The Changing Face of Kindergarten
The Changing Face of Kindergarten
My wife has taught kindergarten for the past 25 years. She works in a neighboring school district, a community of white middle class families, with almost no second language students. At one time all six-kindergarten classes enjoyed a great deal of parent support and volunteer help. Back to school events were well attended, with almost all students represented by parents or grandparents.
Over the years there have been subtle changes, but present a striking change when viewed over a ten-year period. There has been a big drop in parent involvement. There has been a marked increase in single parent homes and homes where one or both parents are involved in some form of rehab whether a result of drugs, alcohol or criminal behavior. Overall more foster care, more grandparents taking over control of raising grand children and more general upheaval and trauma to the family unit.
There is also a marked decrease in readiness for kindergarten, a higher percentage of kids who lack skills, behaviors and prerequisites that have always been typical of incoming kindergarteners. These are experiential things that are a simple matter of growing up in a functional nurturing environment, exposure to stories and books, exposure to oral language, number experiences from games, life experience gained from family dinner time, vacations, interaction with parents, grandparents, siblings. Interactive play and socialization with children similar in age, with all the trials and tribulations of getting along that play embodies. Exposure to rules, discipline, taking turns, saying please, basic stuff that makes for civilization.
Instead very young children are exposed to countless hours of TV involving no interaction and very little thinking. Young children are also exposed to endless mind numbing video games, involving very little in the way of plot or character development, but rather an endless pursuit of meaningless goals. These video activities, whether TV or video games compete for the fixed number of hours that are available each day. To the extent kids are involved in these video activities, they are not cutting, pasting, drawing, interacting, playing, working puzzles, riding bikes, playing number games, in short, they are not developing.
We have evolved into a society where both parents must work to survive. We’ve been labeled the "me" generation, exercising while our kids get fat. But worse yet is the developmental neglect that is more and more prevalent. A generation raised of TV may not see the need for monitoring or the the need to turn it off. A parent of a 1st grade student of mine explained that his son was easily distracted by the television. I said, "Just turn it off." But he replied, "I can't do that." A generation used to video games may not see the colossal waste of time. What’s wrong with a video monitor in the family car? In an and of itself, nothing is wrong with it, it’s what it replaces that's a shame. Family discussions and talk time in the car, car games that involve memory and concentration, or how about just day dreaming or thinking. Surveys show that less than half of all families sit down to dinner together as a family today. And of the fifty percent that do dine together, how many sit down in front of the television to do it.
Bottom line, this year out of my wife’s class of 20 (California class size reduction) six were clearly not ready for school. But not just school readiness, there was a total lack of social readiness as well. In fact outbursts and misbehavior was so widespread and quickly mimicked by others that a second teacher and an aide were hired to shuttle kids to the office and to provide early intervention on a moment by moment basis in order to establish a learning environment.
Lest you think that my wife’s program was somehow inappropriate, she leans far left of center towards developmentally appropriate curriculum and has resisted the mandate to shove academics down her young charges little throats. Beside she has the patience of god. What happened? She was overwhelmed by uncivilized behavior, so much so that it was impossible to establish appropriate role models. Luckily she has the support of her principal and superintendent who were able to hire help quickly, not just for her class, but others classes as well. The teacher and aide worked in two classes involving extreme problems. Isolated incidents? No, these behaviors just reached critical mass. But the trend has been recognized and acknowledged by the superintendent is evolving into a plan to put more teachers and aides in the primary classrooms during the early weeks of school so that order can be maintained and a positive learning environment established.
My wife has taught kindergarten for the past 25 years. She works in a neighboring school district, a community of white middle class families, with almost no second language students. At one time all six-kindergarten classes enjoyed a great deal of parent support and volunteer help. Back to school events were well attended, with almost all students represented by parents or grandparents.
Over the years there have been subtle changes, but present a striking change when viewed over a ten-year period. There has been a big drop in parent involvement. There has been a marked increase in single parent homes and homes where one or both parents are involved in some form of rehab whether a result of drugs, alcohol or criminal behavior. Overall more foster care, more grandparents taking over control of raising grand children and more general upheaval and trauma to the family unit.
There is also a marked decrease in readiness for kindergarten, a higher percentage of kids who lack skills, behaviors and prerequisites that have always been typical of incoming kindergarteners. These are experiential things that are a simple matter of growing up in a functional nurturing environment, exposure to stories and books, exposure to oral language, number experiences from games, life experience gained from family dinner time, vacations, interaction with parents, grandparents, siblings. Interactive play and socialization with children similar in age, with all the trials and tribulations of getting along that play embodies. Exposure to rules, discipline, taking turns, saying please, basic stuff that makes for civilization.
Instead very young children are exposed to countless hours of TV involving no interaction and very little thinking. Young children are also exposed to endless mind numbing video games, involving very little in the way of plot or character development, but rather an endless pursuit of meaningless goals. These video activities, whether TV or video games compete for the fixed number of hours that are available each day. To the extent kids are involved in these video activities, they are not cutting, pasting, drawing, interacting, playing, working puzzles, riding bikes, playing number games, in short, they are not developing.
We have evolved into a society where both parents must work to survive. We’ve been labeled the "me" generation, exercising while our kids get fat. But worse yet is the developmental neglect that is more and more prevalent. A generation raised of TV may not see the need for monitoring or the the need to turn it off. A parent of a 1st grade student of mine explained that his son was easily distracted by the television. I said, "Just turn it off." But he replied, "I can't do that." A generation used to video games may not see the colossal waste of time. What’s wrong with a video monitor in the family car? In an and of itself, nothing is wrong with it, it’s what it replaces that's a shame. Family discussions and talk time in the car, car games that involve memory and concentration, or how about just day dreaming or thinking. Surveys show that less than half of all families sit down to dinner together as a family today. And of the fifty percent that do dine together, how many sit down in front of the television to do it.
Bottom line, this year out of my wife’s class of 20 (California class size reduction) six were clearly not ready for school. But not just school readiness, there was a total lack of social readiness as well. In fact outbursts and misbehavior was so widespread and quickly mimicked by others that a second teacher and an aide were hired to shuttle kids to the office and to provide early intervention on a moment by moment basis in order to establish a learning environment.
Lest you think that my wife’s program was somehow inappropriate, she leans far left of center towards developmentally appropriate curriculum and has resisted the mandate to shove academics down her young charges little throats. Beside she has the patience of god. What happened? She was overwhelmed by uncivilized behavior, so much so that it was impossible to establish appropriate role models. Luckily she has the support of her principal and superintendent who were able to hire help quickly, not just for her class, but others classes as well. The teacher and aide worked in two classes involving extreme problems. Isolated incidents? No, these behaviors just reached critical mass. But the trend has been recognized and acknowledged by the superintendent is evolving into a plan to put more teachers and aides in the primary classrooms during the early weeks of school so that order can be maintained and a positive learning environment established.
posted by Gary at 1:15 PM
1 Comments:
I teach Kindergarten in Canada and your comments accurately reflect my experiences as well. Interesting how while students are arriving in K with fewer social skills and fewer language skills than in the past we are expected to ignore this and increase our academic expectations. Where is the logic here? Kudos to your wife and all other K teachers who are resisting the push to "shove academics down their throats" and instead are helping prepare their students for life.
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