Millie Corinne Almy

Background

Millie Almy was born on the 19th of June, 1915 in Clymer, New York, United States, the daughter of Joseph Egbert and Edna Elmira (Wood) Almy.

Education

Millie Almy attended Vassar College, where she majored in Child Study and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1936. She studied at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she earned a Master of Arts degree in 1945 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Cur­riculum and Teaching in 1948.

Career

Millie Almy began her career as a teacher in a day nursery and directed a regional alliance of federally funded nursery schools near Buffalo for the Works Progress Administration from 1936 to 1943, as well as federally funded Lanham Act child-care centers established during World War II.

In 1944, Almy took the post of an instructor at Teachers College Columbia University in New York City until 1948. She was an associate professor of Child Development and Director of the nursery school at the University of Cincinnati during 1947 and 1952 before returning to Columbia in 1952 to become a professor of Psychology and Education until 1971. She also was Principal Advisor of the Early Childhood Program there in 1968-71.

In 1971, Millie left Columbia to become a professor of Education at the University of California in Berkeley until 1980. In her years at Berkeley, she was a leading voice for the training of teachers and administrators, through her work with doctoral students and through the founding and coordination of the Interdisciplinary Day Care and Child Development Project from 1974 to 1978, for the preparation of personnel for key positions in daycare and related child development services. She was Assistant Dean for graduate affairs from 1979 to 1980 there. In 1981 she was a Fulbright Fellow at Macquarie University in Australia, a Visiting Professor at Mills College in Oakland, California, and a Docent at the Oakland Museum.

During her career, she wrote about eighty books and journal articles. Professor Almy's important publications, some of which remain in print as classics in the field, include Children's Experiences Prior to First Grade and Success In Beginning Reading that was written in 1949, Ways of Studying Children with Celia Genishi in 1979, The Early Childhood Educator at Work in 1975, Young Children's Thinking: Studies of Some Aspects of Piaget's Theory with Edward Chittenden and Paula Miller in 1966.

Achievements

• Millie Almy is particularly known as the author of a number of books about early childhood development and education, as well as a contributor to articles in the field.
  
  Millie was a leader in the movement to change the nature of care for preschool children and to conduct research in early childhood education settings, especially in the application of Piagetian theory to early childhood education.
  
  Almy was listed as a noteworthy psychologist and educator by Marquis Who's Who.
  
  

Works

More photos

• book

  • Ways of Studying Children

    (Since the publication of the widely used Ways of Studying...)

    1979
  • Young Children's Thinking: Studies of Some Aspects of Piaget's Theory 1966
  • Children's Experiences Prior to First Grade and Success In Beginning Reading 1949
  • The Early Childhood Educator at Work 1975
  • The Impact of Piagetian Theory on Education, Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Philosophy 1979

Views

Throughout her career, Almy's mission was to illuminate the inner world of early childhood and give adults the conceptual tools necessary to treat children with the respect they deserved.

Membership

Millie Almy was a member of the American Psychological Association, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Society for Research in Child Development, National Association for the Education of Young Children, American Educational Research Association, and Sigma Xi.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "She was one of the small numbers of sophisticated interpreters of Piagetian theory. With her background in early education and developmental psychology, she could build bridges between theorists and practitioners in the early childhood area". - Sheldon White

Connections

Millie Almy never married and had no children.

Father:

Joseph Egbert Almy

Mother:

Edna Elmira (Wood) Almy