Archives for category: Play
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Get Ready: May 18 is Outdoor Clasroom Day

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2017 //
6

Now here is a day that every child and teacher should take part in: Outdoor Classroom Day, which will take place on May 18.

It will be celebrated internationally. Over 350,000 students have already signed up.

Outdoor Classroom Day is a day to celebrate and inspire outdoor learning and play. On Thursday 18 May 2017, thousands of schools around the world will take lessons outside and prioritise playtime.

Why? Outdoor learning improves children’s health, engages them with learning and leads to a greater connection with nature. Play not only teaches critical life skills such as resilience, teamwork and creativity, but is central to children’s enjoyment of childhood.

No one seems to be making a buck on this idea; it is wholesome and good for everyone.

It is a welcome change from testing and test prep.

Strike a blow for play and exploration of nature.

Categories Play

Albuquerque May Cut Middle School Sports to Save Money

By dianeravitch
April 19, 2017 //
11

The public schools of Albuquerque, New Mexico, plan to save money by eliminating middle school sports teams.

Be it noted that Republican Governor Susanna Martinez has refused to raise taxes and has threatened to defund state universities.

The one potential cut that gets parents’ attention is sports teams.

New Mexico doesn’t want to pay for educating its children.

“Parents reacted with dismay to 3,400 students in Albuquerque Public Schools losing a traditional training ground for high school athletics. Basketball, volleyball and track and field teams in the district’s 28 middle schools are set to be disbanded next school year, leaving families to find private leagues for children in grades 6, 7 and 8.

“Some worry that low-income families in particular may be hard-pressed to find teams and facilities outside public school, while others say the opportunity to play sports is critical for students at such a formative age.

“Vanessa Petty, president of the parents association at Lyndon B. Johnson Middle School in Albuquerque, said her daughter was looking forward to playing volleyball next year.

“Their first introduction to sports for a majority of children is middle school,” Petty said. “It’s huge not just for their personal health but more for social aspects. They learn teamwork, they learn respect for others.”

“Under the athletic cuts, teachers would lose coaching stipends and short-term coaching contracts would go away. The changes will save $580,000 and help avoid classroom cuts, district spokeswoman Monica Armenta said.”

That is a small fraction of the $26 million in reductions that the district says may be needed as New Mexico wrestles with a downturn in tax income linked to oil prices, a sluggish economy and the highest U.S. unemployment rate. Public schools in New Mexico rely on the state for nearly all their operating budgets.

Republican Gov. Susana Martinez and the Democratic-led Legislature are in a standoff over how to fill a $156 million budget shortfall and protect the state’s credit rating. Martinez vetoed tax increases that she called reckless and plans to call lawmakers back to the Capitol to renegotiate.

Lawmakers are preparing to sue the governor to block vetoes that would defund all state universities, the Legislature and other core government services.

Categories Albuquerque, Budget Cuts, Funding, Play

Education Reform? Put Your Baby in Front of A Computer, Please!

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2017 //
39

Indiana legislators intend to introduce virtual pre-K as part of their expansion of preschool for the state. It is no doubt a way to save money for the state, just plopping babies in front of a computer, supervised by a parent, and calling it “pre-school.” Would they do it to their own children? Peter Greene wrote about this UPSTART program here.

The news report says, in all seriousness:

“It’s really attractive because it involves the parent specifically in providing the program for the kid and many times the issue with children who are not ready for school is unengaged parents,” Senator Luke Kenely, R-Noblesville, said. “This really engages the whole family. I just believe it’s a much more wholesome approach that will have a better lasting effect.”

The UPSTART online curriculum calls for parents to spend 15 minutes a day with their child five days a week. The program started in Utah and lawmakers hope to bring it to Indiana to reach low-income families in rural counties that might not have access to pre-K education otherwise.

“I think it will be a huge benefit for about 60 counties in the State of Indiana that they have never had that chance before,” Senator Kenley, who serves as the Senate Appropriations Chairman, said.

Lawmakers are planning to allocate $1 million toward the program in its first year. Senator Kenley said the average cost per student is about $1,400 and the program could serve about 700 Hoosiers in its first year.

Peter Greene describes the program, which will be adopted in Utah and probably Indiana, and says:

Pre-K can be done in so many beneficial ways, but none of those ways are focused on academic achievement. What four year olds need to do is play, play slightly organized games, play unorganized games, play by themselves, play with others, and also play. If they feel inclined to explore reading or math or science or art or whatever, that should be encouraged. But enforced or required. No, no, no, and also no.

Supporters will say, “Lighten up– we’re only talking about fifteen minutes a day, five days a week.” And I agree that beats some Pre-K classroom where students are expected to sit and study academic subjects for hours, just as being hit in the face with a hammer is better than being assaulted in the chest with a jackhammer.

But UPSTART also gives tiny humans an early close connection with a screen, introduces them to the idea of learning as a chore that must be done to someone else’s satisfaction, and gets the whole family acclimated to being data mined. It’s a sweetheart deal of the Utah-based Waterford company which makes out well whenever it can get legislators to purchase its product in bulk. Is this good use of Indiana taxpayer dollars? I doubt it. If I were an Indiana voter and taxpayer, I think I’d seriously question the aims of any Pre-K program, and I think I’d want my tiny humans to be interacting with real live humans, not software.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Indiana, Play, Technology, Computers, Utah

Major Scientific Discovery: Kids Need to Move More

By dianeravitch
March 28, 2017 //
35

Happily, the New York Times published an article saying that children need to move more. There is actual scientific research proving that immobility is not healthy. It is not healthy for adults but especially not for children, whose bodies are growing.

Some nations, like Finland, realized this a long time ago, so students have recess and outdoor play after every class. Recess! Time to go outside and run and play! The authorities think this is good for the children.

Back in the olden times, most American schools had recess a few times a day, at least once or twice, anyway.

But over the past two decades, the need to raise standardized test scores has dwarfed the importance of movement and play. Test scores are the purpose of schooling, right?

The article includes several references to Apps and videos so that teachers will know how children should move. That’s in case you don’t know or forgot children move.

The Finns have another approach. No videos. No Apps. They open the school doors and let the children go outside, where there is playground equipment. Without any direction, children move all by themselves.

Categories Accountability, Childhood, Education Industry, Play, Research, Testing

The Biggest Problem in Early Childhood Education Today Is….

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2016 //
14

In this post, which appeared on Valerie Strauss’s “Answer Sheet” blog, Nancy Carlsson-Paige explains that the biggest problem in early childhood education today is the erosion of time for play.

 

Carlsson-Paige is an emeritus professor at Lesley College, where she taught teachers of early childhood. She explains in this post that the changes in the recent past have damaged children and their classrooms.

 

She said, in a recent speech:

 

For the last 15 years or so, our education system has been dominated by standards and tests, by the gathering of endless amounts of data collected to prove that teachers are doing their job and kids are learning. But these hyper requirements have oppressed teachers and drained the creativity and joy from learning for students. Unfortunately, this misguided approach to education has now reached down to our youngest children.

 

In kindergartens and pre-K classrooms around the country we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in play. There are fewer activity centers in classrooms and much less child choice, as well as less arts and music. At the same time, teacher directed instruction has greatly increased, along with more scripted curriculum and paper and pencil tasks.

 

Play is very important in child development, she says:

 

Children all over the world play. They all know how to play, and no one has to teach them how. Any time we see a human activity that is wired into the brain and accomplished by all children worldwide, we know it is critical to human development.

 

So much is learned through play in the early years that play has been called the engine of development. Children learn concepts through play; they learn to cope and make sense of life experiences; and, they develop critical human capacities such as problem solving, imagination, self regulation and original thinking.

 

She notes that early childhood educators were never at the table when government officials, think tanks, testing companies, and standards writers decided that play didn’t matter. It does matter, and strangely enough, we need to fight to defend the right of children to play.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Early Childhood Education, Play, Testing

Stuart Egan: Will North Carolina Drop Arts & P.E. in Elementary Schools?

By dianeravitch
November 20, 2016 //
17

As I have mentioned many times, the highly successful schools of Finland emphasize play, the arts, and creativity. They don’t begin teaching reading until children are in first or second grade. The Finns want school to be a stress free, joyful experience for children. And it works. The schools have been described by international organizations as the best in the world.

Stuart Egan, high school teacher in North Carolina, warns that the state is threatening to cut the arts and physical education from the elementary schools. This is crazy. Is the General Assembly’s goal to make school boring? To ruin young bodies by lack of movement?

He writes:

“A long long time ago
I can still remember how
That music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they’d be happy for a while
But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn’t take one more step
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
Something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.”

Don McLean’s famous song “American Pie” has been the subject of tremendous amounts of explication. Websites devoted to explaining all of the lyrics and all of the rumored allusions can take a day or two to just peruse, but McLean himself has identified the “day the music died” as that day in Feb. of 1959 when a plane carrying Buddy Holly (“That’ll Be The Day”), Richie Valens (“La Bamba”), and J.P. Richardson (aka. The Big Bopper) crashed killing all three rock icons.

McLean’s song highlighted our culture’s need for music, expression, and how important it is to cultivate our sense of being by developing not just the logical left side of the brain, but the creative right side as well.

What followed in the next 15 years was possibly one of the most turbulent times in American history: the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, Watergate, Women’s Rights, ongoing Cold War, etc. And the music and the rest of its artistic siblings helped us to capture, reflect, express, communicate, and heal from those scars received.

And now with the current political climate on this global terrain, we may need to rely on our artistic expressions to help cope and grow from what we will experience in the near future.

How ironic that in such turbulent times our own leaders are searching for ways to quash our children’s opportunities to develop the very creative and physical skills that study after study shows make us more complete, well-rounded, and prepared for life’s situations.

A Nov. 14th report on NC Policy Watch by Billy Ball (“New rules to lower class sizes force stark choices, threatening the arts, music and P.E”) states,

“North Carolina public school leaders say a legislative mandate to decrease class sizes in the early grades may have a devastating impact on school systems across the state, forcing districts to spend millions more hiring teachers or cut scores of positions for those teaching “specialty” subjects such as arts, music and physical education” (http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2016/11/14/new-rules-lower-class-sizes-force-stark-choices-threatening-tas-specialty-education-positions/).

First, I would make the argument that arts, music, and physical education are not “specialties” but “necessities.” In a nation that is spending more on health problems caused by obesity, the need to get kids moving and away from the television might be just as important as core subject material. Secondly, it shows a glaring contradiction to the religious platforms that many in our state government have been using to maintain office and their potential actions to eliminate part of children’s curriculum.

The predominant spiritual path in the United States, Judeo-Christianity, talks much of the need for music, dance, movement, song, and expression. I think of all of the hymns and musicals my own Southern Baptist church produced, most complete with choreography, which is odd considering that many joke about Baptists’ aversion to dancing.

Even the Bible commands “Sing to the LORD a new song; Sing to the LORD, all the earth” (Psalms 96:1), and “Praise Him with timbrel and dancing; Praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe” (Psalm 150:4).

Furthermore, the Bible often talks of the body as being a “temple of the Holy Spirit” and even commands Christians to stay physically fit. “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Yet, some of our GOP stalwarts who are cheering about a budget surplus are planning to “ force districts into stark choices about how to allocate their resources.” Ball continues,

“In some districts, it may mean spending millions more in local dollars to hire additional teachers. Or in other districts, officials say, leaders may be forced to eliminate specialty education positions or draw cash from other pools, such as funding for teaching assistants.”

That’s egregious. That’s backwards. That’s forcing school districts to make decisions about whether to educate the whole child or part of the child in order to make student/teacher ratios look favorable.

That’s like going out of your way to get plastic surgery, liposuction, and body sculpting to create a new look while ignoring the actual health of your body. Without proper nutrition, sleep, exercise, mental health, and emotional support, we open doors to maladies.

When the Bible talks about a temple, it talks about the insides, not just the outsides.

Interestingly enough, many of the private schools and charter schools that receive public money through Opportunity Grants have plentiful art programs and physical education opportunities.

Wow.

What our history has shown us time and time again is that we needed music, dance, arts, and physical education to cope and grow as people and we needed them to become better students. To force the removal of these vital areas of learning would be making our students more one-dimensional. It would make them less prepared.

Don McLean released “American Pie” in 1971. It is widely considered one of the top ten songs of the entire twentieth century. Fifty-five years later, it still has relevance.

The last verse (or “outro”) is actually a tad bit haunting.

“I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away
I went down to the sacred store
Where I’d heard the music years before
But the man there said the music wouldn’t play

And in the streets, the children screamed
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken

And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died.”

When we elect our public servants to serve, we give them the keys to the vehicle that drives our state, a purple colored divided state that has HB2, vouchers, redistricting, Voter ID laws, underfunded public schools, and poverty.

Now imagine that vehicle being a Chevy. We don’t need to go to a dry levee.

We need to keep the music and the other “necessities.”

Categories Arts Education, Budget Cuts, Childhood, North Carolina, Play

KrazyTA on the Importance of Play

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2016 //
13

Our reader who calls himself KrazyTA posted this comment:

 

 

He writes:

 

TEN QUOTES ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF PLAY

 

 

“Play is the work of the child.” – Maria Montessori

 

“Play is the highest form of research.” – Albert Einstein

 

“It is a happy talent to know how to play.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

“Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning.” – Mr. Rogers

 

“The playing adult steps sideward into another reality; the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery.” – Erik H. Erikson

 

“Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in play children learn how to learn.” – O. Fred Donaldson

 

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.” – Carl Jung

 

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” – George Bernard Shaw

 

“Do not keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play.” – Plato

 

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” – Fred Rogers

 

 

 

Link: http://oneperfectdayblog.net/2013/02/21/quotes-about-the-importance-of-play/

😎

Categories Childhood, Play

David Gamberg: A New American Vision of Learning through Play

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2016 //
17

I just donated to this gofundme campaign.

I hope you will too.

David Gamberg is the enlightened superintendent of schools in Southold and Greenport, on the North Fork of Long Island.

Here is his vision: Play. Children learn happily when they have time to play.

I have visited his schools.

I ate vegetables that the children raised.

I enjoyed the musical performance.

At the center of learning in his schools are physical activity, music, the arts, gardening, and much more. Southold has a superb robotics team.

It also has one of the highest opt out rates in the state.

Congratulations, Dr. Gamberg, for setting a wonderful example for educators everywhere!

Categories Childhood, Education Reform, Play

The Secret of Finland’s Amazing Success

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2016 //
43

A recent article in The Guardian in the U.K. revealed the secret of Europe’s most successful school system: Finland. It is a four-letter word: P-L-A-Y.

The author, Patrick Butler, visited the Franzenia daycare center and describes what he saw.

Central to early years education in Finland is a “late” start to schooling. At Franzenia, as in all Finnish daycare centres, the emphasis is not on maths, reading or writing (children receive no formal instruction in these until they are seven and in primary school) but creative play. This may surprise UK parents, assailed as they are by the notion of education as a competitive race. In Finland, they are more relaxed: “We believe children under seven are not ready to start school,” says Tiina Marjoniemi, the head of the centre. “They need time to play and be physically active. It’s a time for creativity.”

Indeed the main aim of early years education is not explicitly “education” in the formal sense but the promotion of the health and wellbeing of every child. Daycare is to help them develop good social habits: to learn how to make friends and respect others, for example, or to dress themselves competently. Official guidance also emphasises the importance in pre-school of the “joy of learning”, language enrichment and communication. There is an emphasis on physical activity (at least 90 minutes outdoor play a day). “Kindergarten in Finland doesn’t focus on preparing children for school academically,” writes the Finnish educational expert Pasi Sahlberg. “Instead the main goal is to make sure that the children are happy and responsible individuals.”

Play, nonetheless, is a serious business, at least for the teachers, because it gives children vital skills in how to learn. Franzenia has 44 staff working with children, of whom 16 are kindergarten teachers (who have each completed a three-year specialist degree), and 28 nursery nurses (who have a two-year vocational qualification). The staff-child ratio is 1:4 for under-threes and 1:7 for the older children. Great care is taken to plan not just what kind of play takes place – there is a mix of “free play” and teacher-directed play – but to assess how children play. The children’s development is constantly evaluated. “It’s not just random play, it’s learning through play,” says Marjoniemi.

He cites British researcher David Whitbread, who says:

Carefully organised play helps develop qualities such as attention span, perseverance, concentration and problem solving, which at the age of four are stronger predictors of academic success than the age at which a child learns to read, says Whitebread. There is evidence that high-quality early years play-based learning not only enriches educational development but boosts attainment in children from disadvantaged backgrounds who do not possess the cultural capital enjoyed by their wealthier peers. Says Whitebread: “The better the quality of pre-school, the better the outcomes, both emotionally and socially and in terms of academic achievement.”

Importantly, early years care in Finland is designed and funded to ensure high take-up: every child has a legal right to high-quality pre-school care. In Franzenia, as in all daycare centres, there are children from a mix of backgrounds. Fees, subsidised by the state, are capped at a maximum of €290 (£250) a month (free for those on low incomes) for five-day, 40 hours a week care. About 40% of 1-3-year-olds are in daycare and 75% of 3-5-year-olds. Optional pre-school at the age of six has a 98% take-up. Initially envisaged in the 70s as a way of getting mothers back into the workplace, daycare has also become, Marjoniemi says, about “lifelong learning and how we prepare young children”.

Finnish educator look at the big picture, not test scores.

Daycare is not the only factor underpinning academic success. Hard-wired into Finland’s educational mission is the idea that equality is vital to economic success and societal wellbeing, as well as the belief that a small nation, reliant on creativity, ingenuity and solidarity to compete in the global economy, cannot afford inequality or segregation in schooling or health. Behind its stellar education ranking is a comprehensive social security and public health system that ensures one of the lowest child poverty rates in Europe, and some of the highest levels of wellbeing. Gunilla Holm, professor of education at the University of Helsinki, says: “The goal is that we should all progress together.”

Finnish children do not face the competitive pressures of children in the UK and US. When test scores on PISA dipped, what do you think Finnish educators did?

As UK educational policy becomes more narrow and centrally prescribed, Finland devolves more power to teachers and pupils to design and direct learning. Teachers are well paid, well-trained (they must complete a five-year specialist degree), respected by parents and valued and trusted by politicians. There is no Ofsted-style inspection of schools and teachers, but a system of self-assessment. Educational policy and teaching is heavily research-based.

Worried that its sliding Pisa scores reflected a complacency in its schools, national curriculum changes were introduced this year: these now devote more time to art and crafts. Creativity is the watchword. Core competences include “learning-to learn”, multiliteracy, digital skills and entrepreneurship. At the heart of the new curriculum, the National Board of Education says unashamedly, is the “joy of learning.”

Categories Childhood, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Education Reform, Equity, International, Play, Testing

Nancy Carlsson-Paige: The Error of Killing Play in Kindergarten

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2016 //
30

Nancy Carlsson-Paige, an expert on early childhood education, has been an outspoken opponent of the trend to push academics into kindergarten, and even preschool.

In this post, she explains how play has been banished from many kindergartens by the misguided belief that starting academics early will close the achievement gap. It doesn’t help kids of any origin. The children hurt most by this pressure are children of color.

She writes:

Soon many of our nation’s young children will be starting school for the first time. What they will likely find is something dramatically different from what their parents experienced at their age. Kindergartens and pre-K classrooms have changed. There is less play, less art and music, less child choice, more teacher-led instruction, worksheets, and testing than a generation ago. Studies tell us that these changes, although pervasive, are most evident in schools serving high percentages of low-income children of color.

The pressure to teach academic skills in pre-K and kindergarten has been increasing since the passage of the No Child Left Behind act 15 years ago. Today, many young children are required to sit in chairs, sometimes for long periods of time, as a teacher instructs them. This goes against their natural impulse to learn actively through play where they are fully engaged–body, mind, and spirit.

Play is an engine driving children to build ideas, learn skills and develop capacities they need in life. Kids all over the world play and no one has to teach them how. In play children develop problem solving skills, social and emotional awareness, self-regulation, imagination and inner resilience. When kids play with blocks, for example, they build concepts in math and science that provide a solid foundation for later academic learning. No two children play alike; they develop at different rates and their different cultures and life experiences shape their play. But all children learn through play.

Many urban, low-income children have limited play opportunities outside of school, which makes in-school playtime even more vital for them. But what studies now show is that the children who need play the most in the early years of school get the least. Children in more affluent communities have more classroom play time. They have smaller class sizes and more experienced teachers who know how to provide for play-based learning. Children in low income, under-resourced communities have larger class sizes, less well-trained teachers, heavier doses of teacher-led drills and tests, and less play.

We’ve seen a worrisome trend in recent years showing high rates of suspension from the nation’s public preschools. The latest report from the Office for Civil Rights reveals that these suspensions are disproportionately of low-income black boys. (This pattern continues for children in grades K-12.) Something is very wrong when thousands of preschoolers are suspended from school each year. While multiple causes for suspensions exist, one major cause for this age group is play deprivation. Preschool and kindergarten suspensions occur primarily in schools serving low-income, black and brown children and these are the schools with an excess of drill-based instruction and little or no play.

There are many children who simply cannot adapt to the unnatural demands of early academic instruction. They can’t suppress their inborn need to move and create using their bodies and senses. They act out; they get suspended from school, now even from preschool.

Depriving low-income children and children of color of play will not make them better learners. In fact, it may turn them off school entirely. Let children be children. Let them grow up healthy, curious, imaginative, and free to experiment and dream. There is plenty of time to learn academics.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Civil Rights, Corporate Reform, Play
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