This paper is an examination of current thinking regarding the importance and requirements of early childhood education, the teaching of children before the traditional start of formal schooling, usually begun around ages 5 or 6. It uses as its essential text the fifth edition of Beginnings and Beyond by Ann Miles Gordon and Kathryn Williams-Browne, a volume which assumes the efficacy of formal educational programs designed for very young children. This text also emphasizes the need to accommodate such programs to the individual child, especially with regard to the child's cultural background and personal development. This paper discusses these essential assumptions within the context of current research, theory, and application in the American educational system and argues that, while conclusive evidence is still required, both the need for formal programs and the need to consider the individual are valid assumptions on which to build.
Denison Deasey contends, "Pre-school education as an organized affair is barely two hundred years old and began, as far as we are aware, in Alsace in the east of France . . . in 1767." Education at any age in America started as the privilege of wealthy, mostly male children. With the establishment of the common school movement in the early to mid-nineteenth century, debates began about the right to education and the purposes that such a system ought to serve. These debates also extended to discussions of the age at which education should begin. While many experts came to agree on 5 or 6 as the best age to start formal education, "a society's definition of childhood influences how it educates its children," and American society has continued to struggle with the definition of early childhood and its relationship to education. As Gordon and Williams-Browne note, "The term itself offers its own professional challenges: EARLY: How do young children grow and learn best? CHILDHOOD: How do c...