Seeing infants differently: Magda Gerber’s contributions to the early care and education field and their continuing relevance

ABSTRACT

A pioneer in the infant/family field in the United States, Magda Gerber was the founding director of Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE), known for its unique two-generation approach to the care and education of young children. This paper offers a summary of Gerber’s teachings from the late twentieth century with citations pointing to their historical theoretical underpinnings and highlights some more recent supportive research in affective neuroscience. The main goal of this article is to reflect on how significantly Gerber’s work has influenced child-centred standards for developmentally appropriate 0–3 care and education and early years’ workforce training in the U.S. The concluding section will touch on the continuing relevance of Gerber’s RIE Approach in light of twenty-first-century social trends and what would make it more widely accessible.

KEYWORDS:

• Magda Gerber
• RIE
• Educaring
• Emmi Pikler
• infant care
• developmentally appropriate practice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See video of 3-month-old here: https://vimeo.com/458780006/9a7abcac29.

2 Panksepp used all capital letters in naming these affects to indicate their unlearned primacy.

3 Link to video clip of toddler in deep exploration here: https://vimeo.com/459475628/2f4f7042f8.

4 Link to video of toddlers and facilitator here: https://vimeo.com/457936929/4d48366908.

5 Link to video of Gerber demonstrating here: https://vimeo.com/460202246/7845826e84.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ruth Anne Hammond

Ruth Anne Hammond, author of Respecting Babies: A Guide to Educaring for Parents and Professional 2nd Edition (Zero to Three 2009, 2019), is an infant/toddler specialist who served as adjunct faculty at Pacific Oaks College, and Master Teacher in its Children’s School Parent-Infant/Toddler programme for 17 years. She offers trainings for parents and childcare providers in the US and abroad. A mentee of Magda Gerber and a RIE Associate, Hammond was a board member 1998–2020 and served as president of Resources for Infant Educarers from 2006 to 2011. She is a long-standing member of Allan N. Schore’s interpersonal neurobiology study group in Los Angeles.