What if the best way to understand education isn't by looking at high school or college — but by spending time in kindergarten? This week, Rod and Jal welcome renowned developmental psychologist and author Susan Engel to discuss her new book, American Kindergarten: Dispatches from the First Year of School. The conversation explores the "promises" these early classrooms make to children, from creating order and community to nurturing curiosity, individuality, and love.
Susan L. Engel is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Founding Director of the Program in Teaching at Williams College. She is the author of several books, including her latest American Kindergarten: Dispatches from the First Year of School, and her essays on education have appeared in The New York Times, Bloomberg View, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, Salon, and The Boston Globe. Highlights from her conversation with Rod and Jal include: why kindergarten offers a unique window into the strengths and challenges of American education; a look a Susan's "five promises" that shape children's early school experience; exploring the tension between compliance and engagement in classrooms; why love remains an essential, and sometimes controversial part of great teaching; how teachers shape children's identities long before report cards ever do; the emotional side of thinking, and why separating "hard skills" from "soft skills" misses something essential about how children learn; interesting observations on Montessori education; and a lightning round that asks everyone what promise education should make to all future learners.
Check out Susan's Book: American Kindergarten: Dispatches from the First Year of School
Questions? Thoughts? Feedback?
Email us at freerangehumanspod@gmail.com or Tweet us at @jal_mehta and @Rodroad219