First Things First!: Creating the New American Primary School
English
By (author): Ruby Takanishi
Challenging policymakers, educators, reformers, and citizens to replace piecemeal reforms with fundamental redesign, First Things First! calls for a different way of organizing the American primary school. Ruby Takanishi outlines a new framework for integrating early education with primary education (pre-K5), including both short- and long-term strategies, that starts with 3- and 4-year-olds. Featuring portraits of primary schools that have successfully integrated pre-K, the book includes resources on dual-language learners, dual-generation family engagement, effective philanthropy, rethinking advocacy, and more. The book centers on four basic questions:
- Why should the United States design a new primary school as childrens first, widely share educational experience?
- How can the educators of the new primary school use new knowledge about how children learn to improve their practice?
- What will it take to create a new primary school that educates all children well?
- How can the design of the new primary school reflect demographic, social, linguistic, and cultural changes and adapt to the requirements of a global economy?
First Things First! reframes the basic structure of traditional primary education, challenging us to get the early years of a 21st-century public education system off to a new and stronger start.
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