"A bold challenge to the conventional wisdom about early childhood, with a pragmatic program to encourage parents to rethink how and where young children learn best Parents of young children today are in crisis: Pick the "wrong" preschool and your child won't get into the "right" college. But our fears are misplaced, according to Yale early childhood expert Erika Christakis. Children are hardwired to learn in any setting, but they punch below their weight when "learning" is defined by strict lessons and dodgy metrics that devalue a child's intelligence while placing unfit requirements on the developing brain; we have confused schooling with learning. The race for good outcomes has blinded us to how young children actually process the world, acquire skills, and grow, says Christakis, who powerfully defends the preschool years as a life stage of inherent value and not merely as preparation for a demanding or uncertain future. This grounded, sensible book offers a ray of light in a dim and frantic world--with the message that before we can teach our youngest children, we must better understand them. In The Importance of Being Little, Christakis explores what it's like to be a young child in America today, in a world designed by and for adults. With school-testing mandates run amok, playfulness squeezed, and young children increasingly pathologized for old-fashioned behaviors like daydreaming and clumsiness, it's easy to miss the essential importance of being a young child. She provides meaningful solutions through a forensic analysis of today's whole system of early learning, from pedagogy and science to policy and politics. "--