Early Childhood Education Workshop
Evolution Institute Workshop on Early Childhood Education (November 2008)
Evolutionary theory is profoundly relevant to understanding and improving the human condition but has virtually no impact on public policy. The Evolution Institute was created to solve this problem, providing a conduit from the world of evolutionary science to the world of public policy for a diversity of issues vital to our welfare.
Early childhood education is an example of a system that isn’t working, despite everyone’s best intentions. Some of the foremost authorities on child development and education are already stressing the need for an evolutionary perspective. The Evolution Institute brought them together in a workshop that was held at the University of Miami on November 14-16, 2008, followed by a public roundtable discussion on November 17, 2008.
The workshop presentations provide a vivid account of why evolutionary theory is needed to address public policy issues, in general and for the specific topic of early childhood education. The roundtable discussion shows how evolution can be presented in a positive way to the general public, swiftly moving beyond the sterile debates of the past. The bibliography provides access to the scientific literature for those who wish to deepen their understanding.
The Evolution Institute is continuing to work with the participants to publicize and implement the recommendations of the workshop. We are also developing additional focal topics to address from an evolutionary perspective.
We thank the Humanists of Florida Association, the University of Miami, and the private donors who partnered with the Evolution Institute to make its first workshop possible. Please contact David Sloan Wilson or Jerry Lieberman for additional information about the Evolution Institute, our current focus on early childhood education, or future focal topics.
Video Presentation
Select a video below to view the presentation.
Workshop Presentations
|
David Sloan Wilson
Binghamton University
Evolutionary Theory, Public Policy, and Early Childhood Education: Toward an Evolutionary Think Tank
David Sloan Wilson is SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University. He applies evolutionary theory to all aspects of humanity in addition to the rest of life. (More…), both in his own research and as director of EvoS, a unique campus-wide evolutionary studies program that recently received NSF funding to expand into a nationwide consortium. His books include Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society (Chicago, 2002) and Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin’s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives (Bantam, 2007). Wilson’s background makes him ideally suited to direct the Evolution Institute. (Hide)
|
|
David Geary
University of Missouri
Educating the Evolved Mind
David Geary is Curators’ Professor of Psychology at the University of Missouri. He is a cognitive developmental psychologist with interests in mathematical learning and in evolution. (More…) His books include The Origin of Mind: Evolution of Brain, Cognition, and General Intelligence (APA, 2005), Male, female: The evolution of human sex differences (APA, 1998), and Children’s Mathematical Development (APA, 1994). He was Chair of the Learning Processes task group of the President’s National Mathematics Panel and is lead investigator on a longitudinal study of children’s mathematical development and learning abilities. Among many distinctions are the Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Research and Creative Activity in the Social and Behavioral Sciences (1996), a scientific MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health, and an appointment by President Bush to serve a three-year term on the National Board of Directors for the Institute for Education Sciences (U.S. Department of Education). (Hide)
|
|
Bruce Ellis
University of Arizona
Children Vary in their Susceptibility to Rearing Experiences: Implications for Early Childhood Education
Bruce Ellis is Professor of Family Studies and Human Development and the John & Doris Norton Endowed Chair in Fathers, Parenting, and Families at the University of Arizona. (More…) His research uses evolutionary theory as a framework for studying gene-environment interactions during development, especially with respect to sexual development and child stress reactivity. He employs a variety of methodologies, including descriptive longitudinal work, behavioral observation, laboratory assessment of biological reactivity to stressors, experimental manipulations, direct interviews, and questionnaire measures using self- and peer-reports. The overarching theoretical framework that organizes his research is Evolutionary Developmental Psychology, as outlined in his book co-authored with David Bjorklund (cited below). (Hide)
|
|
David Bjorklund
Florida Atlantic University
Why Youth is Not Wasted on the Young
David Bjorklund is Professor of Psychology at Florida Atlantic University. His research interests are in the areas of cognitive development and evolutionary developmental psychology. (More…) He serves as editor of the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology and is author of Why Youth is Not Wasted on the Young: Immaturity in Human Development (Blackwell, 2007) and Children’s Thinking: Cognitive Development and Individual Differences (Wadsworth, 2005), Origins of the Social Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and Child Development (with Bruce Ellis, Guilford, 2004), and The Origins of Human Nature: Evolutionary Developmental Psychology (with Anthony Pellegrini, APA, 2001). (Hide)
|
|
Peter Gray
Boston College
Peter Gray is Research Professor of Psychology at Boston College and author of Psychology, one of the main introductory textbooks, currently in its 5th edition. (More…)His textbook is one of the first to approach psychology as a whole from an evolutionary perspective. His past research concerned the nature of mammalian motivational mechanisms and his current research on childhood education and play was initially motivated by his son’s unsatisfactory public school experience, which caused Peter to investigate alternative schooling practices modeled after traditional societies and evolutionary theory. Recent publications include “Playing in the Zone of Proximal Development: Qualities of Self-Directed Age Mixing Between Adolescents and Young Children at a Democratic School (with Jay Feldman, American Journal of Education, 110, 108-145. 2004). Peter writes a weekly blog on the Psychology Today site. The series is entitled Freedom to Learn: Play, Curiosity, and Education. (Hide)
|
|
Daniel Berch
University of Virginia
The Emerging Field of “Evo-Edu”: Questions, Challenges, Constraints, and Caveats
Daniel Berch is the new associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education. (More…) Formerly, he was Associate Chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NIH). He is an authority on children’s numerical cognition, mathematical learning disabilities, and spatial information processing, and has written about the educational implications of evolutionary theory with respect to the design of effective instructional practices. He is the senior editor of Why is math so hard for some children? The nature and origins of mathematical learning difficulties and disabilities (with M.M.M. Mazzocco, Paul H. Brookes 2007) and of Sex chromosome abnormalities and human behavior: Psychological studies (with B.G. Bender, AAAS/Westview 1990). (Hide)
|
|
Tony Biglan
Oregon Research Institute
Building Blocks for an Intentional Science of Cultural Evolution
Anthony Biglan is a Senior Scientist at Oregon Research Institute, Director of the Center on Early Adolescence, and past President of the Society for Prevention Research. (More…) He has been doing research for the last 25 years on the prevention of adolescent problem behaviors, including numerous experimental evaluations of interventions to prevent tobacco, other drug use, high-risk sexual behavior, reading failure, and aggressive social behavior. He is author of Helping Adolescents at Risk (with P.A. Brennan, S.L. Foster, and H.D. Holder, Guildford 2003) and Changing Cultural Practices: A Contextualist Framework for Intervention Research (Context, 1995). (Hide)
|
|
Dennis Embry
PAXIS Institute
Ending Youthanasia: Evolutionary Understanding Meets a Retail-Driven Prevention-Science Model
Dennis Embry is a scientist-entrepreneur who is president of PAXIS Institute in Tucson, AZ. (More…) He has developed large, population-level behavior-change projects and studies for injury control in New Zealand, violence prevention in America, military deployments during the Gulf War, and tobacco control in multiple states with experimental designs. He is presently developing statewide initiatives for child abuse and multi-problem behavior prevention for the state of Florida, Alaska and other states. He was the first author of a $50 million plan for Wyoming funded by its legislature. His scholarly writing focuses on social change applied to large population-level change— integrating brain, behavioral, and evolutionary factors. He is a former National Research Advisory Council Senior Fellow in the Commonwealth, recipient of the science to practice award in 2006 by the Society for Prevention Research, and author of multiple manuals and training efforts for social change. He is currently preparing a new popular book and TV program for PBS entitled, “Youthanasia: How modern culture is slowly killing our youth and what can be done.” (Hide)
|
Roundtable Discussion
|
Roundtable Introduction
|
|
Roundtable Discussion
|
Bibliography
Selected articles are currently available here.