My children went to a school where the kindergarten had a doll corner, a sandbox, a place to build a city with blocks and toys, and lots of other play stations.
Their teachers believed that play is children’s work.
I might add that they became skilled readers and writers and have productive lives.
There is no reason to banish childhood.
Exploration and curiosity come naturally to children. They want to know. They want to figure things out.
They will do it unless some misguided adult demands that they stop playing and fooling around.
Let children play and imagine.
It builds their brains and their sense of wonder at the same time.
A retired kindergarten teacher writes:
| As a retired Kindergarten teacher, I feel so sad for these Kindergartens of today and the future. No toys…..no learning how to share and play with others. No dress-up corner….no learning how to role-model acceptable grown-up behavior. No recess…..no gross motor movement and no learning acceptable social behavior and teamwork. Will there be music and dance to stimulate the brain and body movement? Will there be art for creative expression and to develop thinking patterns and processes? Will there be puzzles for spatial recognition and improving math cognizance? Will there be free choice to wander and wonder into the ‘magic’ of science centers, math centers, word centers, listening centers, etc. I could go on and on but I am getting depressed. I LOVED my days in Kindergarten and knowing that I was giving my children the gift of loving school and learning. Today’s teachers will have their hands tied to ‘testing’ and ‘results’ and ‘academics’ (whatever that is!). I mentor student educators now and I ask them to please speak up for what is right in their classroom…..be an activist and stand tall for your children and their learning environment! I hope we can turn this around soon!! |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Because of RTTT and VAM elementary teachers in NYS must have their day broken into attendance blocks. None of these blocks are labeled “play”. Hopefully most teachers will ignore this mandate and do what is right, but some who are afraid or worry about test scores may not. Parents need to ask their teachers questions about this.
My kindergartner has a wonderful teacher and assistant (I know because one of my older children had them), but the teacher has a lot she is charged with accomplishing by the end of the year. The “skills” that each kindergartner “needs” for first grade drive the curriculum so the teachers are not really to blame. I lay out this issue first because I don’t want to sound critical of them. The teachers are not captaining this ship. They are just crew hands following orders.
One of the way this teacher deals with all the demands is she has “must do” centers and “can do” centers. As far as I can tell, the must do’s include tasks that involve more prescribed writing and worksheets. The “can-do’s” include more developmentally appropriate activities like blocks, house, games, maybe art or reading. The children rotate through all the must-do’s during the week and if those are completed during the alloted time, I guess they get to choose can-do’s if center time isn’t over for the day. Here is a summary of a conversation with my kindergartner the other night as she was going to bed:
“Tell me something about school today,” I said.
“Well,” she said, “I was at centers with Bethany and Ethan and I told Bethany I wanted centers to be over.”
“Really?” I said. “Why is that?”
“Because I have to go to my cubby and get the work I haven’t finished and there is too much work so I can’t finish it so I can’t go to the “can-do’s” to do what I want and I want to play house.”
“So all the work in the cubby has to be done before you can go do the things you want to do, like house.”
“Yes, but I can’t get it all done so that is why I just scribble scrabble so I can be done.”
Out of the mouths of babes…
Love your conversation with your child. Give him/her a hug!
My children start pre-K and K at a public Montessori in my district this year. I got to visit their classrooms this week and meet the teachers. Because it is a Montessori the work is play and exploration with a purpose. When I enrolled them in this school, I didn’t know much about Montessori (I’m still no expert) but it was the only public school with a tuition based pre-K near where we live. I must say that I was pleased with all I heard. My son in pre-K will learn to sew with real needles and hammer with a real hammer. These will help with focus, concentration, care for details, and motor skills. He’ll be in a class with kindergarteners too so he will have mentors.
My daughter is in a K-1 class and the same principles apply. Play with a purpose is at the forefront. However, something the teacher said about 1st grade really bothered me. She said that the 1st graders will have work sets to complete daily and they may not go out to afternoon recess unless it is complete. I didn’t get the opportunity to question this and felt a little uncomfortable asking since my child is not a 1st grader.
Overall, though, I think we made the right choice in putting the kids in Montessori. It sounds to me like in standard kindergarten the aspects of socialization through play and learning through play are gone. Clearly our kids still need this because I spend half my day dealing with tattling about what the neighbor kid did to my kid or what my kid did to the neighbor kid. My standard response is “If you’re not bleeding or broken, work it out yourselves.” Kids clearly need the socialization training to be successful members of society. I’m happy to help with this as the parent, but schools have large groups of diverse kids where teaching these skills seems very appropriate.
So setting children up for failure, thus hating school and learning is how American reforms education.
It’s horrible to think that our students are leaving school everyday, going home and not have something exciting to share. Dag-gone it, it’s not the teacher’s fault!
I hate to sound like a broken record but Fiolindy you are so correct. We are setting up children for failure. In pre-k there is the same pressure as I’ve posted more than once. There are so many issues. The child who scribble scrabbles to get through so she can play in the can do centers is one way of encouraging a child to lose interest. There are also children who are simply not ready for the demands (we’re never allowed to say not ready) and becomes frustrated and gives up without even trying. She knows it’s beyond her ability. They’re young but they’re not stupid. Within the first few weeks they all know which children can do the tasks required and which are struggling. Sometimes the ones who can do the work for the ones who can’t. That breaks my heart.
Teachers are at the bottom of the food chain and early childhood teachers are below them.
I am vocal about what is developmentally appropriate but there are so many dominant voices above mine that I most of the time get silenced.
When is this going to end? I can’t imagine how the current generation of children in school are going to survive this assault.
You are not at the bottom of the food chain here. Your voice is valued.
Diane