Today I am making final preparations for the Coalition of Essential School’s Annual Fall Forum in New Orleans. I’ll be co-presenting on play and democratic classrooms – Who’s the Boss: Empowering Students to Get Down to the Business of Learning Through Play. Presenting at the CES Fall Forum is something that always energizes me. Being a teacher these days is an incredibly tough job and connecting with inspiring colleagues is one way to recharge. I always meet people to learn from, share ideas with and debate. I also leave with a deeper understanding of the national picture of what teachers are struggling with on a daily basis.
This fall I am thinking specifically about a critical issue facing early childhood education today: talented teachers who have been in the classroom for decades who are now leaving the field as fall-out from NCLB. These teachers know what is good for young children and can no longer stay in a system that is pushing inappropriate academics into pre-k and kindergarten classrooms. I also want to shine a light on those teachers who are struggling to stay true to what is developmentally appropriate. To read more about teacher stories, see previous posts Kinder Kindergartens, Please and One Teacher’s Story.
Meanwhile, a new survey of kindergarten teachers from Santa Clara California revealed that the most important readiness skills for kindergarten are motor skills, self-help skills and self-regulation. Academics were the least important, because teachers find academic skills the easiest to teach. However, when students come into kindergarten without motor skills, self-help skills and self-regulation, it takes a tremendous amount of time and energy to learn these skills. Read more about the study here on the Early Ed Watch blog. The implications here for pre-k are tremendous, as imaginative play is one of the best ways for children to learn self-regulating skills. The recent article, Can the Right Kind of Play Teach Self-Control? in the NY Times Magazine explains why.
I truly believe that if parents of young children fully understood the power of play, and the harmful effects that NCLB is having on early childhood education, then the pendulum would begin to swing back. For our youngest students, racing to the top means letting them take time to play, explore, build, do and inquire. (It does not mean a continuous stream of mandated assessments, developmentally inappropriate academic benchmarks and micro-managed teachers.) Research has continued to show that the learning will come through play. Good teachers everywhere have known that for centuries.
I’ll be thinking about all of this, and honoring the life and work of visionary educator Ted Sizer as I prepare for and attend the Fall Forum 2009.
This is good, important work you are doing. It will surely make the world a better place, even for people that do not have children!
On what dates is the Fall Forum being held?
Thanks, Michele!
It opens Thursday night (11/5) and ends Saturday afternoon (11/7).