No Small Matter: first feature film to explore Early Childhood Education

24 Apr 2019    

No Small Matter is built from stories of real children, families, and teachers, illustrating the impact of high-quality early childhood experiences. We meet parents who are struggling to do their best for their kids, incredible teachers who model what early childhood classrooms should and could be like, and children learning and developing in real time. These positive, hopeful stories serve as motivational tools in both the film and the ​No Small Matter campaign: Change is necessary, critical, and attainable if we put our minds to it.

The film is also firmly grounded in science, opening up the “black box” of what’s happening inside children’s brains with exciting, stimulating animation and the voices of compelling scientists, physicians, and ECE experts. Using findings from message framing reports (Frameworks Institute), behavioral economists such as James Heckman, and the latest research in brain imaging and child development, we break down complicated scientific details into layman’s terms, demystifying prevailing ideas that hinder our thinking about children’s behavior, and paving the way for us all to see what children need more clearly. When it comes to understanding the incredible dynamism of how a child’s mind develops, seeing is believing — from firing neurons to still face experiments — and these illustrations drive home the critical nature of these early years.

Most important of all, the facts and figures in the film must stick with the viewer and drive them to act. From celebrity parent cameos to the “marshmallow test” with Cookie Monster to hilarious moments with the children we meet along the way — all will help​ No Small Matter move the viewer in ways that a fact sheet simply cannot.