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



Dear Vesna,
Thanks for your kind words.
I looked for the original report quoted in the NYT and found it here:
http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/sites/allianceforchildhood.org/files/file/kindergarten_report.pdf
It is really worth reading.
Best regards from Santiago,
David

On May 5, 2009, at 7:46 AM, zdravo wrote:

David,
I just wish to let you know that I highly appreciate your very simple and clear sentence: a kindergarten without play is like a university without library. It reflects the way of building public preschool education for
years, here in Serbia (republic of  ex/Yugoslavia).
Best regards from Belgrade
Vesna


----- Original Message -----
From: "David Preiss" <davidpreiss@uc.cl>
To: <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu>; "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 6:30 PM
Subject: 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?currentPa
ge=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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xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca

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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http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca