THE CHILD
DEVELOPMENT INSITUTE
I haven’t written as much as I should about it here, but for several years I have served on the Professional Advisory Board of the Child Development Institute. The CDI is at Sarah Lawrence College, my alma mater. The College also has an incredible Early Childhood Center, where I was an assistant kindergarten teacher for one of the happiest years of my life. Over time I have tried to give back to both the kindergarten classes of the truly gifted teacher Sonna Schupak and to the educational activities of the CDI, and CDI was kind enough to ask me on their board. It is with a start that I realized the other day that the 4 and 5 year olds I was teaching in 1992 are now in their early twenties. Oh dear.
One of CDI’s most exciting projects is a collaboration with Jonathan Diamond Associates to produce The Learning Child Series for public television and general distribution (see www.thelearningchildseries.org). They are now in pre-production, and the final fund-raising push, for the 4th television program in theseries which is tentatively titled“Connecting With the World: Children and the Environment.” I don’t need to point out what an extremely topical subject this is, and how timely is a film highlighting developmentally appropriate ways of helping children explore, examine and enjoy their environment. The goal is to enlighten, but also to show how to minimize the stress on kids that comes with the acquisition of this knowledge. Henry Drummond says that “Love must come before knowledge” when it comes to facilitating the critical connection between children and environmental issues. That is the insight this film is premised upon, I think that’s right on, and that this is an important program in a fine series, and you will enjoy it.
For additional information about the Child Development Institute , please visit their Web site www.sarahlawrence.edu/cdi
by david
