On Saturday, April 21, Beginnings School and Child Development Center Founder Dr. Donna Housman spoke on the importance of emotional, cognitive and social early learning for children’s lifelong well-being and success at 2018 China Education Symposium at Harvard Graduate School of Education, entitled “Where We Started, Where We Are Heading.”
In this year’s conference, more than 30 top scholars, practitioners, and policymakers from all over the world gathered at Harvard Graduate School of Education to share their knowledge and expertise with more than 400 attendees including scholars and students from Harvard, MIT, Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, and other top US universities and research institutions. Guests and participants also included researchers, scholars, and practitioners from different education sectors all over the Greater China region.
"I was really struck by the international interest in our emotional, cognitive and social early approach for young children. I think fueling that interest is the growing global recognition of the importance of developing core competencies like emotional competence, empathy and self-regulation and how important it is to work on building that foundation from birth," said Dr. Housman.
In addition to her morning speech, Dr. Housman led an afternoon seminar on early childhood education that was attended by numerous attendees. Other panels addressed International Education, STEAM Education, Higher Education, Rural Education, and Ed Tech and Big Data. In addition to panel discussions, there was also a variety of interactive workshops and activities, such as Education Career Fair, MakerSpace, CES EdStory Talk, Documentary Filming and School Visit.
"Dr. Housman's presentation was a great success," commented Early Childhood Education Panel Manager Jingyi Ke. "Of particular interest seemed to be Dr. Housman's ability to connect the importance of cognitive with social-emotional learning in early childhood education. In China, in particular, social and emotional learning is garnering increasing interest and the popularity of Dr. Housman's presentation was a clear reflection of that."
The annual symposium was the eighth to take place at Harvard Graduate School of Education and was broadcast live to China.
