Choose Joy: An Early Childhood Education Blog

My daughter, Gabi, began working with ScratchJr about two weeks ago; the intensity of my longing for the moment she realized the potential of this coding platform for young children is on par with my eagerness for her to enter the wizarding world of Harry Potter. Knowing her well, I’m confident both experiences will blow her mind and nurture her creative spirit.   ScratchJr was created and is maintained via a collaboration between the DevTech Research Group at Tufts University, the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab, and the Playful Invention Company. Professor, Mitchel Resnick, heads up the MIT Media Lab where he developed the original version of this coding platform for older learners ( Scratch ). In his book,  Lifelong Kindergarten , Resnick (2018) acknowledges America’s highly problematic obsession with standardization and standardized testing and he poses the question,  “How can we encourage and support creativity in an era when standardized exams...

Young children notice differences everywhere. Though parents may find children’s utterances specific to the differences they observe among people off-putting at times (my five-year-old is the first to question anyone not wearing a mask in public), it is important to realize that children’s acknowledgements of human differences are not only natural, but desirable. A sincere curiosity to know more about the diverse world in which we live should be celebrated and cultivated. Encouraging children to notice and appreciate racial and cultural differences is one way to promote an antiracist worldview.  Additionally, we should not wait to engage children in conversations and experiences centered on the examination of differences. Research suggests children as young as six months old not only notice racial differences including skin color and hair type, but that they also begin to form racial biases (e.g., demonstrating a preference for interacting with members of their own race). Lack of ...