When my daughter Somah was young, I didn't have much money. But I was fortunate to find a preschool where I co... — Deb Haaland

When my daughter Somah was young, I didn't have much money. But I was fortunate to find a preschool where I could volunteer in exchange for lower tuition. I saw firsthand how an early childhood education shaped my daughter's success.

Author: Deb Haaland

Insight: There's something about watching your child thrive in an environment you helped create that shifts how you see the whole system. Most of us think of education as something that happens to us—you pay, you show up, results follow. But Haaland's experience reveals a different possibility: that sometimes the real investment isn't money at all, but presence and participation. The practical benefit here is obvious enough. A parent who can't afford full tuition gets their child into quality preschool by contributing time instead. But there's a subtler lesson baked in. When you're actually inside a classroom, seeing how kids learn and grow, your understanding changes. You stop being a passive consumer of education and become someone who understands, from the ground level, what actually works. That knowledge stays with you. This matters today partly because childcare remains brutal on family budgets, but also because we've largely outsourced early development to institutions without really understanding them. Haaland's point suggests something almost radical: what if more parents had that hands-on view of their kids' early education? Not as an ideal we can't afford, but as a real option worth fighting for in our communities. The gap between having resources and understanding what matters might be smaller than we think.