It’s commonly known that early childhood education is critical for developing comprehension skills that will influence a child’s cognitive abilities and aptitude for learning. Of equal importance, yet seldom recognized, is how early childhood education can influence a child’s future attitude toward academics.
Early childhood education is about more than building cognitive pathways to learning. It’s also about fostering curiosity and a passion for academics at the most impressionable time in a person’s life. The lessons learned at this stage reach far beyond educational and extend into the realm of self esteem and personal development. For children, these lessons will influence their view on academics as well as several other areas of their lives.
Careful consideration must be given to ensure that the needs of children are met during this time. Not all children will respond equally to educational stimuli across the boards. Too much emphasis placed on getting kids “up to speed” can have an adverse effect on their opinion of the learning process. Encouraging children to explore subjects they are naturally drawn to while working closely with them on those they are apprehensive to tackle is a far better option than forcing them to spend unreasonable amounts of time gaining proficiency in areas they may have an aversion to. For areas of deficiency in particular, positive reinforcement will help the child to develop an interested where it might otherwise never come to fruition.
In truth, academic subjects are not at all unlike foods to young children. Getting them to eat vegetables with cheese sauce may be a form of coercion (or at least bribery), but the alternative of forcing them to eat vegetables without it is destined to further reinforce what their taste buds are telling them. While their palate may change over time, lessons learned and habits formed at that age tend to stick.
If handled with care, early childhood education can be an experience that shapes children’s views and gives them the capability to successfully face challenges they will experience as adults, both academically and in life. More so than any other time, a child’s earliest years can greatly affect their adult outcome, which is why it’s impossible to place too much emphasis on the importance of proper early childhood education.
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Well if you are talking about the "supposed" education gap between the US and European countries the stats are a little skewed. Europe has a system where in the 8th grade students take a test to determine if they are going to a traditional secondary school to receive an education to prepare them for college or to a trade secondary school to learn a trade such as plumber, construction worker, etc.
The stats you always see saying we are behind are the European students that are in the university prep secondary schools as opposed to the bulk testing of our every child left behind system. Our students are shown in the tests whether they are going to college or not after High School.
Some misguided but, well intentioned individuals who say we must make college more affordable for everyone do not realize that college is not for everyone and the US needs these students to go into our service and trades because in a society where everyone has a degree it makes that degree worthless. A Bachelors degree today is equal to what a High School diploma was in 1950s.