Imagine for a moment what our community would look like 18 years from now if, today, we joined together and made a commitment to ensure that every child is ‘born learning’. 

Visualize a community where every new and first time parent understands the importance of being their child’s first teacher and is equipped with the tools to educate their child within minutes of birth and through the first four years of life.

When, Becca, my second daughter was born, I was in the birthing room. Within five minutes the nurse handed her to me. I looked down at her and she stared up at me. My first response was to stick out my tongue. She responded by doing the same to me. ‘Ah ha’, I thought, ‘she is mimicking my behavior. I am her first teacher.’

Two days later, my wife handed me the book, ‘Good Night Moon’, and told me to sit down and read it to Becca. Ignoring my initial reaction that she would not understand a word I was saying, I obediently put her on my lap and began pointing to the pictures and describing the story to her. After three days of repeating this exercise, I said the word, ‘bunny’ and she pointed to the bunny in the book. She did the same by pointing to the ‘moon’, ‘mouse’, and ‘cat’. Indeed, I was her first teacher and she was becoming an attentive student.

Children are born learning. Their parents, whether they realize it or not, are their first and best teachers.         

There are, indeed, significant benefits to investments made in early - birth to four - education. Among the most obvious are reduced rates of child abuse and neglect, lower health care costs –throughout life, dramatically better results in school, and greatly enhanced opportunities for employment.

On the evening of Thursday, March 19^th at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, I will discuss in greater detail the idea that every new parent should accept and embrace the role as their child’s first and best teacher.

I will make the claim that when a community comes together to address a specific issue, it can create significant, long-lasting change for the better. What at first appears to cost lots of time and money, could conceivably become a new ‘social norm’ for a community and ultimately save enormous amounts of money, reduce a community’s level of anxiety, and address multiple social issues.

There are many intractable problems facing Sheboygan County, high rates of teenage suicide, an epidemic of heroin usage, a growing achievement gap between those living in poverty and those with means, and a workforce challenge of 2,000 job openings with not enough trained workers to fill them. 

What if we had a solution that could have a profound, positive effect on all these problems and maybe even prevent them from occurring in the first place?

On Thursday, March 19, I will discuss just such a program; indeed, it is one that already exists in the community and, if embraced on a community-wide scale could ensure that newborn children are nurtured, that proper nutrition and healthcare are provided, social skills learned, and brain growth and development maximized.

I will highlight two other communities’ success stories in the area of birth to four, parent-child education.

In 2004, Seattle, Washington took one evidence-based program in one location effecting 160 families and expanded it by 2015 to nine agencies in 24 locations affecting 1,600 families per year.

In 2006, Green Bay chose a similar program and expanded from three agencies and 200 families to 40 agencies and 2,500 families in 2015.

If we dare to dream, perhaps we can imagine it is 18 years from now and we are looking back to this very time. All new parents in Sheboygan County are supremely and confidently aware that every new baby is born learning. Every new mom and dad understands it is their most important job in life is to read to, sing to, cuddle, and EDUCATE their new child and that this responsibility begins at birth. Every new parent knows their child’s brain will grow faster between birth and age four than at any time of their life.

Maybe this idea of birth to four education will become the ‘social norm’. We will all look back in amazement and understand there once was a time when not every parent recognized they were the child’s first teacher.

 

Creating Positive, Lasting Change Through Collective Community Impact
March 19, 7 p.m., the John Michael Kohler Arts Center Matrix