Due to the Common Core and testing pressures, children in kindergarten are now expected to learn to read. Kindergarten, writes Erika Christakis in The Atlantic, has changed, and not for the better.
“One study, titled “Is Kindergarten the New First Grade?,” compared kindergarten teachers’ attitudes nationwide in 1998 and 2010 and found that the percentage of teachers expecting children to know how to read by the end of the year had risen from 30 to 80 percent. The researchers also reported more time spent with workbooks and worksheets, and less time devoted to music and art. Kindergarten is indeed the new first grade, the authors concluded glumly. In turn, children who would once have used the kindergarten year as a gentle transition into school are in some cases being held back before they’ve had a chance to start. A study out of Mississippi found that in some counties, more than 10 percent of kindergartners weren’t allowed to advance to first grade.
“Until recently, school-readiness skills weren’t high on anyone’s agenda, nor was the idea that the youngest learners might be disqualified from moving on to a subsequent stage. But now that kindergarten serves as a gatekeeper, not a welcome mat, to elementary school, concerns about school preparedness kick in earlier and earlier. A child who’s supposed to read by the end of kindergarten had better be getting ready in preschool. As a result, expectations that may arguably have been reasonable for 5- and 6-year-olds, such as being able to sit at a desk and complete a task using pencil and paper, are now directed at even younger children, who lack the motor skills and attention span to be successful.”
“Preschool classrooms have become increasingly fraught spaces, with teachers cajoling their charges to finish their “work” before they can go play. And yet, even as preschoolers are learning more pre-academic skills at earlier ages, I’ve heard many teachers say that they seem somehow—is it possible?—less inquisitive and less engaged than the kids of earlier generations. More children today seem to lack the language skills needed to retell a simple story or to use basic connecting words and prepositions. They can’t make a conceptual analogy between, say, the veins on a leaf and the veins in their own hands.
“New research sounds a particularly disquieting note. A major evaluation of Tennessee’s publicly funded preschool system, published in September, found that although children who had attended preschool initially exhibited more “school readiness” skills when they entered kindergarten than did their non-preschool-attending peers, by the time they were in first grade their attitudes toward school were deteriorating. And by second grade they performed worse on tests measuring literacy, language, and math skills. The researchers told New York magazine that overreliance on direct instruction and repetitive, poorly structured pedagogy were likely culprits; children who’d been subjected to the same insipid tasks year after year after year were understandably losing their enthusiasm for learning.”
It’s a shame. Children have failed before they even begin, and we as the K teachers are now considered failures because we aren’t rigorous enough! Behavior issues have gone through the roof because children are pushed to frustration levels well beyond what anyone could imagine. These 5 and 6 year olds are expected to ” perform” academically the eqivalent of a full time adult job.
It is all part of the master plan. They thought testing would make us fail, it didn’t happen. Now they want to use age inappropriate skills to measure success. The great thing about teachers is that we find a way to be successful, no matter how ridiculous the expectation.
Of course they have to learn to read, they have to be able to read the worksheets. Maybe IKEA can be drafted in, replacing Walmart.
Reblogged this on Exceptional Delaware and commented:
More for Governor Markell, Department of Education, and the State Board of Education to be proud of. Push ’em in pre-school so they hate school by 2nd grade. It is time to end your failed experiments on children.
It’s insane. The government and whatever functionaries at the top who are supposed to be educators are ruining our schools even at this grade. I have a niece who is teaching in her first year at a South Bronx kindergarten. She is at Teacher’s College where she is learning all about the correct ways to teach ECE, with centers, art, etc. Then she teaches in the South Bronx where there are no centers and children are expected to sit in their seats all day. They are yelled at if they can’t do this. The “supervising” teacher read the children the book The Little Mouse and the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Bear and the whole time the teacher misread the word “Ripe” as “Rip” and taught the children that the word was “rip.” The children are bored and unstimulated. The principal is completely inflexible. She is afraid to report any of it. I think it is criminal that institutions like Teacher’s College even exist at this point. Those professors are preparing students for education that no longer exists. They should close the colleges as protest and get their posteriors to Washington to protest this disgrace, this absolute travesty of education. They have no right to keep churning out unsuspecting student teachers who are about the enter hell.
Wait. What? Are you kidding? Your solution is to stop training teachers to teach children the way they should be taught?! Yes, teacher preparation programs should be fighting this nonsense, but it is going to take more than disgruntled college professors to stop the ridiculous dismantling of public education. I want them to keep teaching what our children need. We don’t need for them to produce automatons that can read a script and bark orders. We all need to be in this fight together. There is plenty of blame to go around. We either get over it and get to work or squabble over who is most to blame.
No, what I mean is that academics have responsibility to help lead the fight. If all of the academics of ECE got together, they would have some clout. This is about organizing. After all, colleges are approved by small boards of professors who accredit them. Those people wield power. I realize that this is the federal government and state government, but these academics should be organizing with parents across the nation. The unions by themselves are regarded with suspicion. This needs to be a joint effort with strong leadership that is not Union leadership, thus could be academics who really understand education. Maybe the reason that we have not effectively forced change is that education is dominated by women. And people are less willing to listen to women. Even at an IEP meeting for my son, the female administrator listened and responded to my husband whereas she had treated me with contempt. What is needed is strong leadership supported by the mass of parents, with data/studies to back it up, and protests. What if every ECE teacher out there suddenly started teaching children without this garbage. The schools could never fire them if they were ALL doing it nationally. It would force the issue.
The Reading and Writing Project that was developed by Lucy Caulkins through Teachers College and adopted by many NYC schools during the Bloomberg era, was the start of the “destruction” of kindergarten. This program placed a heavy emphasis on reading and writing paragraphs in kindergarten. This program led to the removal of creative play, art, music, blocks, etc in the kindergarten classes at my school. All of the kindergarten teachers who were forced to adopt this program at my school, have either retired of were able to get jobs in private/progressive schools. As someone state above, behavior issues are out if control, and increase as the kids get older. They do not know how to play or socialize which is a direct result of these academic kindergarten classes. Soi find it kind of funny that TC is teaching developmental kindergarten, when they have been selling this reading program…
Horrible. I think I have read negative things before about Lucy Caulkins. Yes, that is exactly what I mean. It is the height of hypocrisy for academics to sit in their ivory tower a version no longer matching reality. In that particular school, the principal even eliminated the Morning Hellos/what we learned yesterday because it wasn’t “teaching.” The principal herself is no educator of any kind, doesn’t even understand the purpose of review/contextualizing a lesson.
I’m a teacher of Special Ed. I’ve worked with and mentored a LOT of graduates of the Teachers College. Some of them are good. Most are very good. Many are excellent.
I’d say I’ve met one of two who needed to go (during my 22 year career) and they did just that. The job was too much for them.
I’m sorry if you had a bad experience but what I’m hearing from your post is that teachers and teacher colleges are to blame and the administrators’ hands are tied for fear of losing their jobs. My experience is that many of today’s administrators are expected to act more as managers, have little educational training, and have to keep the teachers hands tied to the scripted curriculum and testing mania, right or wrong. It’s a culture of fear and we’re all under the gun.
Please don’t make it sound like your experience is indicative of a fatal epidemic. This blog attracts many readers and sweeping indictments such as these can sway the beliefs and actions of the readers.
I’m sorry. I do NOT believe that most teachers are to blame at all! There is immense pressure on teachers and administrators. But no, I do not think the academics are doing enough. There is a fatal epidemic in NYC.
Teachers College has some of the best teachers. However,haven’t some of the worst pedagogical ideas have come from our universities that have impacted education? Lucy Caulkins.from TC and EveryDay Math out of the University of Chicago.
I hope you read my apology, Kinneret. I meant it.
I taught Everyday Math. My daughter’s riends would regularly come to my house to do the homework with us. The parents didn’t understand it at all so I acted as an unpaid tutor for an hour practically every day. Everyday Math lol.
As difficult as it was for them, it was entirely inappropriate for my special Ed kids. Yet we were forced to use it.
I have a friend who’s a math teacher/coach. He’s very good. He thought Everyday Math would’ve served the general ed community better if it hadn’t all come in at once. He saw promise in it. For me, it’s a microcosm of the entire reform movement from technology to “raising the bar so they’ll jump higher”. One size fits all (even with differentiation) and too much all at once with no respect for the system that’s being replaced and little thought to the repercussions and possible negative impacts.
I only tutored Everyday Math, so my opinion may very well be skewed by a lack of training. My student went through the exercises as fast as he could with little thought or understanding. His mistakes, which were frequent, were not addressed in any systematic fashion and were related to his lack of fluency with basic operations. Since fluency did not seem to be of concern in the program, getting him to a level of automaticity was a difficult process that was further impeded by his ADHD.
That’s a pretty accurate scenario.
Here’s another one:
The kids get frustrated and bored. They end up making weapons out of the base 10 blocks. One of them “shoots” the other which doesn’t go over too well. Next thing you know they’re on the floor, fighting each other.
Can’t make this stuff up.
Oh, can I see it! 🙂
I didn’t see any of Caulkins ELA model in my special ed classes. From what I’ve read, though, they were terrible for the little ones. Bloomberg was a 12 year disaster for our public schools with a top notch PR setup to make him smell like roses.
The Teachers College gave us a lot of very bright and enthusiastic teachers. Once you get into the classroom, it becomes pretty obvious what does and doesn’t work. I saw many of my colleagues quickly modify/change their methods once they got their feet wet.
Yes, I believe Bloomberg was also the one who took away vocational training. Another option for these kids taken away.
Lucy Calkins actually had some good ideas. If she has stuck to writing books and not tried to codify her philosophy, I doubt there would be this outcry against her. It’s when teachers are forced to follow an arbitrary template and ignore their own insights and expertise that we run into problems. Everyday Math I found confusing. There were too many threads to follow and too little time to develop fluency. I hope I would have received a ton of training if I was expected to teach it. I only tutored a special ed student who was subjected to it. It was a nightmare for this ADHD child or rather for me. He never knew (nor did I) what he was supposed to learn. I pulled out the concepts behind the workbook activities and tried to develop some basic fluency. He was bright but confused himself with his own errors.
Everyday Math was terrible for the ADHD/LD kids I taught. Terrible.
The worst part of it was we’d only get one grade level per class. I had 5th graders spanning from a functional level of K through 4.They gave me a 3rd grade series.
What did I do? Why…I “differentiated”, of course!
That’s another crazy thing! The idea that pedagogy for regular students and special ed students should all be the same also seems misguided. I would imagine that ADD/ADHD kids need a really structured controlled, focused approach.I’m just guessing. Whatever the case is, their needs in the approach may differ.
ADHD and ADD kids are just as different from each other as they are from their “normal” peers. They are normal kids with their own unique sets of talents and interests and with their own unique set of challenges.
I know they are different from each other. I have a child on the spectrum. I really just meant that some of the may need a different approach from “neuronormal” kids although these approaches don’t work with all of them, either.
No question about it, Kinneret…and I don’t think the two of you are in disagreement.
I’ve felt for a long time now that one of the end goals of the deform movement is to circumnavigate the federal mandate for special education (IDEA). This latest addition of Social Impact Bonds into the new federal ESSA is a big step in that direction.
The distinction between general and special education has gotten more and more “fuzzy” in the last 15 years. The curriculum we’ve given to work with has been inappropriate. It will continue to be that way and won’t stop so long as non-educator profiteers are in control and unwilling to listen to the voices of those who are actually professionals in the field.
I agree, gitapik. I think that they would love nothing better than to dismantle IDEA.
These kids are more expensive to teach because most of them need specialized support and teachers trained in the field.
I think that the more severely handicapped, the severely intellectually handicapped and the severely multiply handicapped, the severely autistic, will still receive services, but I’m betting that they won’t be receiving nearly the extensive services needed. They will probably be semi-“warehoused,” off to the side, as it were.
As for the kids who have learning disabilities, dyslexia, sensory processing disorders, etc, and/or ADD/ADHD, are on the autism spectrum, and so on, they will be expected to function in regular classrooms, where most of them really should be eventually but not without extra help and support from trained professionals, and I think that support will be decreased and decreased as time goes by because………more expensive.
Then what happens to them? It will be seen as “their” fault and the fault of their teachers, many of whom will not have received the proper training to teach these populations effectively.
I despair. 😦
Do you think that is an effort then to say children w/special needs are getting an appropriate education even if they are not to bring down cost? I don’t know what is going to happen. On the one hand, there is so much special need now. On the other, some districts seem to be bleeding because of the costs. I would hate for new legislation to take away from special needs students. But that may happen if certain districts are going bankrupt.
Kinneret,
When Congress passed IDEA many years ago, it promised to pay 40% of the cost. It has never come close. It puts up about 15% at most. Lobby Congress to reimburse districts for costs of mandates.
Yes, exactly so, Diane. I was already a special education teacher when the original Education For All Handicapped Children Act was passed. None of the states and districts I taught in received the “promised” funding from the Feds.
(Congress has a history of passing mandates, but then avoiding the funding for those mandates.)
I was actually impressed, “back in the day,” that so many districts were able to implement as many special education reforms as they did, without anywhere near the promised funding from the Feds.
Was it perfect? Of course not, but at least there were kids I taught who had never even been in public schools, who had been institutionalized, who were finally getting some kind of appropriate, public school education, with supports such as trained special education teachers, occupational and speech therapy, adaptive PE, and so on.
Never enough, of course, but it was better than it was, and it gave those of us in the special education field some hope.
That hope is rapidly fraying, however. 😦
I think terminology is getting in the way of communication here. Let’s just say that some kids whose arrousal mechanisms do not respond quite the way most people’s do may be more impulsive and have more difficulty focusing especially on activities in which they are not invested. We both know that some of these kids can be h***on wheels and others can disappear into the woodwork. It is obvious to me that you care deeply about public education and kids and are sincere in your comments even if I misinterpret them. I apologize for any overzealous comments.
That’s OK! I know you just want to make sure that people are not misinformed. 🙂 I really believe in the power of teachers and good teaching with kids with special needs, anyway. We have a friend whose child with severe autism was called “retarded.” I really don’t know his IQ but he did teach himself five instruments (savant). and my own son, whom I was told would never be able to learn Hebrew because his fluid reasoning scores showed up low has disproven the psychologist.
That’s the problem with labels, test based or otherwise: people accept them as the last word on a student’s ability.
Kinneret: I misread your post. You’re saying that the supervising teacher wasn’t capable. Not the Teachers College teacher (your niece) my apologies. Sincerely.
On another note: the idea that academics know education better than teachers in the field is a bit of a stretch. I understand that people don’t trust the unions…so it’s important that teachers have backup from other reputable and respected sources. Parents, academics, etc. But remember that a large part of the problem we’re seeing today comes from the fact that teachers were largely excluded from the mapping out and implementation of the CCSS. Most of us know what does and doesn’t work for the kids we serve. And, unfortunately, child psychologists and academics whose field was specific to young children were left out as well. They/we have been raising our voices in protest for years…but nobody in power is listening. They have their agenda and are hell bent on pushing it down our throats.
Thank you, no offense taken and certainly none meant. That is terrible though unsurprising that the key people (teachers, psychs, ECE) would be left out of CCSS planning. I do not believe that academics know more than teachers… only the (pedagogical) literature. I really only meant people might listen to them as they have “status.” Right, I guess you are right, everyone probably has been complaining and no one listening. This generation of children will be paying for this grevious mistake.
The cost of special education is the elephant in the room, kinneret. As Diane, said: the Fed is not contributing it’s mandated share. And it’s expensive.
I have some good friends who live in a small town in Vermont. There’s one kid with severe limitations who requires lots of services and equipment. This severely impacts the ability of the district to provide the general ed kids with what they should rightfully have, using their existing budget.
Seems like it’s “All or Nothing” when it comes to these large scale projects/acts/decisions. Instead of allowing for flexibility according to legitimate needs and circumstances, everyone is forced to follow one dictum. As a result, people fight for complete abolishment of the onerous existing system. Throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Stop the assault on young children! Respect childhood again!
“Protect the new generation: do not let them grow up into emptiness and nothingness, to the avoidance of good hard work, to introspection and analyzation without deeds, or to mechanical actions without thought and consideration. Guide the young away from the harmful chase after outer things and the damaging passion for distraction.”
“Children are like tiny flowers; they are varied and need care, but each is beautiful alone and glorious when seen in the community of peers.”
“Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child’s soul.”
— Friedrich Froebel, the father of Kindergarten
Your description of children as flowers in a garden is wonderful. I would go so far as to describe it as a wildflower garden in that each young flower is unique and often unpredictable – IF nurtured and left to grow into what whatever it is destined to become.
The current reform efforts seems more analogous to that of grooming the grass on a putting green of a golf course: all plants the same variety, height and color. Uniformity required – no individuality or diversity permitted.
Have any of these people pushing more and more testing and rigorous academics and seat work for kindergartners, and even Pre-K, ever studied normal child development?
It seems not. Children, especially young children, need to get up and move around. They need to play. Play is one of the major ways that children learn and develop.
It is, in fact, normal and necessary for them.
What the he!! is happening on our schools? Public and charters, both.
This last post makes me feel the need to tell a few details about my most recent experiences as an educator.
For the thirty years prior to 2013 I was a private practice educator and successfully owned and operated a diagnostic/prescriptive learning center. For nearly 17 years prior to that I was a public school teacher in Peru, Palau, and California. Since October of 2013 I have been a teacher in a public school system that is as “modern and up-to-date” as one could imagine. We have Data Teams, Common Core mandates, VAM and textbook content that must be completed by certain days. We are a “no excuses” environment for teachers and students. The children are to walk to and from recess and lunch in silence with their hands behind their backs. The staff is never to question the value of the mandates. When they(students and staff) make the wrong choices they may be subjected to a verbal lashing similar what you might have seen on TV or in “R” movies (without expletives, of course). During this time I have worked at 3 different schools. Each has had its own personality and culture but I have heard voices directed at the youngest of the students in all of them that shocked and dismayed me. A few days ago I was told that my low expectations have caused students in my first grade group to be unable to consistently avoid reversing letters and numbers.(At age 75, I still occasionally inadvertently reverse some numbers when I write them out of context.) The above was the short list.
When I came to my latest assignment, I was told by my supervisor to forget everything I had learned about education and children. I was told that the children who were to be in my class were high performers and most could read. A quick look at the previous year’s test score seemed to verify that claim. The first assessment reminded me that I needed to pay attention to development. The results were very much like one might expect from a group of six year olds at the beginning of the year. A few could read but most were “getting there”. As I became more acquainted with the situation, I realized that the test results from the year before may have been the result of the kindergarten version of “cramming”. Consistent with most “cramming”, the results seemed to have disappeared mostly after a couple of months. At mid-year a large percentage of my class seems to be reading and evaluations tend to verify that. This seems pretty consistent with my past experience when suddenly about mid-year or as most approached their 7th birthday reading happens. There is so much concern about my “wishy-washy” lack of expectations that supervisors manage to find time to “hover” and correct my behavior and direction.
And most of my students display behaviors similar to those mentioned. They have a lot of trouble using connecting words and prepositions and constructing conceptual analogies. Many of them seem almost entirely focused on getting done rather than understanding. They do seem to have trouble retelling stories or forming and asking pertinent questions. Some of them came to school this year with negative attitudes toward school.
My grandson entered kindergarten which is mostly academic and sedentary. The teacher tries to infuse the lessons with some hands on science and nature study. The rest of the day is mostly devoted to development of reading skills. Students are constantly assessed to determine what sounds they need to master. All of this emphasis on skills and assessment is the opposite of how children learn naturally which is through their senses and exploration. What is the point of teaching reading skills to students without giving them a love of literature? If we continue to follow what we know is bad practice, we risk producing a lot of neurotic, angry and disaffected young people.
All this pressure from the top down for kids as young as age give to be college and career ready every day starting at birth is killing the joy of learning and stripping the fun from reading.
Ugh. I had already sent 2 kids through KDG (before Common Core), & when I went to KDG roundup with my 3rd, the teacher said, “KDG is the new first grade”, 6 times in a 5 minute time period of addressing the parents. Honestly, it made my stomach turn & I wondered how I could squeeze an entire year of KDG into the short 3 months before she actually started KDG. She was almost done with her 2nd year of preschool & she wasn’t reading yet. According to research & the science behind brain development, that was more than OK. Thankfully, I had experienced 2 older children starting elementary school (who are straight A students), so I allowed that nonsense to go in one ear & right out of the other. She is halfway through 1st grade right now & is reading chapter books & loving every minute of school. We ignore all “reading logs” & “required reading minutes” & we just allow her to love school, read what & when she wants to. School has become secondary to living life & embracing “learning” in her own way. I urge fellow parents to do the same. Your babies will learn to read, write & do math in their own time. Learning is an adventure, not a chore or task or a competition.
As a kindergarten teacher of 20 years, I have mixed feelings about this report. You insinuate that it is the school’s fault that children are less inquisitive and engaged. I don’t believe that to be the case at all. Children are being raised on Leap Pads, Ipads, and tablets right now. It’s very difficult to develop an old fashioned sense of curiosity when you are spending the entire day in front of the screen. Children who play outside, play with toys, and who have sharply limited screen time are overflowing with inquisitiveness, curiosity, and ambition. It is those who do not play outside or with non-electronic toys at home who lack ambition and focus. I don’t know why more is expected of our little ones but it is. However, thousands of teachers, like myself, still make play, experimenting, cooking, arts and crafts, and general experiences a big part of the school day. We’ve not all gone to worksheets and workbooks. Honestly, when I think about my school, I feel there is more game playing and hands on experiences than I ever had in my young workbook/worksheet heavy life. We need to all fight for the power of play and letting kids be kids but truly it MUST start in the home first. As a kindergarten teacher let me just say to all of you throw that electronic junk away.. read books, watch caterpillars, make forts, crafts, mudpies, and cookies. You want children with drive and focus? Give them opportunities to develop those skills naturally. If they can work on a lego project for two hours, for example, they will be much more capable of having the stamina needed to survive in any situation. That’s nothing that Mario and Luigi can help with, trust me.
You’re right about so many kidergartners that already live in the two dimentional world of a tablet before K. Some parents already use a tablet as a babysitter before they arrive in school.
Your observations are in alignment with the research on how young children learn. Children who play outside, explore & experiment with real toys and socialize other children & adults are developing critical cognitive skills. Adults should act as conversational partners when children are engaged with iPads, phones, & TV, etc. Kids need both active & passive learning time.
Click to access extensions_vol29no4_web.pdf
Click to access extensions_vol29no4_web.pdf
I honor your service but I have to ask about your perspective because it sounds like something very different from what I’ve experienced for the last 20 years.
I’ve taught primary classes for over 20 years in Title I schools, the poorest of the poor, in other words. Very few of the children I’ve taught have had access to anything electronic. Many didn’t even have electricity for long periods of time throughout the year.
Parents don’t let these children play outside because of the danger of drive-by shootings, randomly fired bullets, gang activity, drug dealers, and sexual predators. Children may watch TV or they may make up games and use makeshift toys but they are not always, nor even often, glued to an electronic device. Some do have them but the majority do not.
Your statement that you don’t know where the pressure to perform comes from is baffling to me, as is your statement that your school is allowed to promote play, creativity, and imagination. Poor schools that serve predominantly poor children, whether white or of color, haven’t had that luxury for a long, long time, at least since the early years of NCLB. All the school I chose to teach in were listed as “failing” schools and the curriculum is prescribed and monitored closely. Play, coloring, drawing, and even singing have resulted in warning and write-ups over and over again for many teachers.
I’m glad your students are given opportunities to experience Kindergarten in a play-centered environment but that is not the case in many, many inner city and rural schools or for millions of young children.
This is very old news.
Notice how the authors cover for the bureaucratic establishment that runs public schools in our country. They refer to “teachers’ attitudes nationwide,” but in California and many other states teachers have to do as we’re told. Teachers, parents and students suffer when policy is made without our input. In 25 years of teaching kindergarten I was directed to retain more than a few six-year-old children. Kids and their parents don’t need the stress and teachers shouldn’t be made to be the bad guys.
Well, to give to benefit of the doubt to the people (who aren’t educators) who have turned Kindergarten into first grade….
In some places, half the children in Kindergarten would have been in first grade 40 years ago. With all the red-shirting going on, it is no longer unusual for some educators (often in private schools) to say “Your son is turning 5 in May? He is “too young” to enter Kindergarten only 4 months later — better hold him back.” So you have students who start Kindergarten after their 6th birthday.
New York City is one of the few places left where Kindergarteners really are the age that Kindergarteners used to be. In public school, I mean — private school Kindergarten children are quite older.
I suppose the only way to fight this is a movement like “opt out” where parents start a widespread movement to red-shirt their kids until the people demanding that Kindergarten be first grade start to listen.
There’s not that much red-shirting happening. If anything, I have encountered many students who are underage, whose parents have protested the entry date to get their child into school so they don’t have to pay for daycare. These little ones are far too young for the expectations of school and are at a distinct disadvantage. Besides, it has been shown that children level out by grade 3 so the “red-shirting” is only done for sports and usually done by affluent parents who can afford to either keep their child at home or send them to a private program that caters to that.
Assuming that a class has 20 students, 2 aren’t allowed to proceed because of not being able to write or read which is frustrating because it kills the learning morale of the 2 kids. The kids will see themselves as a failure and they will not see learning negatively. Imagine how you will have to explain to that kid, that they failed and that’s why they have to go back to the same class while their colleagues move to the next step.
The system is bad idea and needs to be checked.
When my oldest, who was young, was in kindergarten, his teacher suggested that he might benefit from another year in kindergarten. Fortunately, he attended a play based program, so I told him that he was going to get to play for another year. His best friend was moving on but he was relieved not to have to go,too. I guess what he saw in those first grade rooms was not something he was interested in because he was quite happy to stay where he got to play. Too bad that option no longer exists.
Reblogged this on stopcommoncorenys.
This speaks to the importance of conversation and dialogue within the school day as the foundations of learning, not scripts or reading programs with lists and packaged lessons. These “one-size-fits-all” programs take the curiosity and “Socratic” moments from the child and stagnate learning.
My daughter is part of this “Generation Stifle”. When I look up synonyms for stagnate, I find words like: decay, decline, fester, idle, languish, stall, stultify, trammel, vegetate. These are not words I want any child to associate to her development and learning. How sad that the antonyms are grow and strengthen- exactly what I want my daughter’s educational experience.
My husband and I were able chose a private preK program for our daughter that enveloped the learner in hands on experience through art, music, movement and literature. The focus was not on sitting and writing but on social skills and the basics- letters and sounds numbers and playing nicely with others.
Primary teachers are already seeing the degradation of the social and fine motor skills of learners. Taking play out of the day across the board from preK to Fifth Grade, especially in schools with lower socio-economic populations (because for many, school is the only way they can practice and acquire the benefits of play), is detrimentally affecting how children learn. I am seeing an increase in argumentative, frustrated, anxious learners who are quick to lash out to peers and adults. Learning cannot happen when our students are coming to the table frustrated because of the negative layers of learning being imposed on them from the onset of their school careers. Handwriting and organizational skills are put to the back burner because we have to keep moving students forward, full knowing they need time to practice, process and play.
There is yet another swing brewing in the educational reform amusement park but the damage is already done. For as quickly reform has happened, I fear the undoing will take twice the time because we have to repair the whole child, not just the curriculum.
Let me share some personal experience. I have a daughter who is in fourth grade at a wonderful public school. It seems so long ago that we were deliberating on where to send her to school. Being teachers, her mother and I were pretty worried over trends that we were experiencing in our jobs and were looking for the best experience for her. The constant refrain we heard from our friends who had similar decisions on the brain was given as a postulate: wait a year. Parents who were financially able were all waiting for a year before sending their kids to school because they wanted their kids to be reading when they started kindergarten.
This was in 2009, before Race To the Top brought Coomon Core to Tennessee. Blaming Common Core for this trend in kid is erroneous in our case. The same attitude toward looking good on high stakes testing was pervasive before the state got into that business. But the problems are the same.
Look closely at what we saw. Parents who could afford it were keeping their kids in fine day care until they were ready for challenging school. Parents who were not able had one choice. Send the kid to school. For that kind of pre-school experience, parents were paying 5-8000. So which children was this hurting?
Not surprisingly, schools where this less fortunate group go have lower test scores and do not get themselves in the local paper for winning state awards like the students whose parents could afford the extra year.
My own daughter ended up with a wonderful teacher in a fine school. She was a 39 year veteran and saw CommonCore as going back to the future. April of her kindergarten year, she started to read. She has never looked back. What she has had to study is entirely appropriate for her. But what about all the other kids? I would trust that 39 year veteran teacher to make the judgement on what the kids should be taught way before I would trust a corporate entity relying on “standards” to guide them.
This article speaks to the importance of conversation and dialogue within the school day as the foundations of learning, not scripts or reading programs with lists and packaged lessons. These “one-size-fits-all” programs take the curiosity and “Socratic” moments from the child and stagnate learning.
My daughter is part of this “Generation Stifle”. When I look up synonyms for stagnate, I find words like: decay, decline, fester, idle, languish, stall, stultify, trammel, vegetate. These are not words I want any child to associate to her development and learning. How sad that the antonyms are grow and strengthen- exactly what I want my daughter’s educational experience.
My husband and I were able chose a private preK program for our daughter that enveloped the learner in hands on experience through art, music, movement and literature. The focus was not on sitting and writing but on social skills and the basics- letters and sounds numbers and playing nicely with others.
Primary teachers are already seeing the degradation of the social and fine motor skills of learners. Taking play out of the day across the board from preK to Fifth Grade, especially in schools with lower socio-economic populations (because for many, school is the only way they can practice and acquire the benefits of play), is detrimentally affecting how children learn. I am seeing an increase in argumentative, frustrated, anxious learners who are quick to lash out to peers and adults. Learning cannot happen when our students are coming to the table frustrated because of the negative layers of learning being imposed on them from the onset of their school careers. Handwriting and organizational skills are put to the back burner because we have to keep moving students forward, full knowing they need time to practice, process and play.
There is yet another swing brewing in the educational reform amusement park but the damage is already done. For as quickly reform has happened, I fear the undoing will take twice the time because we have to repair the whole child, not just the curriculum.
So if all of this that people have described in these comments is happening in public schools, tell me what exactly is it that Eva is doing that’s so horrible?
It’s not just Eva. It is Bill Gates, “A Nation at Risk,” charter school take overs, VAM, prescribed curricula and testing madness, all rolled into one. Teachers are in survival mode, and they have been handed a new rule book compliments of Uncle Sam and corporate America. It’s a race to the bottom.
You don’t get it. She is weeding out the students — most of whom are at-risk — who “got to go” because they are not ready for Kindergarten to be first grade, or for 3rd grade to be 4th grade. But that’s not all. What’s worse, is that she then turns around and says “see, it’s possible for Kindergarten to be first grade because I got such miraculous results with every child that won the lottery. I didn’t just keep the small fraction of children who could handle it. I didn’t do what all you public school teachers are doing and just “lowered standards” because they are too lazy to teach. If you have high standards, 5 year olds can do this. And if they do, they will thrive.
If the “raise standards by forcing 5 year olds to do 1st grade work” educrats didn’t have Success Academy to point to all the time as their “proof” of everything the right wing holds so dear — large class sizes, cutting budgets, raising standards to force 5 year olds to read — those people would have a hard time insisting that you are wrong, Dienne. They have proof that this is the way that all schools should be and Eva Moskowitz has provided it. It works for all children, and if it doesn’t work for yours, well that’s just because your child has severe special needs and should be kept separate from other children in their own special needs school.
NYC Parent: Eva’s clearly never studied child development, and neither have any of the reformers. Children develop at different rates, and it is harmful to rank and sort them when they are young. I taught elementary ELLs for many years. I can remember several boys particularly, a Russian that ended up attending Columbia University for economics and another, a Haitian, that became a doctor. Often boys lag behind girls in small motor tasks and paying attention. If we ranked theses boys at an early age, we would have tossed them in the “dustbin” as they were slow to start. They knew how to finish big! We should not put caps on children’s potential based on bubble tests or other false assumptions.
That couldn’t possibly have been better put. Well said, retired teacher. Exactly my experience and that of so many of my colleagues.
“Balls” have been banned at recess at my son’s school. So there’s that.
I am not sure what banning balls at recess has to do with this — was this meant to be posted somewhere else?
I’m replying because I know that it can be necessary to ban balls if there are hundreds of students confined to a fairly small playground during recess. In an ideal world, kids could have an area to run around where they aren’t likely to be hit by a flying ball, but at some overcrowded schools, after too many balls hitting other kids heads, they have been banned.
I was thinking generally about child development and the loss of play.
There are a lot of posts on this forum regarding what many see as the shortfalls of Eva’s methods.
Much of what you’re seeing now in the public schools is a direct result of pressure to produce good test scores. Recess either shortened or cut. No music or art. No social studies. All about the test scores.
I’d say that one major difference between the Success Acadamies and our public schools is that Eva embraces this hard nosed philosophy for children while we’re fighting and speaking out against it.
“When I survey parents of preschoolers, they tend to be on board with many of these changes, either because they fear that the old-fashioned pleasures of unhurried learning have no place in today’s hypercompetitive world or because they simply can’t find, or afford, a better option. The stress is palpable: Pick the “wrong” preschool or ease up on the phonics drills at home, and your child might not go to college. She might not be employable. She might not even be allowed to start first grade!”
Or, the parents believe more academics younger and younger IS the better option.
We have a public preschool here – it’s part of the district- and the parents who use it rave about it- not because they have a garden and take the children to the library or park (they do all that in the preschool) but because it’s “more like real school” or “they’re really teaching them” and then they point to examples like their children recognizing words or bringing home “papers”. They want teachers to do this. They think seeing evidence of “work” is a measure of how hard the teachers are working and the value of preschool. I’m on a community school panel and I’ve listened to the preschool teachers- THEY have a much broader approach to what they they do- they talk a lot about hands on activities and how play is learning but I’m not sure our working/middle class parents see that as valuable. A lot of them seem to want to see immediate, tangible progress on the measures the parents recognize as valuable- knowing letters or numbers or learning how to print.
I find admiration of all things academic among many newly arrived ELL parents. The Asian, Middle Eastern, and eastern European parents want “lots of homework and no nonsense.” I’ve had parents offer to come in and hit the child with a switch in front of the class for misbehavior! How we view school definitely has a cultural component. We had to spend time explaining to parents that the expectation may be somewhat different.
Over the past few years, especially with the implementation of the Common Core standards,my colleagues and I have been increasingly frustrated by the developmentally-inappropriate expectations for or pre-K and kindergarten students. With all of the academics and the pressure placed on teachers with the new evaluation system, there is minimal time during the school day for children to engage in the self-selected activities which provide the opportunity to learn and practice their social skills. With the advent of technology in todays generation, the need for instruction and practice of socio-emotional skills is even more critical. (Thank you, Bill Gates and your counterparts. It’s about time that you stick to your area of expertise and get your noses out of America’s education system before more children are harmed) I have seen numerous articles written by employers that their incoming employees are lacking the “soft skills,” which are skills that need to be developed from a young age. In addition, since we are expected to start children in reading groups early into the school year, there is little time to focus on the pre-requisite skills such as phonemic awareness and phonics, as well as handwriting and other fine motor activities which is an area that our children need MORE practice with since many of them are being brought up learning on tablets rather than exploring with crayons and pencils like their predecessors. The days of the good old read-aloud are gone as well since we have now have to dissect books to ensure that we are meeting the standards. Sadly, our nation has and will likely lose many talented and dedicated early childhood teachers who, like me, cannot continue to conform to ridiculous expectations and developmentally inappropriate practices which don’t align to our philosophies of early childhood education.
I recently asked a parent how her kindergartner liked school. “She hates it”, the mom replied. “She cries, and begs not to go”.
This is criminal and it MUST come to light. The people who are responsible for the situation have to held accountable. It’s insane and its destructive.
Whoever came up with the idea of all-day kindergarten should be rounded up and jailed for child abuse. It is insanity. Oh, yes, I know some private schools have them in an attempt to get the precocious kids to enroll, but it is insanity and downright cruel to subject kindergartners to this. I work with a kindergarten teacher and have the past couple of years trying to work my way back into the system, and I can tell you half-days are much better than this nonsense Oregon pushed through this year. The kids are completely wiped out by noon. Yes, the kids are learning reading and math although not all of them can actually do all that much, but they just physically can’t handle it all. Clue to the public: kindergarten is not a babysitting service. School is not a babysitting service. Let the kids be kids.
“College-ready in kindergarten”
College-ready in Kindergarten
Bachelor’s in first
Ph D in second grade
A life that’s well-rehearsed
Give the children back their childhood. Give teachers back their classrooms. Politicians don’t beling in schools.
We are completely going in the wrong direction! When I was a little kid during the early Sixties, we ran around outside all day. No one expected the ubiquitous stay-at-home moms to be close by. We just had to be within shouting distance. We were ready for school because we craved the order and discipline.
Every single kid did fine academically. We could all read, write, multiply, and divide. Some kids learned at a slower rate, but they learned. Now some kids graduate high school without a full range of necessary skills. We suddenly have a ton of Autistic and ADHD kids – and teachers don’t know how to give them what they need. We just pass them along.
Kids now grow up with an adult hovering over them at all times. They never get the pure experience of fending for themselves a bit. Every decision they make is made within the boundaries provided such as, “would you prefer McDonalds or Burger King?”
Parents drop their children off and go to work. By the time their child is a 6th grader, they don’t know their child at all. (Note to parents: you think you do, but you don’t. I’m a parent too. Looking back, I was just as guilty.) The kids who have been left behind academically are frustrated and they act out. Their guilt-ridden parents defend them as though they are their legal team. It’s parents against teachers. The principals stay “unavailable.” School secretaries quietly handle discipline decisions.
It’s a whole new world! What if we gave students some of what they missed as little kids? – chances to explore and interact without an adult guiding every step. Maybe pre-Kindergartens should be held in big spaces with an adjoining yard. Other than some guided group songs or story times, we should set them free to color, build with blocks, play house, swing, nap, etc. Their social skills, language gaps, fine motor skills, and more would automatically improve – all while ensconced in an academic setting to get them a bit ready for the rigors of school.
I also posted this as a comment in another blog but I also thought it applied here.
stifles creativity, innovation and the ability to question the status quo. Children are taught there is one right answer and that authority figures know what it is and their job is to discover it. That is not the way you create the people who cause the great leaps forward in the world. Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison would never have received high school diplomas under this system. Talented people with learning disablablities will struggle. The people who are successful are good test takes who can sit in seats and like finding the right answer. In other words people who are good middle management or high-level executives who never question whether what they are doing is legally or ethically sound. (Mortgage bounds anyone?) People you talk about Bill Gates as a great wonder. He is a good businessman, not a creative person. He seized the opportunity to write basic for the Altair, a hobby primitive computer. Other people were writing BASIC at the time . To me, Common Core is exactly the kind of education idea to come from a business man who later hired programmers on the cheap, released crappy software because he could get away with it and tried to force out all competition. (Sound familiar?)
If you want to know what preschool SHOULD be (assuming the decision makers are too busy to read research by Peter Gray and Lillian Katz), subscribe to Teacher Tom’s Blog! THAT is what preschool should be! And if I had my way, I’d make him Secretary of Education!
I missed this post when I was on vacation, but read the article when I got home. I get Atlantic. Makes me sad, and then mad.