By Elizabeth Blackwell.
When it came time to enroll my three-year-old daughter,
Clara, in preschool, I wasn't one of those parents who judged
programs by their Harvard-admission rates. Pregnant and distracted,
I piggybacked onto the research done by my friend and neighbor
Laura, who had done all the legwork for her son Brian. The place
she chose was a five-minute drive from my house, offered a
full-day, part-time option (perfect for my work-from-home
schedule), and was affiliated with a local community college's
early-childhood education program. I scheduled a visit.
The room looked exactly as I imagined it would, from the brightly
colored circle time rug to the dress-up closet to the pint-sized
potties. And I liked what I heard about the school's play-based
curriculum. Teachers led the children in certain activities, the
director told me, but for the most part the kids were allowed to
follow their interests. (Perhaps it brought back distant memories
of the free-to-be-you-and-me nursery school co-op my mom had sent
me to in the '70s.) I happily made out my deposit check.
Then, as the school year progressed, I began to have second
thoughts. I heard about kids from other preschools coming home with
worksheets to practice the alphabet. My daughter brought home a
variety of mixed-media artworks, but nothing to show she was
learning anything other than a fondness for glitter glue. When I
asked one of the teachers about working with Clara on writing, I
was told that they'd do so only if she specifically requested
it.
Instantly, I was consumed by the irrational panic that bubbles up
whenever we feel like we've failed our children. At this rate,
I thought, Clara would never be reading by kindergarten. She was
already behind, and she might never catch up.
Preschool-achievement anxiety has become so pervasive that it's
even affecting relatively laid-back moms like me. Teachers and
early-childhood education experts say more and more educated,
affluent parents are considering academic rigor when they pick a
preschool. As top colleges have become more competitive, the
pressure to excel has trickled down from high schools to
homework-intensive elementary schools. Now, those demands are
making their way to preschool.
"Parents are freaking out." What used to be
a time to focus on social rather than academic readiness has become
yet another cog in the educational machine. Tutoring companies even
offer programs for the younger set: Sylvan Learning Centers has a
pre-K reading enrichment program for four-and-a-half to
five-year-olds, and Kuman Math and Reading Centers have a
"junior" track that accepts children as young as
three.
All this would be fine if it meant we were raising smarter, more
well-adjusted children who thrive in school. But it doesn't. A
wide range of research shows that kids do best — not just in
kindergarten, but throughout the later grades — when they're
allowed to learn in age-appropriate ways. But many parents
don't understand what that means. If they don't see
worksheets and flashcards, they get scared.
Lynne Hollingsworth, director of the Kensington Nursery School near
Berkeley, Calif., feels the pressure first-hand. "It was never
as bad as it is now," she says. "Parents are freaking
out. I tell them we teach life skills — integrity, patience — but
when I explain myself I sound defensive." She even gets
together regularly with fellow preschool directors to vent:
"It's our version of a stitch 'n b---- ."
In some cases, criticism even comes from fellow educators. When the
director of a private elementary school recently visited
Hollingsworth's school, she commented, "I don't see
any learning going on here. All they do is play."
Hollingsworth pointed out that she wove math throughout the
day's activities, from tracking days on the calendar to
counting crackers and carrot sticks during snack time.
"That's not math," the private-school teacher
sniffed. "I wanted to say, 'Time out for you,'"
Hollingsworth laughs.
"This is an era of accountability, and parents are rightfully
nervous," says Jerlean Daniel, deputy executive director of
the National Association for the Education of Young Children.
"A high quality program can include what people think of as
academics in a playful way. There's a real richness when you
use a play-based approach."
Take literacy. Around the time I was worrying about Clara's
inability to write lowercase letters, she came home with a story
that she had dictated to one of her teachers. I thought the project
was nothing more than a way to encourage imaginative thinking. What
I didn't understand until much later was that this exercise was
a crucial step in preparing Clara to read.
"It's very important for young children to understand that
what they say can be written down," Daniel explains.
"Think of what it means from a child's viewpoint: An
adult is paying attention, writing down what I say. What I think
and say is important. That's a powerful incentive for
learning."
A purely loosey-goosey approach doesn't work
either. Or consider the play kitchen, where I feared
Clara was merely re-enacting the domestic drudgery generations of
women have endured. "When children are taking on roles,
planning scenarios, changing the script — all that requires a high
degree of self-regulation," says Daniel. "Dramatic play
gives all kinds of opportunities for problem solving and decision
making."
Those skills go beyond any one academic subject; they affect how a
child learns from then on. A four-year-old who is trained to sit
and practice specific drills may well be reading by kindergarten,
and her math scores may be ahead of the curve in second or third
grade. But studies have shown that children who haven't had to
make their own decisions — using that all-important self-regulation
— have a harder time in later grades, when independent thinking
becomes more critical.
"Children with good social skills know how to get what they
need from a teacher or their classmates," says Daniel.
"They know how to make their way in a group setting.
They've had practice negotiating. In any group situation,
children who have self-regulation do better."
Research has also shown that a purely loosey-goosey approach
doesn't work either. An influential study by Greg Duncan of Northwestern
University found that math skills were the single most
important factor predicting which preschoolers would go on to do
well academically.Widely publicized under headlines such as
"Preschool Math Skills Predict Success," the study sent a
whole new round of parents reaching for the flashcards.
Read more here.
