Thursday, May 30 at 7 p.m. on Ch. 5.1

Before children learn to talk, it may seem like not much is happening. In fact, from age 0 to 3 is the most important time for brain development. In those first few years of life, 700 new neural connections are formed every second. Young children naturally reach out for interaction. In the absence of responses, their brains don’t form as expected. That can impact their learning and social development.

What do we need to do to ensure all of New Mexico’s children get effective early brain development?

On this month’s Public Square, we talk with experts, educators and advocates, including Ellen Galinsky, founder of Mind in the Making and author of “The Seven Essential Skills Every Child Needs.”

Community leaders include Dan Haggard, deputy director of the Children Youth & Family Department’s Early Childhood Services, Brenda Kofahl, Pre-K program specialist with the Public Education Department and Heather Vaughn, early childhood manager with Albuquerque Public Schools.

Join New Mexico PBS for a PUBLIC SQUARE, where civic dialogue takes center stage. Funding for PUBLIC SQUARE was provided in part by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. PUBLIC SQUARE is hosted & produced by Megan Kamerick.

Public Square, Preventing Child Abuse, Thursday December 27 at 7 p.m. on New Mexico PBS 5.

How can New Mexico combat child abuse? The state had more than 6,500 victims of child abuse and neglect last year and almost half of those victims were 5 years old or younger. The child injury death rate in the state is 1.5 times higher than the national average. In most cases, biological parents caused those deaths.

Yet, experts say child abuse is totally preventable. In this month's Public Square, we talk with doctors, advocates, home visitors and law enforcement about what it would take to make that a reality.

Community leaders include State Senator Mary Jane Garcia, Yolanda A. Berumen-Deines, secretary of the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department, and Jared Rounsville, protective services director for Children, Youth and Families Department.

Join us for Public Square where civic dialogue takes center stage

Generation Justice has decided that September is Early Childhood Awareness Month. We would love to include your important Early Childhood work in our awareness month. Here are some ways that we can collaborate:

 1. Please help distribute our Early Childhood Development/ Little Feet Walk Loud videos . 

 2. Our Generation Justice radio show, every Sunday at 7pm on KUNM, includes a community calendar. Please let us know about your Early Childhood events so we can announce them on our Sunday shows and post them on our website.

 3. On September 30th we will dedicate our full radio hour to Early Childhood Development. Please send us your ideas for possible interviews, information, or discussion topics. 

 4. Let us know if there are any upcoming community gatherings or Early Childhood Development events that we might be able to consider covering.

Our June 28^th Public Square episode will tackle access to quality childcare. As we all know, early childhyood experiences are the key to later success in school and in life.

The neuroscientific research on the early brain is one of the most compelling bodies of evidence for investing in young children. Conveying this message broadly is critical to building support for early childhood policies and programs. Yet it can be difficult to find experts to speak on this topic, or for lay speakers to convey the findings on their own. To address this challenge, ReadyNation, with the help of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, offers a variety of ways for lay speakers to present this data. More information is on the New Mexico Early Childhood Community web site.http://bit.ly/NmWtbB

Reprinted by permission of the author Lynn Olson

All around town there are the blue signs of early childhood education proponents, people here in Deming who believe the key to schools that get A's instead of F's has to be turned before kindergarten.

The idea behind the signs is that pre-schools are now an unarguable necessity. Many children today come from homes where circumstances do not allow them to be raised with the steady parental attention and interaction most received routinely years ago.

While all of society functions much differently this century, children are still the culture's future; what they become is what the country will become.

For the sake not only of each child but for society as a whole today's children must have as sound, healthy and fair a beginning life as most of yesterday's did. The difficulty of life for some children today - absent parents, crowded households, lack of health care, sometimes inadequate food, clothing or even shelter, limited mental stimulation and supervision and scant one-on-one attention - must somehow be overcome by improving their immediate environment.

Children, who for whatever reason, have not been taught in their first few years how to communicate, listen, respect others, and act appropriately in different situations, before they go to kindergarten, are not ready to learn anything more complicated.

Behind from the start they hinder progress for all the children around them because their development level demands the time-consuming attention a two- or three-year old, not a five-year-old, requires. Some youngsters never do catch up, often much later finding solace in gangs, drugs or worse. For these reasons today - and for society tomorrow - enriching, dependable, loving day care or "early education" centers are not a luxury but an indisputable, urgent need.

Yet last year dozens of day-care centers around New Mexico closed for want of funding. As the nation's economy crashed, New Mexico like most other state governments cut social spending to the bone and beyond.

Subsidies to struggling families with young children for day care became unavailable even while requirements that parents work remained. Parents' incomes were not enough to cover living expenses and the full cost of good child care, too. The result was more welfare spending or, often, child neglect.

This week the legislature meets to discuss primarily financial matters. More state budget cuts are possible, as are more reductions to revenue. Funding for child care is again a maybe-maybe-not budget item.

As all the blue yard signs suggest, however, there is another way. New Mexico has a fund of money permanently set aside to prevent the state's ever becoming totally insolvent. The principal of this fund cannot be touched, but part of the interest that it earns supplements budget money for K-12 education and other specifically-listed colleges, prisons, hospitals, etc.

The blue-sign people are asking the legislature to increase the part of interest spent on all those societal necessities just enough to add early education as a listed societal necessity also, and to give it, too, a reliable source of supplemental funding.

Successful early childhood development is indeed the key to better education at all levels.

Turning the key requires a constitutional amendment. As the blue signs say, "Early Education Amendment Voter," people aware of the genuine need and its viable solution are lining up to open the door. They see no danger to the permanent fund nor to the budget but much benefit to individuals and to the state, from now into the future.

For more information contact Lindsay Theo, 505-948-1492, or lindsaytheo@gmail.com, or visit www.nm.aft.org.

To help unlock the money for early education only, contact Deming's State Senator and Chair of the Legislative Finance Committee, The Honorable John Arthur Smith, good and stalwart protector of the permanent fund, its interest and the status quo, at 505-986-4365 or john.smith@nmlegis.com.

Even, maybe especially, the wisest among us can be educated to new ways of thinking when logical, irrefutable facts are presented. In any case, get a blue sign for your yard, 575-544-7522.

Lynn Olson is a Deming resident.