A reader asks whether we have lost our minds.
http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/PDF/CCSS/PreK_ELA_Crosswalk.pdf
Click to access PreK_ELA_Crosswalk.pdf
The links above take you to draft Connecticut documents relating to CCSS for preschoolers. The introduction states that the adoption of CCSS for K-12 “has naturally led to questions regarding standards for preschool and/or prekindergarten students.” The next section talks about a work group that has been charged with the task of creating comprehensive learning standards for birth to age 5.
Yes, the CCSS and these documents have “naturally led to questions” in my mind. Here are some of them: Are you crazy? Have you ever spent a full day with a toddler? How about with a room full of toddlers? Has your life experience not taught you that children are not little robots that all develop the same skills at the same time? What are all of the wonderful memories you cherish from your own childhood? I’ll bet those memories are about things like books and blocks and crayons and swings. Are any of those precious memories about being assessed?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Look at this pre-K standard:
COG 11 Displays knowledge of books and print
PCF
Demonstrate book awareness.
Use oral language to explain or describe or ask questions about a work of art
Really, so what work of art are we talking about here?
Madison, I like your finger painting picture with the chocolate pudding!
Or
Do you think Mona Lisa is smiling?
How are the above standards even measurable? Demonstrate book awareness? They can identify a book, hold a book upright, turn pages, look at pictures, sit and listen…and what if they can’t….does the “non-profit” charter get to kick them out?
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Nonprofit charters don’t have the standards–just public schools. At least that’s the way it is in Wisconsin.
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Click to access Pk_to_Kindergarten_Mathematics_Continuum.pdf
Sorry Dr. Ravitch, I put in two links to the language arts standards and didn’t include the link to the math standards. The above link takes you to the math standards. I love the one about preschoolers being able to describe real graphs. Also the one which expects preschoolers to “discuss strategies to estimate and compare length, area, temperature and weight.” Have any of these people read Piaget?
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One word: testing. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
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Amen!
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Are we to expect all infants to cut their first tooth at the same time, master crawling, take their first step, speak their first word, etc? If birth happens before or after the due date what are the implications? Stepford children anyone?
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Someone in CT has been reading the NYS CC standards for pre-k.
We in pre-k in NYC has been living with this nightmare since last year. All of our PD’s which used to include helpful information and sharing of best practices are now timed power point presentations of how to use the CC.
We must use two of the NYC bundles (formerly known as units to most teachers) There must be adequate rigor. We also have to create our own. Mine were returned for lack of adequate rigor.
We must administer performance tasks that made some of my children cry. No matter how many times you try and make it into a game and tell them we’re playing a game, some of them figure it out.
It is not just stressful for the children, it is very stressful for the teacher because we are being evaluated on this stuff.
I have 18 children in age from 3.9 to 4.9. This is a HUGE range of skills in this age group. Some of my children are still very babyish. I hate to even classify them that way but what it means is that they can’t adjust to the school requirements of sitting for long periods of time and working in notebooks at tables.
We are destroying natural creativity and curiosity in these children. I am confident that Chicago Lab School or Sidewell Friends or any other school that truly understands child development is using these standards and methods.
My daughter who had taught 3 and 4th grade for years is teaching K this year. She said she feels like she is being forced to teach 4th grade curriculum to babies. She said she now understands how the 4th graders are the way they are. Seeing what we are doing to them in the beginning of their life in school has opened her eyes and now understands what I have be ranting about for years.
I understand why parents in the community in which I teach think it’s a great thing. I teach in an urban community with a very high poverty percentage. My parents want the best for their children and have been taken in by slick snake oil salespeople who promise them that eliminating play is the road to salvation.
I teach at a local college in the evenings. My students are teachers and assistant teachers in day care centers.
One of the teachers in my class on managing the environment in early childhood classes said her students are allowed to play a little, but they have to get started on reading and writing so they don’t fall behind.
We are labeling children 3 and 4 years old as school failures and at risk because they don’t fit into the little box that has been created for them.
No one is interested in Piaget anymore or Vygotsky either.
Even those who can do what is being asked are being damaged. We just haven’t seen it yet. It will take a few years and I am sadly confident that the damage will appear in a lack of interest in school and a smaller body of knowledge.
I am still trying to hold on to what is developmentally appropriate in early childhood but it gets more and more difficult every year. I have had to compromise in order not to be fired and I challenge the suits every chance I get.
Many of them know this is wrong but they too are afraid of the bigger suits above them.
I am one small voice but I will continue to speak up and out as often as I can. I am hopeful that at some point, someone will listen and act.
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Middle School Teacher, no one is interested in Piaget. He is considered old news and out of touch with current thinking.
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“Determines the meanings of worse based on prior knowledge”? Hello, they are three years old! How much prior knowledge is there?!
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That is very funny, but also sad. Who writes these standards anyway? I swear the educrats get more stupid every day!
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Lehrer, in all fairness many three year olds know a great deal of prior knowledge and if as teachers we could tap into that and expand their knowledge base it would be a good thing. The question is which knowledge is valuable?
My pre-k students know about the NYC subway and bus system. Almost all of them use public transportation and they can tell you about metrocards and turnstiles and which trains to take to go to different places.
The CC does not address that. Last year I expanded what my students knew about subways and they had so much to say and they produced pictures that were wonderful. They drew themselves standing on the seats looking out windows and being in tunnels. They dictated so much information.
When you ask children questions about things in which they have no prior knowledge or even interest you are not going to get a response.
The suits just didn’t see that a unit on subways fit into the CC.
They were mistaken.
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I meant no disrespect to three year-olds or preschool teachers. I was merely being flip. I taught preschool briefly many years ago and I loved when my own children were that age. I just think the way we are going about it nowadays is so wrong in so many ways. The view that RTTT is so “innovative” because it takes the skills high school graduates need and works grade level expectations backward from that appalls me.
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Lehrer, I didn’t think you were being disrespectful. I just get a bit nuts when people whose children (not you) set the standards for what prior knowledge should be. If my students visited far away countries on breaks and took ski lessons and Chinese lessons and piano lessons after school and had conversations with their families about everything and anything,I would be more accepting of talking about activating prior knowledge. Once reading lots of books in pre-k of all types was considered the best way to develop that knowledge base so that the following year in K they could activate that prior knowledge.
And, every time I hear the word Rigor I want to respond Mortis.
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Rigor Mortis? I LOVE it!
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Wonderful example. I have a family member who is a preschool teacher. I am sure the children in her class have little or no experience with subways. Our city does have a public beach with a playground and picnic area. They probably could talk a lot about sand, seagulls, and swings.
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Thanks for the report and for speaking up. I’ve heard similar stories from suburban Chicago. Do you happen to know who’s responsible for the “current thinking?” Who are the main advocates for “academic rigor” and increased testing in preschool and kindergarten, and what is the basis for their recommendations?
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The big push for rigor comes from the Common Core State Standards. The architect is David Coleman, who has been named the President of the College Board. Coleman served as treasurer for Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst. He believes in rigor.
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As far as I am concerned, with all the variety of disabilities under special ed, then, ELL, 504, medical plans, modificaitons and accommodations, full inclusion, differentiation, the new term: responsive teaching and any other new fad coming our way…this is an impossible feat and the CCSS will just widen the achievement gap even more.
But, maybe that is the purpose and then they can close down even more schools and further segregate the children into other categories and sub-categories….I guess the levels within the American caste system are yet to be determined.
We have larger class sizes, less supports, more children with a wider range of abilities in the same classrooms with limited supplies…..even the superman or woman we are all waiting for would fly away ASAP. They do not understand what we deal with everyday, so they have no idea what they are asking us to do. This is a recipe for failure.
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I’m familiar with the CCS and with David “Nobody-gives-a sh*t-what-you-think-or-feel” Coleman. What I’d like to know is, What is their rationale for foisting “rigor” and testing on the youngest kids? Are they appealing to research studies or any other evidence that this sort of thing will help kids at all? If not, they’re violating Coleman’s principle that arguments must be built on evidence and sound logic. I’m ready to accuse them of pulling these standards and practices out of thin air and personal bias, but I’m not 100% sure of that. I know the policy makers are ignoring kindergarten teachers, but do they have any shred of evidence or reasoning that explains why they’re doing this? Is it possible that it’s just the juggernaut of testing and consulting profits that’s driving it?
Reading those pre-kindergarten “standards” made me wonder what the kids will have left to study in seventh grade. I just can’t wait to read some of those comparison/contrast essays that’ll soon be cranked out by four-year-olds (and their moms).
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this is the age of toughness. Get tough. Sit down, Sit up straight. Walk in a line. Rigor. Rigor.
Not the age of evidence.
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From Massachusetts, lots of rigor.
Click to access 0111ELAanalysis.pdf
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I have been a NYCDOE teacher for 18 years. I have primarily taught Early Childhood. I taught Kindergarten for 7 years in there and am now teaching Pre-K. I loved K when I taught it and I love Pre-K now. You will not find a bigger proponent of play and experiential learning in Early Childhood than I. I fought for Center time to be kept in Kindergarten when I taught it. I constantly quote “A Mandate for Playful Learning in Preschool: Presenting the Evidence” by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Michnick Golinkoff, Roberta, Berk, Laura E., Singer, Dorothy. I have fought against over academicizing (sp?) K and Pre-K when it is not developmentally appropriate.
Then there is the other side of me. I don’t believe in dumbing down information for children. I believe they will rise to what they are taught and your expectations, as long as they are developmentally appropriate. I had the honor of being awarded a Teaching Fulbright to England in 2000-2001. The biggest thing I took away form the experience was a clearer personal philosophy of education. Part of that is that we needed a National Curriculum. A child should be able to move form one city to another in any state and not have to play “catch up.” I believe that the Common Core is that equivalent. I like the Common Core, it requires more thinking and less automated spiting out of factual information. The Common Core still allows us as teachers to teach in our style. It is not a script we must follow with second by second transitions (i.e. a certain writing program that originated in NY).
Our school recently became a Magnet school. Our staff has been behind this amazing change and our theme which matches who we are and have always been. The only difference between a few years ago and now is that we finally have the Federal Money to pay for the programs and materials we have always needed. As part of the grant we have to write our own curriculum based on the Common Core. I found it surprisingly easy. I read the ones proposed by CT. They are pretty much the same for NY minus some of the more advanced phonetics (which I do not think all Pre-K children will be able to do). I don’t think any of this is out of bounds for Pre-K. For example, “Identify a character in a story.” When haven’t we done that? Or “Draw conclusions at the end of a story.” If I read “The Little Red Hen,” I will ask who was int he story and what did each animal do. We will act it out and retell it. We will draw a picture of our favorite part. We will talk about what makes the /h/ sound. We will talk about the behavior of the other animals and what about the decision the Hen made int he end, was she right, would you do the same thing? We just covered a whole bunch of the Common Core standards at a developmentally appropriate level.
I think we have to interpret them and design lessons that are appropriate but live up to what we want the children to walk away with. Of course there are children who can go much further or will not meet these benchmarks, hence differentiation (a recent buzz word loosing power). We just have to start worrying when the Common Core says that Pre-K children need to be able to recognize 30 sight words, read Level D books, use + and – symbols in math, sit in rows with their hands folded and may not play. That would not be developmentally appropriate.
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From the Oxford English Dictionary:
Definition of rigor
noun
Medicine
a sudden feeling of cold with shivering accompanied by a rise in temperature, often with copious sweating, especially at the onset or height of a fever.
short for rigor mortis.
From Merriam-Webster:
Definition of RIGOR
1
a (1) : harsh inflexibility in opinion, temper, or judgment : severity (2) : the quality of being unyielding or inflexible : strictness (3) : severity of life : austerity
b : an act or instance of strictness, severity, or cruelty
2
: a tremor caused by a chill
3
: a condition that makes life difficult, challenging, or uncomfortable; especially : extremity of cold
4
: strict precision : exactness
5
a obsolete : rigidity, stiffness
b : rigidness or torpor of organs or tissue that prevents response to stimuli
c : rigor mortis
I think that the deformers shot themselves in the foot when they chose “rigor” as their clarion call. It is an inappropriate term and has no place in education. What they are doing to schools, teachers, and students does, however, fit the actual definition to a “T”.
From PreK to college we are introducing “rigor” into the learning process at our peril. Of course it is just another buzzword in eduspeak used to justify people who know nothing imposing programs that do nothing on those who are allowed to say and do nothing about it.
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I just skimmed a few of the standards in the Mass standards. It basically looks like someone sat down with video of preschool children and classes and dissected the activities. We used to have to dissect behavior back in my behavioral/Skinner psychology days in college. I am surprised they didn’t dissect out the proper way to turn pages, down to the opposition of thumb and fingers. While people got pretty excited about behaviorism, it eliminated paying attention to anything that could not be measured directly.
You could measure the various behaviors associated with a temper tantrum, but you couldn’t call it a temper tantrum because that would be a judgement that you could not measure. You could eliminate/extinguish a behavior through reinforcement of successive approximations to an acceptable behavior and punishment of unacceptable behaviors. My parents dealt with my attempt at temper tantrums (at two years old) by ignoring me until I got tired of rolling around on the floor kicking and screaming. They didn’t have to break my behavior down into component parts or track the number of tantrums and their antecedent stimuli.
I know this post has gone overboard, but does anyone feel MICROMANAGED?
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I’ve always said there has to be a special place for Pre-K and Kindergarten teachers. I know there is one for all of us. Every Pe-K and K teacher must absolutely be at their wits end with all this testing. When and how will these little ones ever learn to love school let alone like it?
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Kathy1, pretty much. I am at the point now where I tell myself “I can only do what I can do” I am trying not to be overly stressed but it’s not easy. My daughter who is now teaching K is overwhelmed. She’ll figure it out.
It’s just so sad what is happening to education. Early childhood is destroying any love of learning and in middle and high school I am guessing that many students are defeated and feel disfranchised. In my school which goes to 8th grade I see many of the middle school children have more or less given up. They are told in so many words that they are failures and after a while they believe it.
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We are stripping the young of their youth. Why on Earth are we shoving the technological world on kids 4 to 10 years old? Kids that age need to be learn socializing skills, study skills, teacher interaction skills, learning to take instructions from people other than their parents. They need to develop their creativity, apply their real-world experiences in their relationships with their peers, and to feel comfortable in learning in mildly competitive environments. This is all more about dollars and less about education.
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