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

[Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

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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>
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