Killing Kindergarten

Amanda Moreno, Ph.D.Associate Director, Marsico Institute for Early Learning and Literacy

03/29/2012

I want you to know it took a lot of self-discipline not to title this post "Killing Kindergarteners." In addition to being an early education researcher, I am also a mother of a 5-year-old currently in kindergarten, so I can tell you that is pretty much the way it feels. All around this country, families are trying to figure out why their small children already dread going to a place that was supposed to serve as a gentle transition to formal learning. They are struggling with ambivalent allegiances, not wanting to be the over-protective parent who babies their child, but at the same time not being fully convinced that their child has a behavior problem just because they don't enjoy sitting at a desk, independently going through worksheets for a solid hour.

Is teaching 5-year-olds really that complex an enterprise? It is true that little kids are like sponges in that they absorb discrete pieces of knowledge daily, naturally, and without effort, such as new vocabulary, locations of things in their house, how specific toys work, and what their family dinner and bedtime routines are. But in formal learning settings -- at least as they are on average in the U.S. -- the game completely changes. For better or worse, the "great divider" in formal learning settings may be whether the learner can decide to tackle new tasks or problems, not because she wants to but simply because she is being asked to.

Our educational system is not equipped to support the application of this kind of knowledge. John Medina has said, "If you anted to create an education environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you would probably design something like a classroom."

This is not a debate about exploratory vs. direct instruction in the early grades, or play vs. structure, or creative learning vs. traditional academics, or any other label for this false dichotomy. Research supports both, depending on the group of children studied and methods used.

Either way, bad teaching will be the result if a kindergarten teacher practices (or is forced to practice) any style in the extreme, and without an arsenal of creative tools for individualizing to children. For those brilliant kindergarten teachers who do possess such a toolbox, the standards and testing craze has tamped their best instincts into hiding.

I agree with Holly Robinson who says that, from a parent's perspective, the immediate answer lies in finding the right fit for your child -- a process we are right in the middle of with our own daughter. Unfortunately, good options are not nearly plentiful enough, and those that exist are not accessible enough to families and children that likely need them the most.

In the meantime, my colleagues and I are trying to do our part by speaking out for differentiating education reform efforts for young children, incorporating modern child and brain development principles into teacher and principal prep programs, and consulting to early education initiatives about how to answer to the pressures of accountability without "killing kindergarteners" in the process.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amanda-moreno-phd/post_3023_b_1285135.html