Wendy Lecker, civil rights attorney, writes here about the New York Times editorial endorsing academic rigor for kindergarten children, because a study said it would produce higher test scores someday. I guess the Times’ editorial board doesn’t read this blog. Too bad for them. They would have learned more by reading Froebel than by reading the latest study of how to raise test scores.
Last week, The New York Times unwittingly provided an example of how bad education policy is made. A front-page article trumpeted “Free play or flashcards? A new study nods to more rigorous preschools.”
The study the article featured purportedly proved that frequent, direct instruction of “academic” content in preschool yielded more “cognitive gains” than play-based preschool. The study even contended that preschools that do not engage in enough direct academic instruction “may be doing their young charges a disservice.” The study’s author, Bruce Fuller, denigrated play, declaring that “(s)imply dressing up like a firefighter or building an exquisite Lego edifice may not be enough…”
Does this obvious observation prove that “academic” preschool helps children learn better? No — as the authors themselves admit. They state that they did not follow children in this study past kindergarten, even though they acknowledge that previous preschool studies find that many effects fade by fifth grade.
To the contrary, decades of research demonstrate that an emphasis on play in the early years provides long-lasting academic and social benefits.
Young children’s brains are not ready for the abstract thinking that direct instruction of “academic” content requires. Children use play to establish the foundation for abstract learning. For example, socio-dramatic play enables children to understand sequencing essential to math and reading. Building with blocks enables children to understand that objects can represent other objects, so later they can comprehend that lines represent letters and words represent ideas. Contrary to the claims in The New York Times article, play is learning for young children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What’s next – Kindergarteners marching in close order drill?
I watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 last night. I now have visions of kindergarteners marching in to Hogwarts under the gaze of Snape.
So tell me again how trustworthy the NYT is? For that matter, how liberal it is?
dienne77 So we should paint the whole NYTimes with a broad brush to suit someone’s predetermined political wishes? I guess I’ll stop reading it now. (ha ha)
For me, maybe Breitbart and the National Enquirer (what a misstatement THAT is). But but not the New York Times, especially in context with several other truly reputable news organizations and methods. As you know, you have to use your head in any reading, and put them in context, especially nowadays. And for this matter, Diane’s blog is one of those contexts.
This is hardly the first time they’ve published an article like this. In fact, please find me an education article in the NYT that shows any genuine, not-paid-off by “reform”, understanding of educational issues. I’ll wait.
dienne77 I guess I was thinking more of the GENERAL NYT articles, and not education. Since I moved out of the Washington DC area, my reading habits have changed. I’ll bow to your experience of their educational writings. I do hope you are not correct in your assumption about their editorial board’s motivations.
I speculate here–however: I CAN think of a situation as plausible where already “bent”and non-professional (in education) board members and staff are snowed by the present powers-that-be and controllers of information, in the same way that other public institutions are snowed, followed by policy–given Sophie’s Choice “choices” and think that’s the whole thing.
Maybe someone here can tune them in to Diane’s writings and this blog?
Catherine Blanche King
“As you know, you have to use your head in any reading,” Absolutely correct , there is a world of difference between slanted news and editorial and fake news.
Between the Hill-bots (NYSPSP ) and those on the let it burn left like dienne77, to be found on many comment pages, it is a head spinning experience.
Play helps with developing executive function and that “exquisite Lego” tower or house is developing spatial relationships and problem solving skills which are the basis for mathematics. The best teaching is active and involves as many of the learner’s senses as possible. Play is the work that children must do to build the dendrites and neural structures essential for learning.
Diane Ironically, the article points to a horribly abstract method to measure the development of the many diverse qualities that children will bring to concrete human living–using test scores as a gauge. I do think that, when our students turn, say, 30, they are most probably drawing on much more comprehensive stuff that they learned in kindergarten than they put on a test when they were 4.
With Froebel’s work, I would suggest Fuller increase his background knowledge to include the theoretical backdrop, methodologies, and actual teacher experiences that flow from Marie Montessori’s teaching, among many MANY others. He sounds like someone who didn’t get the memo with the subject line: “Don’t write about this until you understand something about the history of education.” He cannot be truly critical in his writing, or even reasonable, I would argue, without it.
Sounds to me like a paid drone, like those anti-climate-change scientists. Shame on the New York Times on this one–not for publishing, but for publishing a talking point pawned off to sound like comprehensive research.
ADDENDUM: here’s the answer to the question: **Why are students so bored with school by the time they get to grades 1-6 and high school?”
ANSWER: Direct instruction in their early grades.
Sorry, my BAD: Wendy Lecker says RIGOR IS FOR PRE-K!
Dianeravitch Well, I suppose “early grades” can also covers pre-K.
But GOOD GRIEF! to the whole thing. These guys are to education what shade-tree mechanics are to the auto industry, or what the Jim Jones was to serious religious scholarship and practice.
BTW, I hope the New York Times made a bad editorial decision by mistake, instead of having drunk the poison. (drank?)
NYT position on more rigor via direct instruction rather than play is really STUPID. Sorry, but I am just FED UP with deformers. They want SLAVES except of course for their children.
Slaves can actually do things. Not so sure about children with no real world experience.
I learned the concept of fractions as a six to nine year-old following directions on the Betty Crocker cake-flour box and using McCall’s patterns to sew, both under the guidance of my parents.
I once handed a ruler (could have been any flat stick) and asked middle-schoolers to measure a bulletin board in order to figure out how much paper they would need to get from the roll of butcher paper in the supply closet. They couldn’t do it.
At that point, I realized the lack of real-world experience was sorely inhibiting the ability of humans to solve problems using either mathematics or common sense.
Now Pre-K should be academic? I can see why this journalist is so stupid in spite of his now meaningless SAT score. Too disabled to research and locate quality evidence, he could not pass the benchmark tests I gave in middle-school.
Whether he attended a “play-oriented” pre-school or not, he seems to have been short-changed academically after third grade.
I totally agree with the thrust of your comment. But need to add this caveat: as a kid in the ’50’s, I too worked the mini-Betty Crocker kitchen & tried desperately to learn how to sew, w/much input from my seamstress-Mom. But had (unlike her) serious math issues.
By the time I was in my late-30’s, I was an accomplished water-colorist, & flummoxed my Irish-sweater-knitting pattern-following Mom by creating sweaters & hats sans-pattern for my babies…
Some of us just learn differently.
Ditto. The either-or frame of the Times article is IGNORANT. The author parrots all of the same corporate reform tropes. I think the NYTimes & the MBAs behind edu- reform want all of us to become corporate Calvinists.
PreK curriculum can be play based that concurrently embeds pre-academic concepts into child-led activities. Years of research on the Perry Preschool & High Scope tells us more about how kids learn than one narrow study.
Playing is a foundation of all human development. All animals play but it’s uniquely human for our play to develop into sophisticated cognitive schemes such as imagination, creativity, problem solving, social connections.
I’m convinced if Americans had more time to play rather than worked to the bone we wouldn’t have elected Donald Trump.
I support your last para. The rural and rust-belt folk who elected Trump theoretically have space (rural) and time (unemployed) to play. I grew up in the ’50’s in rural US w/space & time aplenty to play. The difference between then & now is that even the rural economy of the ’50’s allowed for one parent to earn enough as a self-starter w/some trade/entrepreneurial ability to earn enough that his mate could keep one eye on kids playing in the fields. Americans today do not have enough time to play because the economy has increasingly sucked for 30+ yrs. That engenders insecurity & fear for the future– & also causes Mom to go to work & Dad to get a 2nd job, & kids to be ensconced in after-sch pgms or w/a babysitter… which means, no one’s playing in the fields anymore…
To be fair, this wasn’t an New York Times editorial position but a New York Times news article covering a study.* That said, a (now-former) longtime K-12 education reporter for one of California’s largest newspapers told me years ago that she no longer used Bruce Fuller as a source because she no longer felt his studies were ethical and impartial, so his credibility was shot. And this was a reporter here in the Bay Area who knew Fuller well, as he’s also in the Bay Area and was readily available as a source — and this was years ago, meaning his credibility was long since blown with someone very familiar with him. The New York Times reporter may not be as familiar with his work, ethics and reputation.
*Unless there’s also an editorial that I missed; the links click through to a news article.
Bruce Fuller is the academic who produced the study, to be clear for those who didn’t click through to read it.
Does Bruce Fuller have children?
Studies come out all the time. It is an editorial decision to choose which are worthy of national attention.
Agreed! Just noting that it’s not an editorial endorsing the study.
Don’t know if he has children. I’ll have to ask the veteran education reporter who talked to me about him. Not that that ever factors into education “reformers’ ” opinions; their own kids are always cloistered in rarefied private schools, safely far, far away from whatever “reformers” are prescribing for “other people’s children.”
and front page attention no less!
The purveyors of corporate education reform have learned to choose their words very carefully.
Note how frequently “rigor” and “rigorous” pop up when they tout their wares.
In the context of their sales pitches they leave the strong impression that if one makes teaching and learning sufficiently harsh then “creativity” and “ability to work well as part of a team” and “critical thinking” and many other desirable outcomes will follow as inevitably as night follows day.
Their words ring hollow. On the practical side, the heavyweights of privatization and charters and vouchers et al. ensure that THEIR OWN CHILDREN aren’t given heavy [usually, very little or no] doses of the same bitter educational medicines that they are prescribing & mandating for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN.
On the common sense side, if “rigor” and “rigorous” were so obviously effective at getting positive results then—to look at it one [admittedly imperfect] way among many—US prisons [approx. 1 in 110 adults] would surely be producing model/productive/creative citizens at a furious rate.
While there are inevitably going to be exceptions, threatening and punishing and humiliating and depriving people doesn’t motivate them to excel at anything positive.
Quite the opposite. Those that wear the tired rheephorm cliché around their necks of “thinking outside the box” are very often those that push CBE so that all but the select few are “thinking inside the box.” Boxes that, not by accident, generate munificent amounts of $tudent $ucce$$.
The postings on this blog regarding this topic, and the threads, are first rate.
Thanks to all for your comments.
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Krazt TA: >In the context of their sales pitches they leave the strong impression that if one makes teaching and learning sufficiently harsh then “creativity” and “ability to work well as part of a team” and “critical thinking” and many other desirable outcomes will follow as inevitably as night follows day.<
Thank you for this. A perfect example of the backwardspeak used to push ed-deform. Snake-oil sales has a simple formula: you are promoting a cure for a common problem, but you’re selling a product that is cheap & w/o merit (which in fact probably has deleterious effects), so you sell it w/ phrases that assure it will cure the ill.
How can we educate the mighty NY Times? What have they been reading? Not the right stuff.
Why, why, why after all these years do we STILL continue to assume that ignorance is the problem?
crossposted at
https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/New-York-Times-Endorses-Ac-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Brain_Children_Diane-Ravitch_Kindergarten-170610-640.html
Of course, Diane is right. She usually is. Wendy Lecker too. But I suggest there is even more wrong with this study and the Times endorsement of early academic work.
As Diane wrote, the effects of direct instruction in early childhood wash out. They wash out because they are meaningless. Anyone can design an experience that trains children to temporarily do slightly better on tasks that they are trained to do slightly better on. I call that the self-fulfilling prophecy approach to education, aka utter nonsense. Because the training and performance are shallow and linear, the “learning,” if you can call it that, is useless for extension into other cognitive tasks.
But the larger sin, in my view, is one of omission, not commission. Many advocates of play-based learning cite only that it is more natural and enticing. Curiosity and discovery are more powerful and fun than “academic” tasks. But play is important “work.” The experimentation of block building is the neurobiological foundation for physics. Imagination is the fabric on which creativity is sewn. And all the “reformers” say we need creative and entrepreneurial kids! The natural engagement of the senses through play is not only developmentally appropriate, it is developmentally necessary. Every hour spent in so-called early academic work is an hour taken from the psychological, emotional and cognitive experiences that are the precursors to real success.
Early academic work isn’t just ineffective. It is harmful. Many of Diane’s readers know that several studies show the horrifying effects of direct instruction, particularly on the poorest children of color in America, to whom we do the most harm.
The New York Times has no writer, no member of the editorial board, no reporter, who knows virtually anything about education in the true sense of the word.
NYT reporter Kate Zernike has done good work in recent years (having been educated after some early incomprehension). Richard Rothstein used to do an education column for them that I thought was really good. In past times, I was impressed when Jacques Steinberg took over the education beat, after some seriously bad previous education reporting.
Those you mention were not/are not horrid, but they are decent only by virtue of how horrid most others are. Rothstein in particularly I always found banal and predictable.
to Lisa M (below): it’s so hard to know what to do. i know as parents we’ve made mistakes, and it just may be that our daughter will not love to read the way I did – as an adult I know that books can ignite imagination, save lives, books can be transforming. but our child was ELL and she was subjected to “being behind” – it’s difficult to know what to leave alone, when to just let them play, and when to try to “catch up” – terminology that as aware parents we know to be so destructive. we may make mistakes finding our way in all of this chatter (from experts) but the important things can still be in place. perhaps a wonderful chef, an engineer, an advocate, a maker of things, a wonderful parent, there are other ways adults can travel through the world without reading as a great pleasure. or at least I think so & tell myself this. thanks for your post.
PS we use audio books alongside the text, so our daughter (rising 8th) hears the words as she reads. it gives her a sense of having company when she reads (since she’s now afraid of it) and it gives her exposure to wonderful books. The Green Bicycle, If I Ever Get Out of Here, I am Malala, etc. (I’ve wondered if using audios will result in a love of theater & movies rather than books, but at least stories and empathy)
Well put: “the larger sin, in my view, is one of omission, not commission.”
Of course, writing as you do in plain standard English, succinctly making thought-provoking and logical points, will be utterly baffling to those that think and speak in Rheephormish.
So to assist those in need of a translation into the bidness lingo they are so fond of: what are the “opportunity costs” or “downsides” to kindergarten rigor? Yes, $tudent $ucce$$ is gained short-term, but what is lost long-term?
Just lending a hand…
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I can tell you the long term because both of my children started in all day kindergarten (1 now in 8th and the other in 10th). I was told that my children needed to learn the 50 sight words BEFORE they entered Kindergarten. I sat with flashcards and M&M’s drilling and killing all summer long…..and kill I did. Yes, my children could read and then they were assigned reading logs and small chapter books (In kindergarten!). Yes they could read the words, but they could not talk about the story….but that was OK with the school. Both of my children now HATE to read. They will not touch a book for pleasure. I’m sad that I listened to that nonsense when they were little more than babies. All of those hours would have been better spent playing Candyland or riding bikes or any other kid related fun activity. I feel ashamed that I listened to reading specialists when deep down in my gut I knew it was wrong to do that to small children.
Gee, the New York Times should go tell it to Finland that they have been doing it all wrong for decades. Letting younger kids play a few extra years before starting school and then letting them have lots of recesses to play. I’m sure the NYT would ignore the fact that Finland has one of the best public school systems on the planet.
Well, here are some things I found poking around since Diane’s post.
I am not a preschool specialist, but this push for mastery of academic knowledge in preschool and kindergarten comes from several sources.
One comes from “free market” policy shops. These policy makers make an economic case for the efficiency and effectiveness of Direct Instruction rather the “waste” in using school time for “play.” Here is one example from a free-market policy shop in Wisconsin. Direct Instruction saves money. Did the NY Times mention that motivation which has nothing to go with wonderful education? http://www.wpri.org/WPRI-Files/Special-Reports/Reports-Documents/Vol14no2.pdf
Some academics researchers claim that early childhood teachers spend too much time teaching things that children already know. This 2012 study complains about the overall focus on reading in early childhood education at the expense of teaching math. Then the authors offer evidence from a nationally representative sample that most children who enter kindergarten have already mastered basic math skills and ”that most kindergarten teachers spend substantial time teaching these same basic skills, and that this is detrimental for most children’s mathematics achievement.” (p. 27).
I suppose this means that out-of-school and pre-school programs are good at teaching the basics, and more of the same is not the problem. The problem is wasting time in Kindergarten teaching the same content. This strikes me as another case of think that “cost/effetiveness” matters more than anything else. https://cepa.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Engel_Claessens_Finch_forthcoming%20EEPA.pdf
Another source for the push to academics comes from proponents of Direct Instruction over play, hands-on projects, field trips and the like. The National Institute for Direct Instruction set up by Dr. Siegried Engleman promotes his views and research that dates from the 1960s. The website offers a list of “studies” on the efficacy of Direct Instruction. I did not look at them.
What is Direct Instruction? The following introduction comes from the University of Kansas with a credit to Dr. Nancy Marchand-Martella, now at the University of Oklahoma. This reference offers a couple of paragraphs illustrating the teaching method, first commercialized by Science Research Associates (SRA) now available from McGraw Hill as SRA KinderBound. The KInderBound package is designed so “teachers can quickly provide students with the basic understanding, knowledge, and skills needed to transition from preschool or home to kindergarten.” http://www.specialconnections.ku.edu/?q=instruction/direct_instruction
Direct instruction is aided by flashcards.Hold them up, point, get kids to say the correct words. For a great case of visual indigestion do a Google search for “preschool flashcards” and note the 40 + categories of content, the often terrible artwork, and stereotypes taught, especially under “occupations.”
If you have the patience and interest in preschool programs that find their way to the What Works Clearinghouse, you will find 83 studies. Of these, 26 had at least one statistically positive outcome. Be aware that the WWC search engine (and underlying philosophy) does not respond to the word “play” in combination with “preschool.”
I could draw a layout of my Kindergarten classroom in Detroit. It was memorable. Filled with invitations to learn. There was a large stainless steel tray waist high, sink-like, for water play. We called it the water table. We had a sand table for making imaginary landscapes, tunnels, and building castles (add a little water). Around two sides of the room there were shelves filled with board games and books; there were lots of boxes. Some hels building blocks. Some offered props, hats, scarfs for dress-up in front of the handy mirror or for use in “let’s present a play (drama). There was box of things to make sounds into music, a fold away puppet stage and puppets. We had two double easels, four people could paint at the same time. I remeber that indoor slide made of a golden colored wood with a lovely grain. We had a terrarium, the aquarium, matts to take a nap on. At 82 I cherish these memories and what I learned from so many invitations to “play.”
Laura Chapman and dienne77 I appreciate your research, Laura; your school memories remind me of Montessori school content and methods (unless they have changed–I haven’t looked for quite awhile). Also, the educational philosophy underpinning direct instruction has a long and disturbing, even ugly, past–too much to go into here–but think of school developed on the model of a factory?
As a pedagogy, however, DI is like most others–not ALL bad, and even good IF mixed with other pedagogies (like providing playtime) and if PROPERLY PLUGGED IN TO KNOWN DEVELOPMENTAL PATTERNS and needs, and where IEP exceptions are made for particular students via qualified teachers’ appraisals. As an adult, I happen to like DI–for myself as an adult-student–especially where the teacher is superb and a creative contributor to their field of knowledge.
The problem with DI, however, is that it’s what administrators and budgets (or funders) use to “control” overly-large classrooms–where other methods are ignored or dispensed with and where the teacher-student ratio is unbalanced–all set by cost-cutting measures rather than by principles of good teaching.
I’m 53 and you described my public school kindergarten exactly as it was in 1969. I still remember my locker had a red balloon (no names because kids weren’t expected to read until 1st grade). My teacher was a wonderful lady that I will never forget. At one point she made us all leave the room to go out into the hall while she gave our impoverished kid a bath and shampoo in the water table. When my children went to pre-school it was like my kindergarten and I just assumed that kindergarten would be an extension. Nope, desks, reading logs, math practice sheets and only 20 minutes of free play at the end of the full day and only a 20 minute recess. Shameful.
“Stupid is as stupid does.”
Forrest Gump
Is it that, or is it, “Where does the stupidity/incompetence end, and the malice begin?”
Perhaps there are areas of play where we can have it both ways. My daughter had a wonderful experience in preschool, coming away with a love for sea creatures, loving books, being ready to learn in kindergarten. I really do not know what they did, but she would want to play games like guess what color I am thinking, and you had to answer in Spanish. That seems pretty nice.
Play is learning for all ages. Creative genius expresses itself through play. Joyful poking is the essence of experimentation. Play invokes intuition and tests reality. The world would be a better place if we all remembered how to play.