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April 28, 2005

Elementary my dear...2x2 is 4!

Schoolhouse Rock saved my ass in the third grade!

I ran across this post at Number 2 Pencil via Donna.

The discussion surrounds some parents and teachers believing that many children are unprepared academically when they enter Kindergarten. Specifically many are unable to write their name and don't know all of their alphabet.

Number 2 cites this article in the Chicago Tribune which tells us that many teachers think kids aren't properly prepared and that it's getting worse. Part of the problem according to the article are families that are overscheduled. Young children spend their days riding around in the car or playing Nintendo/computer games instead of coloring, for example.

On the other hand, this piece (also cited by Number 2) suggests that parents are too concerned about readiness for Kinders.

I have a Bachelor's Degree in Elementary Education and Early Childhood Development. I spend my entire work day with children from preschool age to middle school. I'm also in the process of raising two kids of my own.

In my view, parents put way too much pressure on themselves and their young children when it comes to academics. And frankly, so do legislators. Children should enter Kindergarten fully toilet trained. They should be able to interact in group social situations and be able to follow simple directions. Those skills are sufficient to allow Kinders to begin the learning of basic academic skills.

I spoke to a Kindergarten teacher this week who opted to move up to First Grade. She was being pressured to have all of her Kinders reading by the end of the school year. Some of these children don't have the proper brain physiology yet to learn how to read. They simply haven't had enough time to develop. It's like asking a newborn to get up and walk.

High academic standards are extremely important. All of us want our children to have success and to be competitive in the global marketplace. Problems arise however when we start pushing young children to acquire skills that they're not developmentally ready for.

Part of what leads to this pressure, I believe, is mandatory standardized testing. These tests are directly tied to schools and teachers, putting them in the often impossible position of increasing test scores every year. Under No Child Left Behind (a misnomer if there ever was one), the only real gauge of academic success comes from test scores.

Schools have no choice but to spend their year preparing children to take those tests. Even children who don't speak English or who have severe special needs have to meet the standard. Imagine the pressure for students who are English speakers without special needs.

This emphasis on testing also eliminates other crucial areas of academics. For example, there are no history tests (at least not in Oregon). Students spend just a cursory amount of time studying history. Earlier this year my middle school aged son studied the entire Civil War in less than two weeks. The class in which he has history also covers english, reading, spelling, writing, grammar and literature. The Civil War was sandwiched in between those other studies for that 90 minute class. I was appalled.

But what choice does the teacher have? My son was tested for reading, spelling and writing under NCLB. If his scores weren't high (they were), that teacher's job would be on the line.

If we really want to measure academic success we should play down test scores and do more "collection of evidence". Collection of evidence means collecting homework, projects, writing samples, etc that demonstrate a student's ability to do the work.

We must also stop spending so much time teaching students how to take tests. And I don't mean teaching the academics. I mean spending time teaching kids the "tricks" to good test taking. It wastes valuable time that could otherwise go to teaching things like history.

This won't happen of course until testing is no longer tied to schools and teachers. It also won't happen until we decide as a country that our emphasis should be on the whole of academics and not just reading, math, writing and science.

Posted by Carla at April 28, 2005 04:17 PM