Early childhood education is an example of a system that isn’t working, despite everyone’s best intentions. Some of the foremost authorities on child development and education are already stressing the need for an evolutionary perspective. The Evolution Institute brought them together in a workshop held at the University of Miami on November 14-16, 2008, followed by a public roundtable discussion on November 17, 2008. The workshop was co-hosted by William Scott Green, Senior Vice Provost of the University of Miami, and Isaac Prilleltensky, Dean of UM’s School of Education.

Understanding our evolved abilities to learn and teach is essential if we wish to design maximally effective educational environments.

For a short summary of our findings, read Learning from Mother Nature About Teaching Our Children: Ten Simple Truths About Childhood Education From an Evolutionary Perspective (PDF).

For more information, view the videos of the workshop presentations. Click on the names of the speakers for access to their websites and scientific publications.

The EI is now working with the participants to implement the recommendations that emerged from the workshop. Contact the Directors if you wish to become involved in this initiative.

Participants

Daniel Berch
Dr. Berch is the new associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education. (More…) Formerly, he was Associate Chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NIH). He is an authority on children’s numerical cognition, mathematical learning disabilities, and spatial information processing, and has written about the educational implications of evolutionary theory with respect to the design of effective instructional practices. He is the senior editor of Why is math so hard for some children? The nature and origins of mathematical learning difficulties and disabilities (with M.M.M. Mazzocco, Paul H. Brookes 2007) and of Sex chromosome abnormalities and human behavior: Psychological studies (with B.G. Bender, AAAS/Westview 1990). (Hide)

Tony Biglan
Dr. Biglan is a Senior Scientist at Oregon Research Institute, Director of the Center on Early Adolescence, and past President of the Society for Prevention Research. (More…) He has been doing research for the last 25 years on the prevention of adolescent problem behaviors, including numerous experimental evaluations of interventions to prevent tobacco, other drug use, high-risk sexual behavior, reading failure, and aggressive social behavior. He is author of Helping Adolescents at Risk (with P.A. Brennan, S.L. Foster, and H.D. Holder, Guildford 2003) and Changing Cultural Practices: A Contextualist Framework for Intervention Research (Context, 1995).(Hide)

David Bjorklund
Dr.Bjorklund is Professor of Psychology at Florida Atlantic University. (More…) His research interests are in the areas of cognitive development and evolutionary developmental psychology. He serves as editor of the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology and is author of Why Youth is Not Wasted on the Young: Immaturity in Human Development (Blackwell, 2007) and Children’s Thinking: Cognitive Development and Individual Differences (Wadsworth, 2005), Origins of the Social Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and Child Development (with Bruce Ellis, Guilford, 2004), and The Origins of Human Nature: Evolutionary Developmental Psychology (with Anthony Pellegrini, APA, 2001). (Hide)

Bruce Ellis
Dr. Ellis is Professor of Family Studies and Human Development and the John & Doris Norton Endowed Chair in Fathers, Parenting, and Families at the University of Arizona. (More…) His research uses evolutionary theory as a framework for studying gene-environment interactions during development, especially with respect to sexual development and child stress reactivity. He employs a variety of methodologies, including descriptive longitudinal work, behavioral observation, laboratory assessment of biological reactivity to stressors, experimental manipulations, direct interviews, and questionnaire measures using self- and peer-reports. The overarching theoretical framework that organizes his research is Evolutionary Developmental Psychology, as outlined in his book co-authored with David Bjorklund (cited below). (Hide)

Dennis Embry
Dr. Embry is a scientist-entrepreneur who is president of PAXIS Institute in Tucson, AZ. (More…)He has developed large, population-level behavior-change projects and studies for injury control in New Zealand, violence prevention in America, military deployments during the Gulf War, and tobacco control in multiple states with experimental designs. He is presently developing statewide initiatives for child abuse and multi-problem behavior prevention for the state of Florida, Alaska and other states. He was the first author of a $50 million plan for Wyoming funded by its legislature. His scholarly writing focuses on social change applied to large population-level change— integrating brain, behavioral, and evolutionary factors. He is a former National Research Advisory Council Senior Fellow in the Commonwealth, recipient of the science to practice award in 2006 by the Society for Prevention Research, and author of multiple manuals and training efforts for social change. He is currently preparing a new popular book and TV program for PBS entitled, “Youthanasia: How modern culture is slowly killing our youth and what can be done.” (Hide)

David Geary
Dr. Geary is Curators’ Professor of Psychology at the University of Missouri. (More…) He is a cognitive developmental psychologist with interests in mathematical learning and in evolution. His books include The Origin of Mind: Evolution of Brain, Cognition, and General Intelligence (APA, 2005), Male, female: The evolution of human sex differences (APA, 1998), and Children’s Mathematical Development (APA, 1994). He was Chair of the Learning Processes task group of the President’s National Mathematics Panel and is lead investigator on a longitudinal study of children’s mathematical development and learning abilities. Among many distinctions are the Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Research and Creative Activity in the Social and Behavioral Sciences (1996), a scientific MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health, and an appointment by President Bush to serve a three-year term on the National Board of Directors for the Institute for Education Sciences (U.S. Department of Education). (Hide)

Peter Gray
Dr. Gray is Research Professor of Psychology at Boston College and author of Psychology, one of the main introductory textbooks, currently in its 5th edition. (More…) His textbook is one of the first to approach psychology as a whole from an evolutionary perspective. His past research concerned the nature of mammalian motivational mechanisms and his current research on childhood education and play was initially motivated by his son’s unsatisfactory public school experience, which caused Peter to investigate alternative schooling practices modeled after traditional societies and evolutionary theory. Recent publications include “Playing in the Zone of Proximal Development: Qualities of Self-Directed Age Mixing Between Adolescents and Young Children at a Democratic School (with Jay Feldman, American Journal of Education, 110, 108-145. 2004). Peter writes a weekly blog on the Psychology Today site. The series is entitled Freedom to Learn: Play, Curiosity, and Education. (Hide)

David Sloan Wilson
Dr. Wilson is SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University. (More…) He applies evolutionary theory to all aspects of humanity in addition to the rest of life, both in his own research and as director of EvoS, a unique campus-wide evolutionary studies program that recently received NSF funding to expand into a nationwide consortium. His books include Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society (Chicago, 2002) and Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin’s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives (Bantam, 2007). Wilson’s background makes him ideally suited to direct the Evolution Institute. (Hide)