The "Preschool" War

[Thriftylady]

I totally agree with the part about the focus on standards and testing. My two kids were on different sides of the whole standardized testing approach. With 7.5 years between them, DS had a little bit of the standardized testing. DD has been swamped with it. I have noticed a difference with them. Kids are no longer taught as I see it, it is more that information is thrown at them and they darn well better "catch" it. Because if they don't, several things will happen. Here, if they don't pass in certain grades, they will be held back in that grade until they do pass that "grade level". This doesn't account for if the student is or isn't actually learning, nor does it address an issue with learning if there is one. We have a graduation test here in Ohio. It is changing next year but my understanding is that it is based on 8th grade material. Both of my kids passed it the first time in 7th grade. They are given I think 8 chances to pass each section, math, reading, social studies etc. Any section they don't pass they have to keep taking. There was a story on the news a week or two ago about a girl who is a senior, but couldn't walk with her class because despite having a 3.7 GPA, she hadn't passed this 8th grade level test. There is a problem there. I believe our students are getting inflated grades in my area regardless if they learn or not. Grades, not standardized tests should be a reflection on what our kids are learning I think. Take my DD. Three years of Spanish, same teacher each year. Her grade has never been below 99% in the grade book (we can view it online). She should be able to speak Spanish right? Wrong. She can't even order in the Mexican restaurant. She is a smart girl, but was thrown vocabulary in Spanish. They never did sentences, reading, or writing. She can say words, but she can't form a sentence.

In our school each year, one of the many tests is to grade the teachers. The kids take the test early in the year, then late in the year. This is supposed to measure if the teacher is teaching the materials and if they kids are learning it. Last year, two of DD's teachers decided to attach a big grade to the second test. This dropped some of the kids in the class from a B to an F. It didn't affect my DD so much, but I complained as I felt this was an unfair grade to have such a high affect on an overall grade. It wasn't supposed to be a graded test at all. Another teacher told DD's class that some teachers "were asking the students to do poorly on purpose on the first test, and do their best on the second". I know we need a way to evaluate teachers, but using standardized tests is not the way to do it IMHO.

[LittleScholars]

Kindy teachers tell me that if I can teach a child to follow directions, respect others, responsibility, etc. which can be taught through play, then the teachers can teach the child. BUT if a child comes in that has NOT learned those social-emotional life skills, then the teaching can be difficult. ABC's/123's are important and my daycare kids learn those here, but they learn it all through play. If the nation takes away our ability to teach social emotional skill we will have a bunch of electronic no-emotion robotic kids running around. That is scary!

[I hope I quoted correctly. I've never used that function!]

I couldn't agree more with this. I'm very new to daycare, but I taught kindergarten for 10 years. I did work in particularly academic-heavy public schools, but I thought we asked A LOT of our kindergartners. There was almost no time to address social-emotional or play skills. We didn't even have recess until the very last year I taught, and even then it was in the form of a teacher-led character education lesson. Unfortunately, this is a growing trend. The best gift anyone could have given those children was the gift of learning how to be a child and how to navigate the world when they transitioned to kindergarten. When I opened 6 months ago I thought I would provide a much more structured academic program, and my limited experience and this forum has totally changed my mind about that.

I also completely agree that when children come in with a solid personal foundation, teachers can hit the ground running and teach just about anything. I've seen so many children come through our elementary school doors that could barely pronounce their own names at the start of the year, and were reading basic texts fluently by the end of the year. Kids that were ready on a social and emotional level for the challenge also had a great time engaging in academics.

[Annalee]

[I hope I quoted correctly. I've never used that function!]

I couldn't agree more with this. I'm very new to daycare, but I taught kindergarten for 10 years. I did work in particularly academic-heavy public schools, but I thought we asked A LOT of our kindergartners. There was almost no time to address social-emotional or play skills. We didn't even have recess until the very last year I taught, and even then it was in the form of a teacher-led character education lesson. Unfortunately, this is a growing trend. The best gift anyone could have given those children was the gift of learning how to be a child and how to navigate the world when they transitioned to kindergarten. When I opened 6 months ago I thought I would provide a much more structured academic program, and my limited experience and this forum has totally changed my mind about that.

I also completely agree that when children come in with a solid personal foundation, teachers can hit the ground running and teach just about anything. I've seen so many children come through our elementary school doors that could barely pronounce their own names at the start of the year, and were reading basic texts fluently by the end of the year. Kids that were ready on a social and emotional level for the challenge also had a great time engaging in academics.

[valleygirl]

Worksheets for a 4 year old? I think it's totally inappropriate, although the daycare where I am working temporarily (back to university in Sept) does worksheets twice a week during the "craft" time. I am very much against trying to teach academics to preschool age children, but parents can be another story entirely. They want their child to be the best and the smartest, and often think that starting early is better. Actually, what I have been learning in my ECE classes is that starting early is not better. In fact, it can inhibit children's natural inquisitiveness and desire to learn.

Children do learn things at daycare and preschool, but not academics. They learn how to interact with other children and adults that are not their parents. They can begin to learn how to resolve conflicts with their peers. But mostly, I believe that the preschool years should be about exploration and having fun. Children should be allowed to experiment with a wide variety of materials and be given open-ended activities, rather than specific tasks that must be completed in a specific way. I don't even like doing crafts with children, because often they get frustrated when trying to make it look just like the sample craft. I'd rather give kids paint, paper, scissors, glue and other materials to make their own creation.

I think having a circle time is important, because it exposes children to music, rhythm, books, different ways to tell stories. At circle time children also learn how to listen to the person who is talking, sit still, and follow various instructions. But mostly I believe that children learn through play, especially if teachers follow up on the interests of the children and build on those interests.

[tabitha]

Worksheets for pre-k kids is really too much.Kids will soon hate to learn anything and they feel disappointments early in life.It can really affect their mental health.