Annemarie Harris
Director, Early Childhood Education at United Way for Southeastern Michigan
How deep is the skepticism pool now? First, I state that high school turnaround begins at birth and now I go off and claim that the region’s economic vitality is determined by early childhood experiences. It’s understandable for you to pooh-pooh my position, but bear with me at least until the end of this blog.
States, cities, regions, measure success by how many residents are employed in high-paying, high-skilled jobs. Everyone wants Fortune 500 companies to base their operations in their hometown. They also want the next Mark Zuckerberg, the next Bill Gates or the next Steve Jobs to come from and set up shop in their city, county or state.
That desire is palpable here in Metro Detroit and Michigan. Governor Rick Snyder was elected – on a landslide – because of his vision that Michigan was entering “an era of innovation that transforms our society into a vibrant source of innovators and entrepreneurs who can compete in the global economy.”
Great, so we all agree! The way to transform a city, a region, a state, is to create an environment for companies and entrepreneurs to take root and grow. Unfortunately, I can guarantee you that the various government agencies, civic groups and thought leaders that are considering this opportunity, are not coming to the conclusion that “we should focus on preparing young children, birth to age 5, for lifelong success.”
And that is a missed opportunity.
If you asked the CEOs and entrepreneurs of companies of what they were looking for when hiring talent, how do you think they would answer? Nine times out of ten, employers would answer: “I need someone who can communicate, can problem solve, can work collaboratively.” That’s what Tony Wagner, the Harvard-based education expert and author of The Global Achievement Gap, found out when he conducted surveys and interviews with employers of companies representing wide ranging industries.
I bet you thought the answer would be the greatest talent need is for employee s with technical (math – science) degrees. Me too.
Josh Linkner, founder of ePrize, a local 21st century enterprise, says, “The world has changed dramatically over the last few years, and a new set of critical skills has emerged as the currency for success: creativity, original thought, and imagination. These are the only functions that can’t be outsourced. In today’s ultra-competitive, incredibly complex environment, creative problem-solving trumps rote memorization. Fresh ideas beat rigid processes.”
Okay. So, if we know then that the greatest opportunity for economic success is through companies and entrepreneurs requiring 21st century skills, then how do we as a community support that environment?
90% of the brain is developed by the time we turn 4 years old. It means that early childhood, birth to age 5, is the best time – albeit the only time – to establish the skills we need to be successful, in school and in life.
So, let’s go.
Our conduit, our facilitators, our champions – for this economic success – are the parents, providers and teachers who have the greatest influence over a child’s future success. They must understand and practice positive, nurturing, language-rich relationships with the children in their lives.
United Way for Southeastern Michigan is helping to ensure that environment through the Early Learning Communities program, which provides training, networking and resource opportunities aimed at improving the knowledge and practice of parents and caregivers to prepare their children for lifelong success. We are measuring and monitoring our progress through evaluation. We are refining our strategy with input from our parent and caregivers involved.
I know it sounds crazy. Economic success relies on how we prepare our youngest and our most vulnerable. But we know that skills beget skills and that motivation begets motivation. We must build the right foundation for economic success.
It starts at birth. It starts now.
The Governor knows it. United Way and our stakeholders know it. I invite you to join us in our effort to support the era of innovation, where our economy is transformed by innovators and entrepreneurs. You can start by commenting below with your feedback.
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