Peter Rawitsch teaches first grade. He has been a teacher for 40 years. He was invited to participate in the New York State review of Common Core standards for the early grades.
He deliberated with the group and came away convinced that the standards, however written, will do more harm than good. In this article, he calls for a moratorium on standards for the youngest children.
http://ecepolicyworks.com/first-grade-teacher-demands-moratorium-on-nys-p-2-ela-standards/
He thinks that children need a childhood more than they need standards.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on DelawareFirstState and commented:
Children need a childhood more than they need standards, I 100% agree with this statement.
Missing from many of our kindergarten classrooms are the play centers. Both of my kids attended kindergarten for 1/2 days – they played and learned and they received special education services. They are thriving today in college, we need to bring imagination back into the classroom and stop pushing so hard. We should be taking advantage of full day kindergarten!
Kim,
I am so glad that there is someone in the state legislature in Delaware trying to rein in your governor’s enthusiasm for GERM–the Global Education Reform Movement.
I wonder if there’s an opening for public school advocates to have some say in what happens in PUBLIC schools due to the national ed reform obsession with charters and vouchers.
There might be a kind of silver lining in the fact that no one in ed reform is interested in existing public schools. Maybe the echo chamber can be broken up a little in the PUBLIC school policy area and we can hear from some new people, people who are outside “the movement”. That would be a welcome change from the last 15 years of lockstep marching to ed reform demands.
Children develop at different rates, and each child’s path is unique. There is a danger in trying to hold students and teachers “accountable” to a particular set of standards as child development is an individual process that must encompass the whole child. There is no need to rate and rank as this will be counterproductive, particularly for students that are “late bloomers.”
If you live in an area with limited “mobility” – people don’t move in and out- the population stays about the same- you really start to see how ridiculous the school ratings schemes are over time. We have these big swings and I KNOW as a practical matter the staff of leadership or general composition of the students hasn’t changed. I also know they keep changing the measure.
I read ed reformers so I know they get all upset when parents don’t pay attention to the ratings they churn out, but it might be because a lot of parents have seen this over 20 years and it’s discredited.
“Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.”
Children need time to have command of any language whether they are native English speakers or are English Language Learners.
Having the time for free and structured play is the best way to learn the conventions of a language . Too many of our kindergartens do not have the play centers where this time for practice and learning take place. Children are siting in chairs or on the floor for most of the day.
They are being asked to read and write like first and second graders. Many become turned off to learning by the end of kindergarten. They see no joy in learning because they have not been challenged in age appropriate ways.
I agree with Kim Williams, children need a childhood more than they need standards.
The organization defending the early years has many position statements and reports that support this position and as a person not trained in child development their position papers, especially the one on academic vs. intellectual growth that have really help me understand this issue. I really worry that the intense focus on mostly purely academic standards for all students has undermined the purpose of education which is much more than checking that students can demonstrate that they are proficient in a list of academic standards. I have a number of friends my age with children starting college who have no clue how to study, research and learn on their own because high school is now so hyper focused on the intense standard based content. In my mind school is about learning how to learn new ideas and developing the intellectual curiosity and skills in which to gain knowledge outside the classroom and as a citizen and somehow by relentlessly focusing on a narrow list of topics called standards we’ve lost that.
https://www.deyproject.org/dey-reports.html
And who in their right mind could disagree?
Depends on the definition of “right”, eh!!
Let’s standardize toddlers. Children who walk at 9 months are on level. Children who walk by 12 months are slightly behind. Children who walk after 15 months are seriously behind. Children that don’t walk until 18 months need special education. Never mind that it is in the normal range for children to walk any time between 9-18 months. This whole pushing standards down is ludicrous. Making standards that are above normal developmental levels is a waste of time at best and child abuse at worse.
Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
It is so sad, what they have done to all of education. And now they are imposing these standards on our youngest children. Not just K-2, but even into pre-schools.
This is so wrong. Children need to play and explore. They learn and develop by playing and exploring.
The idea of standardizing early childhood is provocative enough, but the teachers’ reaction that Peter relayed stopped me in my tracks. How would we as teachers know what to teach without standards? Shocking. I am struck with how the current high stakes environment has disenfranchised teachers from their own professional intellect and agency.
I think Peter was shocked as well. Here is his comment:
My response is that we observe, listen and get to know our students so we can determine what they know.
I agree with his response. We as teachers must be learners of our students. I’d like to add more to Peter’s response. Shouldn’t we mine our foundational thinkers as resources when asking what to teach? What would Dewey say about what to teach? Or Freire?
I think that both would advocate turning to the students’ life worlds. The world in which they are currently interacting. “Reading that world and then reading the word” To my fellow teachers, what does this imply for what to teach? How to teach?
Let’s re-engage with what we believe and what we know. Do you believe that we should unstandardized early childhood? Who are the foundational thinkers that you turn to when planning what and how to teach? I am very interested in your thoughts!