I have been struggling to figure out what to do for preschool in the coming years. Preschool, in my mind, is a time for kids to play and learn thru play. It is time for them to learn fine (and gross) motor skills thru all kinds of play, art, music, etc.
I am super disheartened by the new common core standards in schools. I am really worried about all the testing. Most of all, I worry about the push for academics at earlier and earlier ages. When you start to hear that teachers are asking for more classroom time to prepare for tests (and getting rid or recess to find those extra minutes), it is concerning. Why are we asking preschoolers to recognized letters? Why do kindergartners need to read? From what I have read and researched, there is no evidence supporting the push for literacy. In most cases, a child that learns to read in kindergarten will be at the same place a child who learned to read in 3rd grade is by 4th grade.
And why do we believe the stuff we are testing is the "right" stuff for kids to know? Why would reading and math trump say, artistic abilities like paining, drawing, music and dance? Why would they trump things like building and imagining and engineering-inventing-physical movement? Is it because reading and math are the easiest to test and we as a society feel like we have to have measurements to be sure we are "doing a good job?" And while I understand that literacy is an important building block for other skills, I don't think that it should trump other skills that are perhaps even more important like thinking critically, outside the box, coming up with original thoughts and maybe, just maybe, finding a passion and following it.
Where am I going with this? Well since Kindergarten is the new first grade and students should show up "knowing all their letters" and perhaps even having a limited ability to read, parents and preschool (or pre-K) teachers are feeling pressure to teach academics at ever younger ages so that kids are prepared for the rigors of kindergarten. What is lost in these now academically minded preschool programs? Play. Imagination. Innovation. And while some kids are excited to learn letters and numbers and early literacy at 3 and 4, other kids are not and putting pressure on them to learn them so early could potentially cause them to end up not enjoying learning.
I want a program that is play based and fosters imagination. At this early age, I could honestly care less whether my child can read, much less recognize letters or numbers. If he wants to? Great! More power to him. If he doesn't? Great too! He is building other very important skills too! The problem is, to have a high quality program in preschool, the parents want to hear from the kindergarten teachers that their child (who just finished said high quality program) is well prepared for kindergarten and perhaps even ahead of the curve in the class. It makes parents feel like they invested well in preschool and that their child is at the top end of the class. As a result, preschool teachers feel obligated to "teach" academics so that their programs appear more high quality. Never mind the fact that teaching academics isn't even developmentally appropriate at this age....or at 6 or 7 for that matter.
So what to do about school next year. Right now, Barrett is in a 2's class which is perfect. Play, art, music, presentation of concepts, developing motor skills, etc. But I know that his school, which we love, is definitely feeling the pressure to prepare kids in an academic way so in 3's it gets more academic and by 4's they feel like they need them 5 days a week to "prepare them for kindergarten." Ugh.
I am faced with the dilemma of whether to put Barrett in his current preschool, try to find a new one or home school. I do know that I fully believe preschool, kindergarten even 1st grade and beyond should be a time for play, discovery, enjoyment, and learning to love learning - not memorization, teaching to a test, teaching narrowly, etc. At the same time, that is not what society has determined is important and as such, following these principles would place my kids behind the curve come kindergarten (if we go the public school route). So there we have it. A dilemma. Ultimately, I have decided to wait until the end of the summer to make a final decision on what direction to go...but who knew a decision as simple as preschool could be so hard!
1 comment:
Well said, and unfortunately the decision about pre-K HAS indeed become a complex one. Take it from the wife of a high school teacher. the "teaching the test" goes all the way up now. So depending on how your start your kid's education, that path is going to be continued their whole school life. Start with a more "traditional" pre-K? then they will probably follow a traditional path and be taught the test all through school. It does make you start thinking of alternatives.
Neal spends so much time now filling out forms, paperwork, reporting on goals met and standards.. that he has no time to actually work on lesson plans or think of ways to improve his teaching. Just get them through these checkpoints, and spend hours upon hours reporting to the State how you got them through the checkpoints.
I think it's great you are thinking so much about this though.. that is the other half of the coin that is badly damaged.. parental involvement. So many parents just throw their kids into school, not knowing a damn thing at all, and expect teachers to pick up all that slack and do all the work. My Mom can confirm that with her kindergartners. I think that is why there is so much emphasis on whether or not kids are meeting standards... because so many of them have NO HELP or parents who just don't give a shit. Teachers have suffered because of that. so the standards that I think are supposed to "help" by making sure kids are getting to the levels that will help them educationally are starting to come back and bite us in the butts. Especially parents who do care, and do teach their children and who are involved with their education.
sorry, this was a novel. :-)
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