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Re: [xmca] Kndergarten Cram: When is play?




No CLBH in Chile, but same miseries at the kindergarten. A kindergarten without play is like a university without library. But many many practitioners have forgotten so. At least in Chile, it is VERY difficult to find a good preschool that takes play seriously. The eradication of play from preschools seem to be part of a larger worldwide trend to standardization, over-achievement and loss of educational common sense. The ending extreme of this new educational training seems to be neuroenhancing at the college level:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/04/27/090427fa_fact_talbot?currentPage=all

No wonder why we get a Flynn effect everywhere, but I really wonder how good is that for those kids who are receiving a training that is based on skill drilling instead of cultural transmission.

Time to re-read Montessory along Jerry Bruner?

david

On May 3, 2009, at 6:22 PM, Mike Cole wrote:

I really loved the bit about the kids getting older sooner as the parents get older later so pretty soon the kids will be older than their parents!
What struck you about the story, vera?
mike

On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 12:52 PM, Vera Steiner <vygotsky@unm.edu> wrote:

Hi Mike,
I was delighted to see this article in the Times, the new administration
needs to hear alternatives to NCLB.
Thanks for sending it out, perhaps we will discuss it a little,
Vera
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Cole" <lchcmike@gmail.com>
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Sunda abouy, May 03, 2009 1:26
Subject: [xmca] Kndergarten Cram: When is play?


So many people on xmca are interested in play, I could not help forwarding
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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David Preiss, Ph.D.
Escuela de Psicología
Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
Av Vicuña Mackenna - 4860
7820436 Macul
Santiago, Chile

Fono: 3544605
Fax: 3544844
e-mail: davidpreiss@uc.cl
web personal: http://web.mac.com/ddpreiss/
web institucional: http://www.epuc.cl/profesores/dpreiss

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