Over the last two decades the
number of mothers employed outside the home has skyrocketed. As a
result, the number of children under the age of five in child care
settings has grown enormously. Today, over 60 percent of young
children in the U.S. spend much of their day in the care of
non-family members.
Research has shown that these
early formative years are critical ones for the healthy development
of a child. Because of this important stage of development and the
amount of time children spend in child care, early childhood
professionals play an important role in the lives of our young
children. The growing violence in our society has increased the
responsibilities of these teachers; early childhood educators must
be able to handle the four-year-old whose mother has been battered
at home; the three-year-old who resolves conflict by imitating
cartoon characters; the five-year-old who lives in a community where
gun shots ring out every night.
The Partnership to Address
Violence Through Education--or PAVE--was an innovative initiative
that helped prepare early childhood professionals to deal with the
effects of violence on young children. PAVE held its first training
institute in the fall of 1995, where over 70 professionals from
child care centers throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul confronted
the violence they see in their classrooms and communities and
discussed how to create safe, nurturing learning places for
children.
This video describes the PAVE
Institute and its unique approach to helping early childhood
educators deal with the violence that children experience and play
out every day in their classrooms.
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computer (free download)
About
the Video: