Small Talk: Big Ideas About Little Learners 

Season 1, Episode 2: The Power of Play: Kathy Hirsh-Pasek

TRANSCRIPT

(Music + children playing sounds) 

NARRATOR: You’re listening to Small Talk: Big Ideas About Little Learners, brought to you by NAEYC, the National Association for the Education of Young Children. As we celebrate our centennial year, we’re diving into conversations that matter now – to little learners and the big people who show up for them, bringing you stories of struggle, inspiration, and hope for our children’s future.

MICHELLE KANG: Hello, I'm NAEYC CEO Michelle Kang. Welcome to Small Talk. Today's episode is about a fascinating topic that young children as well as their parents, caregivers, and educators know well: the enormous power of play. Not just because playing brings discovery, connection, and pure joy, but because playing is how children learn best, especially young children whose brains are developing faster from birth to age 8 than at any other time in their lives. 

The evidence has been documented for decades and we're learning more all the time. I've invited Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, an author and professor of psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Kathy has written a lot about the power of play, including a chapter in NAEYC’s book on developmentally appropriate practice. 

Kathy's newest initiative, called Playful Learning Landscapes, reimagines and redesigns city parks and public spaces to transform them into places of scientific exploration, social interaction, and yes, play. Kathy, welcome to Small Talk. 

KATHY HIRSH-PASEK: I am so excited to play with you! 

MICHELLE: Great. Thank you so much for being here. Let's start with the big picture. Why is play so important, especially for babies, toddlers, and young children? What is the science telling us? 

KATHY: Well, here's the most amazing epiphany. So, you know, you sit and you read these thousands and thousands of articles that really, nobody wants to read. You know, they're like the scientific arguments that often put people to sleep, and one day, I wake up and go, “Oh my God, look at that! The very characteristics that define how the human brain learns map directly onto the characteristics of how we define play.” I mean, that's stunning, right? We learn best when we're active, not passive, when we're engaged, not distracted. We learn best when somethings meaningful, not when it isn't. We learn best when it's socially interactive and we're learning with another person or teacher. We learn best when it's iterative and we learn it in multiple different ways, and we learn best when we're having fun. So, that’s crazy. Then how come so much of school is passive and distracting and sometimes not meaningful? I mean, we could change all that and it could be amazing to have joyful schools, joyful teaching, and deeper learning. 

MICHELLE: What was the reaction when people first started understanding the research and making the connection between play and brain development? 

KATHY: Well, I think the most important thing to understand, and you know we don't tend to understand this, is that faster is not always better. Now those of you who cooks know that that's true. Fast food is often not as good for you as the stuff that takes just a little more time. But there's this wonderful study, in fact just came out 2025, by Gullich, and this study asked the question, how do you get to be world class? Now, one way you might get to be world class is you say, I know what to do. I am gonna start my kid on piano at age 3, or I'm gonna start my kid in soccer lessons at age 4 or 5. And you would think that if you did that, wow, at the end of the day, we would have a better soccer player and a better musician. Ah. But that's not what the data tell us. What the data tell us is that the kids who meandered for a while and tried out a lot of stuff, yes, you heard it, played a little bit, they’re the ones who figure out what they want to be and then they turn out later to be the ones who are world class. I thought that was so cool. 

Now we've tried putting kids in academic environments when they're 3 and 4, because surely by the time they get to kindergarten, they're gonna be the ones who are smarter, right? Uh, doesn't turn out that way. Turns out that in reading and math, if you start it really early, it's not necessarily that you're gonna be able to tell when they're in kindergarten which one started early and which one started a little bit late. Oh, that's a problem for the theory. 

OK, so parents, teachers, (exhales)  take a breath and relax. When the kid is playing with blocks, they're actually learning spatial terms – above, in, on top of -- those, predict out to later math skills. Would you believe? And when kids are telling you a good story, that predicts out to reading even better than mastering phonics when you're 4. 

MICHELLE: That’s such a great example, Kathy, because I will sometimes go into early learning programs, visiting them, and have the opportunity to hear parents who are touring an early learning program for the first time. And their questions often center, especially if they're not understanding how play is how children learn, when the learning happens because of a misunderstanding of what they see. There are competencies that are connected to not only literacy, but children developing self-regulation and cognitive and social competencies. How does play support learning in those areas? 

KATHY: Play is actually one of the best ways you can learn to have impulse control because you have to take turns. So you go outside and Johnny's on the swing. Well, you really want that swing, and sadly, you can't have it. So you have two choices. You can clobber Johnny, or the teacher can be brilliant, or the parent can be brilliant, and say, “Count to 15, and then you get the swing and then Johnny gets it again after the next 15.” That's how we learn these skills. Believe it or not, a game like Simon Says, do you remember Simon Says, or Red Light, Green Light, these are teaching what we call -- the fancy term for it is executive function skills -- but in real plain language, it means we're helping kids build attention and memory and flexibility, which is so important, and to learn how to have impulse control. 

And it turns out that these are some of the best predictors of how a kid will learn when they enter into formal schooling. So I know it sounds crazy to say that playing Red Rover and Red Light, Green Light and Mother, May I? is the way to go, but I promise you, it really is the key to helping our kids develop the skills they need. 

MICHELLE: Such a great example! Kathy, as you know, NAEYC defines developmentally appropriate practice as promoting each child's optimal development and learning through a strengths-based, play-based approach. How does this focus on learning through play support a child's development, and what does this look like in early learning settings? Can you give some examples?  

KATHY: You know, I would say absolutely and it's everywhere. Let me start with the biggest issue, and that is, as adults, sometimes we lose that childhood ability to see what's really going on right before our eyes. And, in our new book, Einstein Never Used Flashcards, the purpose of the book is to help us see what the scientists see in our own kids, to marvel at the incredible things they're doing all the time. So let me just give you a couple of examples. You know those kids, they go out and they gather leaves. Well, you're like, ugh, I'm going to be late for school if they sit here and they gather leaves, so go 10 minutes early, put the clothes out the night before and let them gather the leaves, because I know you're not sure of this, but they're doing a math experiment. What they're doing is learning about the patterns of different kinds of leaves. And then sometimes they sort the patterns and they sort those leaves into, oh, that's as spruce tree. That's a birch tree. Well, that categorization, creating sets of objects, believe it or not, that's preparing them for learning about sets and number. They are learning math.  

And if you really want to know how much math your kid knows, go out, your kid is 3 and they have an older brother who's 7. The older brother gets two scoops of ice cream at the ice cream store. The little one is only going to get one. I assure you, they know about addition, subtraction, and mathematics when they go into that ice cream store. 

MICHELLE: So when we say children learn best through play, what do you think is most misunderstood about that phrase? 

KATHY: I believe people think of play as frivolity. They do not think of play as the way human brains learn. And if we can help people see that’s a human brain at work there. Look what's going on in the leaves. Looks what's going on at the ice cream store. 

Let me give you an example that I'm going to take from Columbia 'cause it was so powerful. I'm in this place and I go to a school and, I kid you not, I’m walking into the school and there's chickens all on the outside of the school and there are ladies picking bananas and it’s somebody's house and an older gentleman standing outside, and the school, such that it is, is inside with one marvelous, amazing, incredible teacher, OK? 

And she wants these kids to learn a little bit about number, and the kids are maybe 4, 4 and 5. And I said, “Do you have a piece of paper?” She said, “Oh, no. No, our school doesn't have paper.” I said, “OK, do you have a stick?” She goes, oh, she actually gave me chalk, and I took the chalk and on the ground, which was hardened mud, you know, I drew a number line, the number line is just like a line and it goes from, let's say, 1 to 10. OK, and made little boxes. So there were 10 little boxes, and then I just stopped. I just stood up and I watched to see what the kids would do. OK. These were kids who had nothing, right? And what did they do? They went into the number line and started to jump, the first one said, “I jumped farther than you did.” Well, how would you know? Only if you know the two is greater than one. Right?  

Then a group of kids went out and they started collecting rocks and leaves, and they put four leaves in the four and five rocks in the five box, and I thought, look at the number skills these kids have! Now the teacher's job was just to highlight it and say, “Look what you did!” Now isn't that a much cooler way than to have a worksheet where you practice the number line? So that's what we mean. If you see it, you can make the world out of it. There are stories everywhere around us and they build literacy and imagine what you could say about that falling leaf: “How's that leaf feel? It's going away from all its friends on the tree. What's that about?” 

MICHELLE: Well, you touched on this in, in your story, Kathy. We, of course at NAEYC are talking a lot about how quality early learning environments happen because of prepared educators, educators who understand how to foster a child's development to bring out through a strength-based approach and a play-based approach their learning. So can you talk a little bit more about the educator's role? 

KATHY: Well, I think the most important thing for me is first to celebrate the educators. 

MICHELLE: Yes! I love that you said that, Kathy. Let’s celebrate them! 

KATHY: I mean, I have always wondered when you think about them as essential workers. Come on, these wonderful human beings are taking care of the next generation of civilization. These amazing human beings are building the foundation for kids who are gonna learn and be the adults of the future. Tell me for any second why finance people make more money than they do because they're not as important to society. They just move money around and we create better humans. 

OK. With that as a prelude, we see things as teachers, and can be trained to see things as teachers, that a lot of other people don't see. And if we can use that magic in the classroom, learn how to help share that with parents, then they can see it too. And the more that they see the magic around play -- and it is magical -- you are seeing literally a mind at work. You are looking, as Ellen Galinsky always says, at the fire in the eyes of a child. Wow. Take advantage of that, and when you see it, fly with it and know what it means. I'll give you one example because nobody thinks of babies as having that fire in their eyes. So my youngest son just had a baby. The baby's now six months old. 

MICHELLE: Oh, congratulations! 

KATHY: Oh, it's so great. And, we're on the phone one day and baby Sophie's maybe just over four months old and baby Sophie has this toy that she thinks is, you know, like, it's the toy of the toys, OK? Fleecy or something's its name. And I see her open her hand for the first time like this to grab onto a ring that's on this toy. What's involved with that? Let's just think about it. That kid has to see the ring, process the ring, and know to grab the ring, you actually have to open your hand so your thumb’s in one place and the graspers and other fingers are in the other. That's an amazing achievement! A good teacher, a teacher who sees that, doesn't just go, “Wow, she grabbed a ring.” OK, a good teacher says, and I said on the phone, “Hey Mikey, get something thinner. Get something thicker and see what she does.” Now what happened in this example I just gave you for a baby? 

These high-quality teachers who are NAEYC-accredited, what happens in those schools? They then give them the thicker ring and the thinner ring, and they watch as the baby adapts. We create guided play so that we know what the next step is on the stair to learning, and we provide it for the kids and we do it with everything. It's the person who looked at that number line example and says, “Wow, you discovered four, and that four is bigger than three. The kids discovered it, explored it, and the teacher commented on it. Amazingness! 

MICHELLE: It is amazing how they are doing that for every individual child that is in their program. One of the most joyful things that I love about seeing programs is seeing how that shows up of an educator recognizing the context from which that child is coming from, and, in particular, thinking about the different social and cultural contexts that children come in from different families, and I think about that a lot, even from my own experiences. I'm that daughter of immigrants and I think about what those preschool teachers, when I came into an environment, how they recognize that, you know, I had language challenges because English wasn't my first language, but they recognized that and supported me in the context of learning. So what are some of the ways that educators should be thinking about how to approach play and learning? 

KATHY: Well, I, I think the most important thing, I think high-quality schools do this, is, you know, know your customer. It sounds silly, but when you have kids in a preschool, they're not just kids in a preschool, you know what I mean? They’re families in a preschool. They're families who come with all their rich experiences. They come with their holidays; they come with their cooking traditions. We can invite the parents to come in and do a recipe with the kids, something, tell them how they made it. Bring in pictures of wherever you've come from. Make a child proud. 

When we talk about, you know, language. I can say so clearly from the research out there that more than one language is not only the norm across 70 percent of the world, but it is better for your kids. Believe it or not, if you are lucky enough be bilingual, you have to code switch back and forth. What does that mean? It means that when your grandmother comes, you have to speak one language. When a kid from school comes over, you have to switch to the other language. That means you have to control the impulse to speak language A, so that you can speak language B. Do you realize the cognitive effort that goes into that, the mental brain building? So in those schools where you have different cultures, teachers, celebrate it. Celebrate it. Celebrate it, and create activities that not only honor those cultures, but allow us to play within it. 

MICHELLE: You know, back when I was young and my parents, you know, initially brought us to an early learning program, the research had not yet shown up encouraging the use of another language other than English was actually positive and helpful and not harmful. But at the time, it was seen as harmful. So I was, you know, I was told stop. My parents said, “We have to stop speaking Korean to you because you have to start speaking English because otherwise you'll never be able to speak English.” And now we know from the research that that's not true. 

KATHY: You know, we tend to look at, sometimes, these young kids and we think, what do they have to offer? You know, especially when they're babies, they're not talking, they're just cooing and gooing and like, what are you going to do with them? But the truth is, you can even have a conversation with a 10-week-old baby. So, I mean, some people knew that. Some people don't know it. Certainly, people in high-quality environments know it all the time. And then you find out in the research, this is only 10 years old, would you believe, that those back-and-forth conversations where we build on what the kid has said builds brain structure. Let me repeat that 'cause it's so weird: building brain structure and connectivity. Whoa. 

And we can play with that. We can play 20 Questions, right? Try to guess who I am. All sorts of games. All right, now the next thing is, let's just take math. We now have tons of data showing that when kids playing with blocks, I know blocks. You'd never think, right, or when kids are playing, as I mentioned, these simple games like Simon Says, and Red Light, Green Light. It seems crazy that people like me have studies on this, but they're literally published studies to show that this makes a difference for how well kids learn. Scientific data, OK? Coloring. Coloring is good for kids. The arts are insanely good for young kids. All these playful things. Let me give you another one: When you read a book, teachers, have the kid act it out. They may not be perfect, but they're taking different perspectives and when they take those different perspectives, wow, what can come out of that? 

And let me give you just one other example. This came from complete laziness in my house. I hate getting up in the morning. 

MICHELLE: (Laughing) OK. I learned something new about you today, Kathy. I didn't know that. 

KATHY: It's, like, one of the reasons I became a professor. I didn't have to get outta jeans and I could get up late in the morning, all right? So it was good until I had kids, right? And, oh my God, what are they doing up at 6 in the morning? That's insane. So they used to come into our room and we’d play a game. Our game went like this: “When you wake up in the morning and you're lying in bed, close your eyes and open them, you're somewhere else instead.” And the kids get to tell me where we are. We can be in a forest, we can be in Africa meeting new animals. We could be at a circus. And all of a sudden, the kids are telling stories they're making up marvelous things that they wouldn't have known to talk about otherwise, and we're building world knowledge. 

MICHELLE: You have brought up so many examples that remind me of a shirt that I've seen. I'm sure you've seen it too. Or a postcard or a poster that says, “Early childhood educators are brain architects” or “brain builders.” 

KATHY: Yeah. 

MICHELLE: I have to bring up a topic that I'm sure lots of folks are always curious to ask you. There's a lot of talk in the media about digital media, about screen time, about AI. I would love to hear your thoughts about how we keep up with this rapidly changing landscape and how do we make sure that we are centering what is best for young children? 

KATHY: This is a critical issue of our time. I’m not sure, just saying you can never see it is the answer. If it's well-made, right? If it's of high quality, it can introduce us to stuff that otherwise we wouldn't be introduced to, and we can prompt conversations after that if, if, and only if we end up watching with them. Not instead, you know, plopping them and making it a passive experience. We know they love it. We know they love it, which is why right now they have virtually a part-time job watching television. OK. But they love chocolate cake too. And yet when they come home, we don't say, “We know you love it, so you don't have to eat any veggies and you don't have to eat any protein. Just have the chocolate cake.” No responsible parent would do that. So the answer is quality on screens. 

MICHELLE: One of the things that comes up sometimes from educators is, you know, how they can help support families and parents in understanding how to bring play from early learning environments to play at home. What should they be doing as they think about how they can best support their children in these early years? 

KATHY: Obviously, the best thing we can do is love them. 

MICHELLE: Yes. 

KATHY: The second-best thing we can do is talk to your teacher because we all have the same great thing in mind: loving your kid and helping your kid thrive. That's A Number 1. Beyond that, it's to learn to see what they see. So I've advised people during parents night to actually change it around and say things like, put two buckets and shovels at the front of the room, and just say, “What do you see? What do you see?” Parents will tell you, “I see a back and a shovel," and you go, “Oh. I actually see a math game.” OK? Take balloons or beach balls, bounce 'em up and down. Make two or three teams, depending on how many parents you have, and see which group actually gets the most bounces. Have them count, OK? Have them compare. And at the end of the day, you say to the parents, “Oh, did you enjoy our STEM activity?" 

A really simple game you can do at a parent's night. It's incredible. You do a thing where they have to follow you: "When I clap once, you clap once. When I clap twice, you clap twice. Now what I want you to do, are you ready? This is the hard part: When I clap once, you clap twice. When I clap twice, you clap once.” You'll see that hesitation just before they do it as they do it. “Did you feel that that is executive function at work? That's impulse control and that correlates to later math and reading scores when they get into school.” “Really?” “Yeah, and that's what we work on.” 

MICHELLE: Kathy, what you've just shared of bringing adults into the play reminds us, frankly, that some of the things that you talked about at the very beginning of this podcast are good for adults too. 

KATHY: Yeah. 

MICHELLE: Play is how children learn, but play is good for how we all learn and how we all engage. It doesn't just stop in the early years, although it's most formative in the early years in terms of impact. 

KATHY: Yeah. 

MICHELLE: Could you share a little bit more about incorporating play in all different ways, not just for young children, but also for adults and communities, through the Playful Learning Landscapes project that you've been working on? 

KATHY: Yeah, absolutely. Well, first I'm just going to say every moment is an opportunity to have a good, playful moment with a kid. Literally, you know, I used to gamify a lot -- I'm not saying everyone would want to do it, but I'll just give you one example from my kids were young and then I can't wait to tell you about Playful Learning Landscapes. 

One of the things that I found really, really tough, you know, with my, one of my kids, maybe two of them, is that, oh, they were nose pickers, you know? And how do you get a kid to stop picking their nose? Now you can do what most people do. They say, “Don't pick your nose, that's really annoying.” You, like, go off on a big thing. In my house, we did something different, OK? We had, we had nose-picking time. Now nose-picking time was 7:15. 

MICHELLE: (Laughing) Every day? 

KATHY: Yes, 7:15 in the morning and 7:15 in the afternoon or in the evening. 

MICHELLE: OK. 

KATHY: And my kids would look at me, they would, you know, like when they started picking their nose and it wasn't 7:15, I'd say, “Well it's not 7:15." And they'd stop immediately, and then we got to 7:15, OK, it is very hard for a kid to spend a whole minute picking their nose. I've learned this. And you wouldn't believe how successful it is. My kids stopped picking their nose. So, what I'm saying is it's amazing what you can do. 

Or you are standing in a store, you know, and you need another floor. Which elevator will it be? And then you get into guessing, is it 1, 2, 3, or 4. Why do they call it that? What floors? Alright, so how many floors will it be? How long does it wait until the elevator gets here? These are all things that you do every single day. Every single day you are walking out, right? Build it into your moments, everyday moments.  

That's actually why we did Playful Learning Landscapes. If it's true, which it is, that kids spend 80 percent of their waking time outside of school, then what should we be doing outside the school environment that will help parents and kids play games? So we went to bus stops. Our first thing was at bus stops. Oh my God, it was amazing. We transformed an everyday bus stop into a playful learning bus stop. We had a story time game where you walked on these little hills and there were icons, and depending on which way you walked, you told different stories. We had this wonderful wire grid. And when the sunlight came down the wire grid, you were playing a Highlights game. Remember those Highlights games where you had find the apples and the oranges? 

MICHELLE: Yes, I loved those. Those were my favorites. 

KATHY: Yes. So now you could do it right at the bus stop. It was so amazing. So we had a lot of things at the bus stop. We had a game like Hop Scotch where you had to put one foot where there were two and two feet where there was one, learning executive function skills. One of my favorites was most recent. The city of Philadelphia actually invited us to help transform affordable housing. Our process always starts with speak with the community, the science, and what the community sees for their whole neighborhood. What are they gonna get out of it? Learning how to collaborate and community and have strong content, critical thinking, creative innovation, and confidence and perseverance. OK, so grit and perseverance is our last part. Everybody needs those skills. And in a high-quality child care, that's what you're getting. You're not just getting math and reading, guys. You're getting what business leaders say are skills they need for the future. OK? 

Putting that aside, we go into the affordable housing. We said, “What do you want for your kids?” And the families, kids and adults, there said, “You know, we want our kids to feel like superheroes.” 

Now, affordable housing is usually built in a way that looks very functional. You go into this door that's made of, you know, it's made of metal, kind of looks like you're entering a jail-like thing that's, you know, safe and the walls are bare. And the public spaces, if they're green, they're there, but they're not well maintained. We said, "Enough of that." So on the door, we put what the families wanted to see and the families got to check and make sure it was what they wanted: “POW! WOW! You're entering the world of superheroes.” The walls became superhero walls. We put games where kids got to build their own superheroes, and at the end of the day, the families are now outside playing games, building superheroes, and the kids feel good about themselves. 

So time passes, six months later Philadelphia City Council invites us to talk about this, and as part of it, we thought, if we mean it, it can't just be our voices, it has to be community voices. So the man from the affordable housing where they did the superheroes, he said, “Nobody ever heard me before. No one ever heard my community before. I now live in a home. And the home isn't just affordable housing. It’s a place where superheroes grow.” 

MICHELLE: What a great story! Thank you so much for sharing that, Kathy. So Kathy, we've been talking about play and so many people who are listening are ones who know how important having high-quality early learning experiences are, and for decades, NAEYC and other organizations have been working to elevate the research as well as the expertise of early childhood educators in supporting high-quality early learning experiences, and play-based learning. How do we convince policymakers and the public to support the field and to invest in early learning for all children? 

KATHY: Isn't that the million-dollar question? It's astounding really astounding that the United States is among the worst in the industrialized world in supporting young kids. That's astounding, right? It says all over that we care about families and then we don't. OK, so we’ve gotta do something about it. The data, to me, are very clear. As I look longitudinally, and by the way, looking at high-quality early childcare all the way up to when kids are 26 years of age, and we find that they are more successful, they do better in school. They don't get married as early. They don't have as many behavior problems. You're talking long-term effects and all the data that I know of suggests that it is not only financially, dollar-for-dollar, worth it for a society to invest in its young kids. I mean, if you were a business and you could get, even if it's not $13 back for every dollar, say it's $8 in some of the newest research, and you could have brain building with high-quality care. And I tell you, your kids are gonna be better prepared for the workforce of tomorrow, do you invest in that business? You sure as heck do. 

MICHELLE: Those are good numbers. That's a really good return. 

KATHY: Aren't they good returns? And, and you know, economists have looked at this time and time again, so get over yourself. There is no way. You know, I don't know where we got the idea that somehow, you know, everybody knows about education but educators. Well what a lie that is. You know, you wouldn't let somebody who you appoint as a governor be a dentist who's gonna give you a filling for your cavity, do don't tell me you can put anyone in a child care setting. You can't. High-quality childcare demands that you have that lens, that ability to see the magic in a child and to help every child grow. And I challenge every one of you to come into a childcare center for two hours. I'm not even asking them to take the whole day. OK? Come in for two hours and look at what our high-quality people do. I challenge you see if you can do it, and then tell me what you learned. 

MICHELLE: I completely agree with you, Kathy. To me, there is nothing more impactful than being able to see what happens every day, that, frankly, some days, is miraculous, given the conditions that they're working under. We don't have enough investment into the system. Most educators are not supported with the level of respect and compensation and support that the work that they do demands, and I love this. I'm hearing something right now: the two-hour challenge. 

KATHY: I love it. I love it. I mean, I just, tell me, tell me how hard it is. You know, tell me what you learned and I bet you there'll be new respect, totally new respect, for what these people are doing with your grandchildren and what they're doing with your children. And if you don't walk out of their blown away, and then just take it as a business, a business where you can get this return of investment is worth your time and energy so make it a priority. 

MICHELLE: Thank you, Kathy. Any final words for our audience? This has been such a great conversation. 

KATHY: You know, I just one more, which is, don't tell me you believe in families and kids if you don't. Don't make it a message if you're not gonna put your money where your mouth is. I'm so tired of hearing it. I’m so tired of hearing you care, and if you really cared, you’d support, you know, the little kids in your society who are gonna grow up to be the leaders in the next generation. 

MICHELLE: Kathy, it has been so great catching up with you. Thank you so much for joining me on Small Talk. 

KATHY: Thank you. This has been a pleasure, as always. 

(Music) 

NARRATOR: Small Talk: Big Ideas About Little Learners is brought to you by NAEYC, the National Association for the Education of Young Children, celebrating its 100th year of advocating for little learners and the early childhood education field. To learn more about today’s guests, read the transcript, or listen to other episodes of Small Talk, visit NAEYC.org/SmallTalk or find us – and subscribe – wherever you get your podcasts.