The other day I was having a long awaited, adult conversation with a friend of mine. We met when our daughters were 9 months old in a parent/infant education group and I used to live around the corner from her for 2 years. We have kept in touch and our girls still play with each other; they are now 5.
During our lunch we discussed the next step–kindergarten. My daughter currently attends the school she will continue in for kindergarten until 5th grade (hopefully). I spent several years, while she was in preschool, researching many other schools for her subsequent kindergarten attendance. I knew it would take me a long time to absorb how the schools were different and what I wanted for my daughter and where we thought she would be happy. We moved her at the beginning of Pre-K, for a variety of reasons, instead of next year. But most of my friends are now deep into kindergarten frenzy. My friend also relayed a story about her daughter’s current school and teacher. It illuminates the on-going debate about what the curriculum and expectations are for children in Pre-K moving into Kindergarten.
It seems a group of moms in her daughter’s class–about 5 of them out of 9 or so–were very disappointed when the teacher who started this year (a former Kindergarten teacher) suddently left the school. She had taken to structuring the children’s time fairly heavily (not the usual at that school) and had started “drilling” them in their letters and writing. Many kids were not happy. When the teacher left after a short time, she was replaced by someone more inclined towards play and art and willing to introduce letters but not pushing them on it. Initially the expectations for the children at this level were not to be reading and writing by the end of Pre-K, but once they’d gotten a whiff of the possibilities, it seems the moms thought that was how it should be.
I reassured my friend that this is not new in the discussions of parents, nor of schools in general. What should the curriculum be for 4-5 year olds? My bias tends heavily towards play, encouraging the imagination, following the lead of children’s interest and continuing to support social development skills. Vivian Gussin Paley, a kindergarten teacher for 37 years and the author of A Child’s Work, The Importance of Fantasy Play says it quite well,”…fantasy play is the glue that binds together all other pursuits, including the early teaching of reading and writing skills.” I strongly urged my friend to read it. She simply said she didn’t need to because I reassured her greatly of her inclinations.
I may be a fuddy duddy, call me old-fashioned (OK, I’m 50 years old), but I didn’t start my letters and reading until first grade and I adore reading and writing. (Why else have I taken to blogging?) I can get swept up in the anxiety from time to time about all that my child has to learn about that I didn’t, i.e. computers and online encyclopedias, quantum physics and event horizons, but the bullies on the playground are still there, and fears about one’s place in the world are still there, and I believe learning to deal with those things, and following one’s natural curiosity, will ground our kids for the more intricate intellectual and social challenges that lie ahead.
Posted on January 2nd, 2006 by Suzanne
Filed under: School Time, Research
My son is in 1st grade and we just got a letter from the teacher saying that in April, they’re going to start fractions! FRACTIONS! At this rate, I think once he hits 3rd grade I won’t be able to help him with his homework anymore…it’ll be too much for my 1988 college education.