At a book reception on June 22, 2010, guests had the pleasure of hearing from Ellen Galinsky, president and founder of the Families and Work Institute in New York City and author of Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills All Children Need.

The event -- hosted by the New America Foundation's Early Education Initiative and Workforce and Family Program – provided nuggets of new ideas for supporting young children that spanned education, domestic policy, child development, parenting, and cognitive science.  In introducing Galinsky, New America’s Lisa Guernsey described Galinsky’s book as a call for better policies to 1) support parents, 2) prepare and fairly compensate teachers of young children and 3) detect delays and intervene early when children are falling behind. (Read her full remarks in this blog post.)

One of Galinsky's key points was that we -- educators, parents, and policymakers -- have to find a way to "rekindle the fire in a child's eyes," to harness and maintain the curiosity and drive to learn that so clearly compels them in their earliest years. By drawing on lessons from the latest research on brain development and developmental psychology, Galinsky painted a picture of how to help children develop skills that sustain that drive to learn, instead of letting it fade away by the time they are students in school. She punctuated her remarks with fascinating videos and descriptions of scientists' experiments in baby labs.

The New America Foundation appreciates the support of the Foundation for Child Development, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation and the A.L. Mailman Family Foundation.