have taken the intellectual leap that makes formal instruction meaningful, we put them at risk….The early introduction of academics, before the child has the necessary mental structures to attack this learning in an inventive way, reinforces the passive mode of learning. Age- appropriate education, however, enables children to develop their active-learning modes.”