Laura Eberhart Goodman is a parent and a retired teacher. She is upset that her children come home from elementary school exhausted, frustrated, and listless. When she asks them about the good things that happened that day, they can’t think of anything unless it was during lunch or recess. They have been subjected to scripted learning and continual assessment. There is no play, no imaginative activities, no fun, no good memories. It shouldn’t be like this. Thanks, President George W. Bush. Thanks, Sandy Kress and Margaret Spellings. Thanks, President Obama. Thanks, Arne Duncan. You ruined childhood for millions of children.
She writes:
From a parental perspective, a good learning environment is one with positive energy. The teachers want to be there, and the children want to be there. No one is counting the minutes to the end of the day before it has even started.
From an educator’s perspective, an environment that is engaging, hands-on, with opportunities for meaningful learning, practice, discussions, and creativity, makes kids happy. When kids are happy, they learn more, and without having to resort to bribery. It’s not rocket science.
When the learning environment becomes very serious, and relies heavily on assessment and grades, learning targets and goals, it is not as enjoyable. It is “work”, and children don’t enjoy work. It’s not in their nature to enjoy work; children are created to learn through play.
You will have as much success asking a tiger not to have stripes as you will asking children not to play. I was watching two children at the post office the other day waiting to get passports, and they had been there for quite a long time. They developed a game using one of their jackets, and entertained themselves nicely with it. It is as natural as breathing for children to play. What defines “play”? Any activity that engages the imagination and creativity, two skills that lead to innovation and problem solving when practiced often enough.
We can’t expect them to do work in the same way that an adult does work. We are not the same. They don’t have to pay a mortgage and I get to stay up as late as I want to. One is not better or worse than the other; they are different.
Just because students may have to sit in an office for 8 hours a day when they are adults, doesn’t mean that they should have to start practicing it now as children. It is like saying to a ten year old, “One day you’re going to pay taxes, so I’m going to keep 50% of your birthday money from Grandma because I want you to get used to it.”
There’s a proper time for everything.
Why has elementary school become the time for instructional and assessment methods that are more appropriate for high school and college students?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As a k-2 math Title 1 teacher, I agree that elementary school should be a place of learning through play and joy. The only disagreement I have is that I also think all of education should be filled with a playful attitude and the joy of learning. I fear that some very powerful interests are trying to change the idea of a good public school into a place where all students are measured and weighed according to their perceived future economic worth.
“Wrong to the Core”
Eliminate the Common Core
For kindergarten kids?
I’ll tell you what is now in store
With such a plan as this:
The kids will not read close
Or even read at all!
Instead they’ll prolly post
Their drawings on the wall!
Has it always been this way in the US ? My kids were in an English state primary school in Yorkshire, England in the period 1984-1993 and they enjoyed it. So did the other kids. And no homework.
No. It hasn’t always been this way, I went to school in the late 70s in California.
I LOVED school.
We had choir and art and learned how to make movies. We had math and science lab and whole days when we could read books. (Whole novels. Not just excerpts)
We went on walks – sometimes in the rain. We went to the beach to study sea life.
In high school I so loved reading classic novels that my sophomore English teacher altered the cirriculum to allow me to read, discuss, and synthesize as many novels as I wanted. I read alot that year. And I went on to AP English. Which was pretty easy after spending a year discussing great novels with a teacher with a masters degree in English…,
There were no standardized tests then. Teachers were free to teach. And to tailor instruction to different kinds of kids.
With that kind of “permissive” education, provided by non “accountable” teachers, I skipped the 3rd grade, graduated high school with a 3.8 gpa and finished college.
My mother was single, we were broke, amd my school wasn’t in a wealthy neighborhood. It was just a regular public school with the freedom to function.
And I’m not an overly bright person. I’m just a regular, average person who was in a school system that recognized the only way to get my attention was through stories. So I got stories.
My own regular, average kids will get tested, get “c”s and get labeled as regular and average. That’s it. No one is allowed to look for their bright spots. No teacher can alter the cirriculum to reach what motivates my kids- or anyone else’s.
My kids would only get what I got if I could afford 25k a year for private school. Each.
No, it has not always been like this. I taught in the 90’s before staying home with my daughter. My students worked on projects. We read good books and discussed them. We wrote our own stories and shared. We walked to stores and businesses in the neighborhood and learned about different jobs. We learned about architecture as we read The Three Little Pigs. School was fun. Then the tests came.
Exactly. You should go and find the many posts here, where I show what learning looked like when I was teaching, evening the nineties.
WE knew how to motivate and meet the objectives. Read my posts here1
My youngest does like school, but in my (limited) observation as a parent I think school is grimmer than it was when my oldest was there. He’s out of college and working but his fondest memory of the lower grades was walking from the school to the public library, which they did once a week (weather permitting). It’s funny what people remember. I used to see them waiting at the crosswalk regularly, walking somewhere or other. I don’t think they go anymore, or I haven’t seen them. They also used to go to the museum once in the younger grades- it’s 60 miles away so it was a big production. I know they don’t do that anymore.
My own best memory of school had nothing to do with academics. We had a 2nd grade teacher who played the acoustic guitar and taught us songs. I still know all the lyrics. I don’t even know if that would be allowed now 🙂
“The Guitar VAM”
My teacher got the can
For teaching songs in school
For geeetar, got the VAM
With math-test as the tool
I am 65 and have lovely vivid memories of my elementary school days in the 1950s. We performed classroom plays and acted out scenes from American history. We went to the school library and picked out books. We used paint, construction paper, and crayons. In music, we sang songs and used simple instruments. We wrote stories and poems. Every now and then we had a spelling test or a short math quiz. Today’s “Rheeformers” would probably regard my experiences as woefully lacking in “rigor,” but somehow I became “college and career ready,” earning my bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Big Ten schools and my law degree from Harvard. Best of all, my elementary school education was full of excitement and joy, and I became a “lifetime learner” as a result.
How do we think children will grow up if we consider them no more than economic chattel? Joy must be part of the equation along with positive relationships if we want children to grow up with a solid sense of self. Otherwise, I fear we may produce too many timid, neurotic survivors and a lot of dropouts. The creativity you describe above will lost in the quest for the “right” answer.
I am new to your blog. Just started EdD. program at Walden U. I subscribed to your blog after I received a google scholar alert with your blog. I am really enjoying your blog. I am a Kindergarten teacher in a private parochial school in San Diego. I love my job. I loved my job 25 years ago before I had any children. My four sons are now either in college or on their way to starting careers. I returned to teaching only a year ago. I agree with your post-teacher’s do need to love their job, and when I find myself surrounded by colleagues who are complainers, it is really depressing.
I find it interesting that even in Kindergarten there seems to be a great divide between parents who want more content and less play. There are parents who want their four year olds to start Kindergarten. On there other hand, I have many parents who are educated about the importance of ‘play’. They are well informed and understand the precarious it takes to incorporate, integrate play in a meaningful way.
I am lucky that I work for a Principal who is invested in inquiry and project based learning. Even still, at a parochial school where I only have these children for approximately half a day, it is almost impossible to do it all well. So, I do the best I can do, and try to prioritize. Hard! At the end of the day, I want my kids to LOVE coming to school, and to go home excited about the amazing day they had, and hope that their sleep goes by really fast so that they can get to school the next day!
As an educator I am frustrated that all the dollars, research that went into common core has ended up in the parking lot. So much great stuff there, but what were they thinking really?
…. I think I clicked on your post initially because my maiden name is Revich!
“a google scholar alert”
What is that? Please explain. TIA, Duane
Duane,
You can put “Google Scholar” into your browser and it gives you the number of times a scholar’s work has been cited by other scholars.
Thanks, didn’t remember that. I think I’ve heard of it before.
I wonder what google considers a “scholar” to be. Think it’s Eva’s definition?
Here is a school alternative… and innovative way to interest kids in listening to the spoken word, or learning to read difficult text,.schools were not an option, Andee Kinzy, a filmmaker actress before she had kids and settled in Austin with my son, decided to re-write Shakespeare so kids could speak and enjoy it.
I put these 2 links up at Oped, just to introduce people to this extraordinary effort to compensate for the absence of such real work in school.
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Production-Classes-for-Imp-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Language_Shakespeare_Theater_Theater-160104-338.html
AND THIS YEAR’S PROJECT IS for any girl IN AUSTIN, who wants to WRITE and see her play produced!
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Witchcraft-In-Their-Lips–in-Life_Arts-Children_Events_Female_Girls-160107-921.html
Here Andee talks to girls about writing…. don’t you wish she was teaching your girls?
https://www.facebook.com/ImprovEdShakespeare/?fref=nf
I am a playwright, and did not hear the words I wrote, spoken by the character on stage untilI was in my forties. MY granddaughter, Zia, did this when she was 11.
I first saw my granddaughter play ProsperA at age 9. Saw her as Hamleta at age 11 and as Petruchio at age 12. She and her brother, when I spoke to them on the phone, handled language and used words like no child today can.
https://dianeravitch.net/2016/01/08/revolutionary-idea-elementary-school-children-should-like-school/#respond
Here my grandson (the curly-haired mopped) plays Grumio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXNDbXWIfrs
You should hear him speak…and he never had to sit in a classroom and take tests to prove what he knows. here he is at 7, but listen to all these kids… doing real, hard work and having fun. Go to 5; :27 to see my little boy and at 6:08 to hear him speak, but listen to althea very young kids.
Hear the level of language used by these children to introduce a play
Does this look like these kids are not having fun learning…and a look at Andee, , teacher, filmmaker, producer, director, mommy.
Moreover, there was real, hard work involved to do this
and anyone who goes to their facebook page and looks at the videos and photos, can see what kids need to do to learn those lines, and work together on stage, and to promote the theater.
The best reports about the joy of school come to you from students, at home or some other venue, whether solicited or not. I’d love to see a survey that asks students if they really like school and what they like best.
But the economists and data hungry managers want to survey students for a differet set of reasons. And here is some information about one of the big sellers for that purpose.
Economist Ron Ferguson developed the Tripod surveys to get at some ideas about classroom and school climate. These surveys were used in the infamous Measures of Effective Teaching project funded at about $64 million by Bill Gates. The surveys were part of a package of measures, including the Danielson observation schedule, and calculations of VAM based on standardized test scores..
The website http://tripoded.comny/teachers/ claims that the Tripod survey’s have been the subject of peer-reviewed research linking student engagement (effort and behavior) and achievement (gains on standardized tests). This is what counts for effective teaching.
The 7Cs framework of effective teaching describes the extent to which teachers:
Confer. Invite ideas and promote discussion
Captivate. Inspire curiosity and interest
Clarify. Cultivate understanding and overcome confusion
Consolidate. Integrate ideas and summarize key points
Challenge. Press for rigor and persistence
Classroom Management . Sustain order, respect, and focus
.
That is the hype. I did an analysis of the original version of these now widely used surveys and found the deck stacked against any teacher who did not invest heavily in assigning and checking homework, running a very tight ship with a sharp focus on academic learning as work, and learning to work hard at school worka great virtue.
You can see one of the original surveys in the MET study here. http://www.sd394.com/images/MET_Project_Elementary_Student_Survey.pdf
Tripod says the survey has been peer reviewed. I have yet to find any peer reviewed research about this survey.
The closest thing to it is thiswell informed criticism http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-asking-students
Laura, the Pew National Standards research was about effort -based learning, and what they researchers who studied my practice looked for were the REWARDS for learning that accompanied the CLEAR EXPECTATIONS… those 2 things. You might want to find Vicki Bill who’s the staff developer at the LRDC who was the ‘tools’ person who went into the classrooms to see whether or not the teacher/cohort met the indicators for those 2 things.
My students did the work, and the rewards were intrinsic in the great performance in writing in reading, but also in so many small things which were part of the classroom experience… like our round-table Fishbowls, or the art activities that we did, the movies we watched, the fun we had.
Motivation is key, but that said, the ‘tight ship’ was the clear expectations for each assignment, and a constant review with students and parents of what had been accomplished and what still needed to be done… and I never gave a test (just a few vocabulary or spelling quizzes to keep the kids on their toes). The test was their writing, their literary analysis and stories, in my room, their reports and essays in science and humanities (we teachers worked as a team…what a concept… no wonder it had to go –that was WLLL what LEARNING LOOKED LIKE!
Another revolutionary idea: high school students should like school. So should college students.
Even more revolutionary: Adults should then be able to choose a job in their life that they enjoy.
“Why has elementary school become the time for instructional and assessment methods that are more appropriate for high school and college students?”
They are not appropriate in HS or college either.
Damn right, Mate!
What’s infuriating is that this overload on kids is spreading all over the world.
When my kids were in K-8, they went to school for one month in Hungary every summer. And, amazingly, they loved to do the extra load: the classes were 45 minutes, 15 min breaks in between during which they were *encouraged* to roam free, play soccer, hide and seek, in the big school yard full of trees, sculptures. In K-4, they were done by noon, and in later grades by 1pm. Teachers were happy, chatty. In the last week of classes, there were no classes: games and races were organized all over the school, school yard.
5 years ago, things started to change for the worse: to the US style. Longer school days, tests, etc. For now, teachers are still worried if a kid is quiet during lunch, but I expect the Old Testament inspired discipline take hold soon enough.
Pasi Sahlberg calls it “G.E.R.M.”
http://pasisahlberg.com/global-educational-reform-movement-is-here/