Empowered by Play » Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School

Playful learning is more than just Sight Word BINGO

Geralyn — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 23:34:07 +0000

This weekend my sons had four days off from school. They played and built; wrote thank you notes and get well cards; did some baking with their dad and helped clean the house. An excellent time all around.

I am worried tonight, though, because I know tomorrow will be tough for my two five-year-olds. Kindergarten these days is not what it used to be, and my boys are not happy about it.

This weekend I also met other parents (from other schools) at the local playground. Their young sons, too, are feeling the stress of not having time to play at school. With all the current mandated assessments, it is getting harder and harder for teachers to keep recess, let alone incorporate child-directed and playful learning into their “academic” day.

At best, good teachers struggle daily to balance what they know is appropriate for their students with what they have to do to keep their jobs. At worst, confused and misguided teachers label behavior problems as emotional issues – when in truth, expectations are inappropriate and their students are visibly suffering. These days, there are kindergarten teachers who believe “playful learning” constitutes a few minutes playing “Math facts beanbag toss” or “Sight Word BINGO”. However, I am advocating child-centered, adult-supported play that leads to questions and discoveries. I am talking about dramatic play and block building that evolves over days and weeks, with the children making decisions. And the teachers involved can listen and ask questions in a manner that expands and deepens the play. These rich and playful moments in kindergarten classrooms are getting harder and harder to find.

Consider one kindergarten teacher’s story chronicled in the current issue of Rethinking Schools:

“The students in my classroom during the 2008-09 school year completed more assessments than during any of my prior years of teaching kindergarten:

Milwaukee Public Schools’ 5-Year-Old Kindergarten Assessment (completed three times a year)
On the Mark Reading Verification Assessment (completed three times a year)
A monthly writing prompt focused on different strands of the Six Traits of Writing
28 assessments measuring key early reading and spelling skills
Chapter pre- and post-tests for all nine math chapters completed
Three additional assessments for each math chapter completed
A monthly math prompt
Four Classroom Assessments Based on Standards (CABS) per social studies chapter (20 total)
Four CABS assessments per science chapter (20 total)
Four CABS assessments per health chapter (20 total)

I recently learned that my students will also be expected to complete four benchmark assessments beginning in the 2010-11 school year.

This list does not include the pre- and post-Marzano vocabulary tests (which I refuse to have my students complete because the assessment design is entirely developmentally inappropriate) or the writing and math portfolios we are required to keep.”

Click here to read Kelly McMahon’s full story, Testing Kindergarten.

Back in 2002 my friend Debbie Meier gave me a copy of Susan Ohanian’s book What Happened to Recess and Why are our Children Struggling in Kindergarten? I always remember the opening of the book where Ohanian talks about the protections that animals and insects have on Hollywood film sets. Apes on movie sets have time and space to play – and the American Humane Association is there to enforce the scheduled breaks. Why don’t our children have the same rights? Sadly, things have only gotten worse since Ohanian’s book was published. With Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top and the push for national core standards, I worry how much worse things can get. For more food foe thought, check out Alfie Kohn’s essay in Education Week - Debunking the Case for National Standards: One-Size-Fits-All Mandates and Their Dangers.

The disappearance of play is a systemic problem, and I’ll do what I can by talking with district leaders and sharing the Alliance for Childhood’s report Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School. I am thankful for my sons’ teachers who are doing what they can to keep the learning playful, and I will do what I can to help kindergarten classrooms everywhere return to developmentally appropriate “kinder gardens”.

P.S. With the launching of the new Empowered by Play website (don’t you love it?!) I have crossed over from Blogger to WordPress. Some posts imported nicely, others are a little funky – with spacing issues, etc. If you see any links that aren’t working or anything else seriously amiss, please let me know. Thanks!

Today’s NY Times Magazine: Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?

Geralyn — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:43:00 +0000

Just a quick heads up about a terrific article in today’s NY Times Magazine by Paul Tough, Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control? The article describes an emerging methodology for kindergarten and prekindergarten called Tools of the Mind, based on the work of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Basically, the program is part of a much-needed response to correcting the misguided focus on too-early academics that has come into fashion since No Child Left Behind. Most of us who work with young children understand that pushing early academics, at the expense of developmentally appropriate imaginative play, will result in stressed-out and unhappy kids, not early Einsteins. The article describes research on executive brain function and how activities such as dramatic play help children learn to self-regulate. Tools of the Mind is aimed at increasing self-regualtion, decreasing preschool and kindergarten meltdowns and expulsions and in the long run, increasing school (and life) success. It is heartening to hear about ways the early childhood arena is correcting the harmful missteps of NCLB.

I agreed with much of Paul Tough’s article. I take exception, however, to his implication that the Alliance for Childhood report Crisis in the Kindergarten calls for free-for-all, unstructured play. This is just not true. I quote directly from the Alliance’s report: In a healthy kindergarten, play does not mean “anything goes”. It does not deteriorate into chaos. Nor is play so tightly structured by adults that children are denied the opportunity to learn through their own initiative and exploration. Kindergarteners need a balance of child-initiated play in the presence of engaged teachers and more focused experiential learning guided by teachers.

My sense is that Alliance for Childhood and Tools of the Mind are more on the same page than Tough implies. Either way, both organizations are working hard to bring valuable, imaginative play back into the school day – and this is a good thing.

Kinder kindergartens, please!

Geralyn — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:31:00 +0000

This Peanuts cartoon, originally published in 1962, was reprinted this week. It was just another sad reminder about how much kindergarten has changed. The truth is, now there are many anxious and stressed-out kids in kindergarten. Sally wouldn’t be alone in her need for therapy. (She’d probably have to stand in line!)

In the Sunday magazine of today’s Boston Globe, the article Pressure-cooker Kindergarten describes the issues at hand. You can read about kids, teachers, administrators and child development experts who all understand the atrocities NCLB has inflicted on kindergarten. Time spent on test-prep and continuous assessments has taken away time spent playing. And playing is precisely how young children learn about the world around them.

Real learning happens through play – and authentic assessments can be used while children are at the “work” of play. These aren’t separate activities. Good early childhood teachers know their students well from observing them at play, listening to the questions they ask and noting the choices they make. Teachers can decide when to do one-on-one interviews and gather more data as needed. The article highlights the sad fact that excellent teachers are leaving the profession because they can not abide by the harmful regulations now in effect. These regulations keep them constantly administering mandated assessments that may, or may not, be appropriate for their students – and away from craft of teaching.

Many parents who read the article will say, “Well, my child could read by [insert a ridiculously young age] and could multiply and divide, too!” or “If other parents worked with their kids, they’d be ready for the academics!” The truth is, all kids are different, and all kids learn in different ways and at different rates. Some kids never even have to “learn to read”. They just do it. I’m not sure how it happens, but I’ve seen it happen over and over again. I’ve also seen kids struggle to make sense of print for years, and eventually, after working incredibly hard, begin to read. The point is, one size never fits all in the world of early childhood.

Kudos to Patti Hartigan from shining a light on the Alliance for Childhood report Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School, and for continuing the conversation.

Read my other related posts: Who is flunking kindergarten? The students or the system? and Kindergarten Summer School?!?

Kindergarten Summer School ?!?

Geralyn — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:27:00 +0000

It is a sad day when kindergartners are required to go to summer school. I met a mom this weekend who is dismayed at the prospect. Her daughter is 5 1/2 years old and just finished kindergarten. This youngster didn’t reach the reading benchmark and is now facing 4 weeks of summer school. It’s not camp; it is summer school. Three hours a day. It doesn’t feel appropriate to the mom, but she is torn because the school is strongly recommending it.

The other day, I wrote about the wonderful opportunities for unstructured time in the summer. Now, here is a school imposing a four-week sentence on a someone who isn’t even 6 yet. The summer school isn’t mandatory, but the mom has decided to send her daughter for fear that she will be even more behind in the fall. The funny thing is, her daughter is just a few weeks older than my sons, and they haven’t started kindergarten yet! I reassured her that her instincts are correct, that the academic expectations are developmentally inappropriate, and that she and her daughter are not alone in this dilemma. I told her about the Alliance for Childhood and their recent report Crisis in the Kindergarten and Why Children Need to Play in School and suggested she bring it to the school administration and hopefully change the conversation. Also available is an eight page summary of the report. Here is a taste…direct from their website:

The new Alliance for Childhood report presents evidence of rising rates of kindergarten retention and extreme behavioral difficulties. It critiques current kindergarten standards, scripted teaching, and standardized testing of young children, and makes recommendations to educators, policymakers, and parents for much-needed change.

On a related note, I also talked to a mom whose 9-year-old son wants to begin playing a musical instrument. His school requires a 5-week daily commitment to group lessons. That’s right. Every day for 5 weeks of his summer vacation, he has to go to school. He really wants to learn an instrument, so his family is biting the bullet and making the commitment, even though it puts considerable stress on family life. (I went to band camp in the summer…but I was in college at the time – not fourth or fifth grade!)

So much for my campaign to keep kids unscheduled as much as possible over the summer! (Summer Boredom? Bring it on! June 30, 2009) These are but two examples of public schools encroaching on family summer schedules and pressuring parents to make descisions that don’t feel right for their young kids.

Do you have a similar experience? I welcome your comments.

Who is flunking kindergarten? The students or the system?

Geralyn — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:04:00 +0000

This morning I talked with a mom whose daughter is struggling in kindergarten. The classroom set-up hasn’t matched well with the temperament of this imaginative and spirited little girl. At this point in the year (mid-May), the teacher has recommended to the parents that the little girl repeat kindergarten. What?! That is hard to hear this close to the end of the school year. The teacher is hoping another year in kindergarten will give the child time to work on some of her social/emotional struggles.

However, most of the school day is spent listening to the teacher and sitting quietly in her chair. There isn’t much time to play and interact with other children, and it’s hard to see how another year will help the situation. I am convinced, knowing this little girl, that in an “old school” kindergarten, filled with sand tables, baby dolls, blocks and paint – along with a teacher trained to watch and listen closely, model appropriate behaviors, and practice problem solving, the child would have had a much better year. She would have found ways to express her creative side and practice positive peer interactions. Right now, her peer interactions are strained and seem to be limited to lunch time, standing in line, and other tangential parts of the day…not the focus of the classroom.

What to do? Perhaps I will remind this mom to bring a copy of Alliance for Childhood’s report Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School, when she goes in to talk to the principal. It might not help her daughter, but may help change the experiences of those who come after her.

From page 21 of the report… many experts believe that developmentally inappropriate expectations and practices are causing normal child behavior to be wrongly labeled as misbehavior, and normal learning patterns to be mislabeled as learning disabilities. “This early and inappropriate labeling may have lifelong implications for children who are developing their self-image,” says pediatrician Kenneth R. Ginsburg of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and lead author of the Pediatrics report on play. “Further, labels travel with children and may flavor future teachers’ and even caregivers’ assessments and interactions.”

From page 23… New evidence from research shows that didactic instruction and testing are pushing play out of kindergarten. Kindergartners are now under intense pressure to meet inappropriate expectations, including academic standards that until recently were reserved for first or second grade. These expectations and the policies that result from them have greatly reduced and in some cases obliterated opportunities for imaginative, child-initiated play in kindergarten.

From page 38… Retention in kindergarten has increased even though research indicates that it does not help children and can do serious harm.

What do we want? Free play! When do we want it? Now!

Geralyn — Sat, 09 May 2009 14:51:00 +0000

I’ve been thinking about a mom I know whose oldest child (now in second grade) had a terrible time in kindergarten. The child came home from school everyday miserable and stressed. Eventually, her mom realized that the academic focus of the class was not a good match for her child. There were “tons and tons of worksheets” and a huge “star chart” that indicated each child’s proficiency at learning sight words. Some students had three or four stars, other students had row of stars that stretched clear across to the other side of the room. Two years later, her child is a reluctant reader.

This family is not alone, as reported by the Alliance for Childhood’s recent release, The Crisis in the Kindergarten: A Report on the Disappearance of Play. http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/ The report includes research revealing kindergartners in New York and Los Angeles are spending two or three hours being tested or instructed in literacy and math each day, and less than 30 minutes at “free play”. Some kindergartners get no time at all for play during the school day! It’s doubly bad news for young children because what they need most of all, play, has been replaced with ill-advised instruction that is simply inappropriate for such young children.

The Alliance for Childhood’s report is getting mainstream attention, such as the New York Times Magazine story Kindergarten Cram by Peggy Orenstein published May 3, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/magazine/03wwln-lede-t.html?scp=1&sq=Kindergarten%20Cram&st=cse
Check it out. If you have a young child who is struggling, or are getting ready to send your child to kindergarten, you can use this story to jump start a conversation with your child’s teacher or principal. My twin boys start kindergarten in the fall, and that’s what I plan to do!