this article which kept me company over lunch.
Smile, cry,
Iis a #2 pencil
sticking in your eye?
mike
-------
Kindergarten Cram New York Times Magazine, The (NY) - Sunday, May
3, 2009
Author: PEGGY ORENSTEIN
About a year ago, I made the circuit of kindergartens in my town.
At each
stop, after the pitch by the principal and the obligatory exhibit
of art
projects only a mother (the student's own) could love, I asked
the
same
question: "What is your policy on homework?"
And always, whether from the apple-cheeked teacher in the public
school or
the earnest administrator of the "child centered" private one, I
was met
with an eager nod. Oh, yes, each would explain: kindergartners
are
assigned
homework every day.
Bzzzzzzt. Wrong answer.
When I was a child, in the increasingly olden days, kindergarten
was a
place
to play. We danced the hokeypokey, swooned in suspense over Duck,
Duck,
Gray
Duck (that's what Minnesotans stubbornly call Duck, Duck,
Goose) and
napped
on our mats until the Wake-Up Fairy set us free.
No more. Instead of digging in sandboxes, today's kindergartners
prepare
for
a life of multiple-choice boxes by plowing through standardized
tests with
cuddly names like Dibels (pronounced "dibbles"), a series of
early-literacy
measures administered to millions of kids; or toiling over
reading
curricula
like Open Court -- which features assessments every six weeks.
According to "Crisis in the Kindergarten," a report recently
released by
the
Alliance for Childhood, a nonprofit research and advocacy group,
all that
testing is wasted: it neither predicts nor improves young
children's
educational outcomes. More disturbing, along with other academic
demands,
like assigning homework to 5-year-olds, it is crowding out the
one
thing
that truly is vital to their future success: play.
A survey of 254 teachers in New York and Los Angeles the group
commissioned
found that kindergartners spent two to three hours a day being
instructed
and tested in reading and math. They spent less than 30 minutes
playing.
"Play at age 5 is of great importance not just to intellectual
but
emotional, psychological social and spiritual development," says
Edward
Miller, the report's co-author. Play -- especially the let's-
pretend,
dramatic sort -- is how kids develop higher-level thinking, hone
their
language and social skills, cultivate empathy. It also reduces
stress, and
that's a word that should not have to be used in the same
sentence
as
"kindergartner" in the first place.
I came late to motherhood, so I had plenty of time to ponder
friends'
mania
for souped-up childhood learning. How was it that the same
couples
who
piously proclaimed that 31/2-year-old Junior was not
"developmentally
ready"
to use the potty were drilling him on flashcards? What was the
rush? Did
that better prepare kids to learn? How did 5 become the new 7,
anyway?
There's no single reason. The No Child Left Behind Act, with its
insistence
that what cannot be quantified cannot be improved, plays a role.
But so do
parents who want to build a better child. There is also what
marketers
refer
to as KGOY -- Kids Getting Older Younger -- their explanation for
why
3-year-olds now play with toys that were initially intended for
middle-schoolers. (Since adults are staying younger older -- 50
is
the new
30! -- our children may soon surpass us in age.)
Regardless of the cause, Miller says, accelerating kindergarten
is
unnecessary: any early advantage fades by fourth grade. "It makes
a parent
proud to see a child learn to read at age 4, but in terms of
what's really
best for the kid, it makes no difference." For at-risk kids,
pushing too
soon may backfire. The longitudinal High/Scope Preschool
Curriculum
Comparison Study followed 68 such children, who were divided
between
instruction- and play-based classrooms. While everyone's I.Q.
scores
initially rose, by age 15, the former group's academic
achievement
plummeted. They were more likely to exhibit emotional problems
and
spent
more time in special education. "Drill and kill," indeed.
Thinkers like Daniel Pink have proposed that this country's
continued
viability hinges on what is known as the "imagination economy":
qualities
like versatility, creativity, vision -- and playfulness -- that
cannot be
outsourced. It's a compelling argument to apply here, though a
bit
disheartening too: must we append the word "economy" to
everything
to
legitimize it? Isn't cultivating imagination an inherent good? I
would
hate
to see children's creativity subject to the same parental anxiety
that has
stoked the sales of Baby Einstein DVDs.
Jean Piaget famously referred to "the American question," which
arose when
he lectured in this country: how, his audiences wanted to know,
could a
child's development be sped up? The better question may be: Why
are we so
hellbent on doing so?
Maybe the current economic retrenchment will trigger a new
perspective on
early education, something similar to the movement toward local,
sustainable, organic food. Call it Slow Schools. After all, part
of what
got
us into this mess was valuing achievement, speed and results over
ethics,
thoughtfulness and responsibility. Then again, parents may
glean the
opposite lesson, believing their kids need to be pushed even
harder in
order
to stay competitive in a shrinking job market.
I wonder how far I'm willing to go in my commitment to the cause:
would I
embrace the example of Finland -- whose students consistently
come
out on
top in international assessments -- and delay formal reading
instruction
until age 7? Could I stick with that position when other second
graders
were
gobbling up "War and Peace" -- or at least the third Harry Potter
book?
In the end, the school I found for my daughter holds off on
homework until
fourth grade. (Though a flotilla of research shows homework
confers no
benefit -- enhancing neither retention nor study habits -- until
middle
school.) It's a start. A few days ago, though, I caught her
concocting a
pretend math worksheet. "All the other kids have homework," she
complained
with a sigh. "I wish I could have some, too."
Peggy Orenstein, a contributing writer, is the author of "Waiting
for
Daisy," a memoir.
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