Child development and education of young children

The purpose of this Chapter, and indeed of this book, is to provide an overview of the essentials of child development for teachers of young children. A strong understanding of child development knowledge often forms the core of early childhood teachers' professional practice. We usually think of early childhood education as teaching children from birth to 8 years of age, although such knowledge should empower teachers thoroughout prmiary school as well. It is the teaaching staff at the Institute of Early Childhood at Macquarie University, Sydney who have contributed to this volume; and despite all our differences, we share a common passion for the welfare of children and their families, and state of the art practice in teaching. I will speak for all the Chapter authors of this book: if you sense a bias towards being child- and family centred, and having play and relationships at the forefront of our teaching practice with young children and their families, we are ready to agree with you! And we joyously invite you, the teacher, the tutor, or the teacher-in-the making to join our chorus. In this Chapter, we present you with what is ahead of you in this book, and we ouline our reasons for our choices.