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Kindergarteners Today Get Little Time To Play, and It's Stunting Their Development (qz.com)
Christopher Brown Associate professor, University of Texas at Austin, writes:Researchers have demonstrated that five-year-olds are spending more time engaged in teacher-led academic learning activities than play-based learning opportunities that facilitate child-initiated investigations and foster social development among peers.During his research and investigation, Brown found that a typical kindergarten classroom sees kids and one teacher with them almost the entire school day. During this period, they engage in about 15 different academic activities, which include "decoding word drills, practicing sight words, reading to themselves and then to a buddy, counting up to 100 by ones, fives and tens, practicing simple addition, counting money, completing science activities about living things, and writing in journals on multiple occasions." Recess did not occur until the last hour of the day, and only lasted for about 15 minutes. He adds:For children between the ages of five and six, this is a tremendous amount of work. Teachers too are under pressure to cover the material. When I asked the teacher, who I interviewed for the short film, why she covered so much material in a few hours, she stated, "There's pressure on me and the kids to perform at a higher level academically." So even though the teacher admitted that the workload on kindergartners was an awful lot, she also said she was unable to do anything about changing it.
It isn't just Kindergarten, is is throughout all of school, K-12.
They also neglect soft education like Music and Art (often replacing with Social Conformity Drills).
The problem is, we have people in far away cities, who don't have any real interest in the education of any student, making all sorts of Rules and Regulations (see Common Core) about not only how, but what kids ought to learn by when. All, often without any clue how long it takes to teach a room full of kids who just want to play.
We don't live in an industrial world, we shouldn't be treating our education system like a factory.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I have an 8 year old son and have been appalled by the expectations placed on kids, especially boys that are naturally energetic. I took my son out of one private pre-school that was an arts and crafts factory. At the time he was 3 or 4. First I noticed the drawings were too dark for him. Then I observed how they assembly lined the kids while the teacher would fill out the art after the kids 30 seconds was done. The teacher said my son wouldn't stay on a task and I witnessed my son very focused on painting and then the teacher took the painting so the next kid could get their 30 seconds of painting.
I know I'm going off on the teachers, it's really the school system. I have teachers in my family that taught many years ago that retired or got out of the business. They too are appalled at what they saw in the final years of practicing their profession.
I didn't get glasses until I was 30. I was told that I should have had them as a child, but I didn't know any better. Sure you turned out fine, but what if things were different? Could you have been better, more creative if you had more time to play? Or maybe the schooling you did have made you more focused? We will never know.
We had only half-day kindergarten. We went outside at least twice a day. During the day, we sang songs, did water coloring, played with clay, construction paper and scissors, the sandbox, sock puppets. There was lots of arts and crafts. There was always story time, where our teacher would read aloud to us. The only academic work I can ever recall was studying the alphabet, learning how to count to ten, how to count money, and learning how to write our name.
I still work in a school, in Minnesota, and now kindergarten is full day. Kids are expected to learn how to read. They do lots of worksheets, spelling tests, spend time learning how to use computers, and learn basic adding and subtracting. There's also lots of social behavior practice (how to stand in lines, how to be quiet and raise your hand, how to take turns, not interrupt others, etc.) And writing...lots and lots of writing. Long story short, what I covered in 1st grade 30 years ago is now what is expected in Kindergarten. Play is a thing of the past.
At this rate, expect them to be bringing home Algebra textbooks by the turn of the century.
Oh, please. The whole "you cant leave your kids alone for 2 seconds" thing was well and firmly in place by the 90's. It was in the 80s when everyone started wetting the bed about kidnappings and child safety. By 1990 that part of the culture was exactly the same as now. What's changed is Tigermomism now translating into no free time for kids at all and all their free time now being consumed by structured activities which no adult would put up with for 5 minutes. If someone made me play soccer after work, learn an instrument, learn chess, and do random volunteering on the weekend too I would do physical harm to that person, but then I'm 30 and get a choice.
We don't let kids be kids and all because we forget that humans have piss poor retention anyway and the dumb kid wont remember even half the nonsense you are trying to cram into his head when he grows up.
An entire school day here in Texas means from about 8-3, minus 40 minutes for lunch, 20 minutes for recess, and 15 minutes for morning announcements. Seems pretty sparse and there's plenty of time to go play somewhere before dinner and bed-time (which some shaman are insisting should be 730p). Since my kids go to school very near where this yahoo practices his quackery, I can honestly say they goof off at school in epic proportions. I can say for a fact that they didn't cover such complex topics as "the alphabet" or "adding numbers" in kindergarten. Whatever they were doing, wasn't strongly academic.
All I see down here is more concentrated efforts to defund public schooling, pushing more interested parents into debt for private schools that still focus on academics. Public schools have always worked reasonably well, but it's clear that the more we defund and defocus them over the decades, the lower the quality of the graduates produced. In Austin they're talking about doing away with homework, and this fool is trying to provide the support needed. This is great way to cut pay to teachers who don't have to grade it, but whether we liked it or not as kids, there is is a time when you need to memorize certain things, and homework is the weapon of choice. Class time should be spent on questions and explanations, homework is the ideal time for reading new material and memorizing what things absolutely need to be memorized.
The entire topic of "child initiated" blah blah "social development" is saying happy words that people like to hear but has absolutely zero substance. If I get home another paper that my son "collaborated" on with his peers that contains mistakes that I know he is far beyond but he tells me "well if I tell her she's wrong she cries and we all get demerits", I will scream. Sure it's an excellent opportunity to teach leadership, but on the spot it isn't happening because teacher is busy with the remedial kids who still can't do their ABCs, but we can't have remedial/normal/advanced classes because it marginalizes someone (read: that budget was cut). At home it's out of context and contrived, particularly on a child who is not destined for leadership by its current definition (i.e. Zaphod Beeblebrox's school of CEOing). Whatever fantasy land this asshat lives in, he should retreat to, he couldn't handle the world he's shaping.
Let's keep school focused on academics, but when we get to the teenage years not be afraid to spend some money on kids who have no track record of academics, and help them with trade skills in a useful, non-profit, way. For now, if lack of play time is hurting children, it's probably all the after-school sports/band/dance/cheerleading/gymnastics/music/etc. stuff parents sign their kids in to as extended daycare. A friend of my son's has an after-school schedule that is full of more junk than my work calendar. Surely by the time they're done with all that they are exhausted and too tired for homework or required reading anyway.
I was in grade school in the late 60s and had at least one 20+ minute recess all the way up through 6th grade. I remember having two recesses a day (morning and afternoon) in the early grades and being disappointed that there was only one recess in the later grades. I also remember in kindergarten we put mats on the floor and took a nap every day. There are many millions of people who are my age and who experienced the same things and grew up to be great leaders, engineers, scientists, etc.
The irony of today's situation is we are pushing kids harder and harder, younger and younger, based on the belief that this is necessary to 'compete with the rest of the world', and yet, we are producing far more functionally illiterate high school students than back in the bad old days when things were more relaxed.
I see you don't recognize that they're talking about kindergartners.
None of this is good for 5 yr olds.
But you probably have no idea about that.
I feel a little bit better about the future of our great country today
Only because you're fucking ignorant of childhood development.
India, with the lowest scoring educational system? Japan as recess. Perhaps you should stick to topics that you know something about or better yet research before you post. Ass.
You should look at some of the schools in Scandinavian countries and ask yourself why they are graduating after 10 years at around the level of a college sophomore while US schools are turning out people after 12 years that need remedial classes in college.
My wife is a kindergarten teacher, and over the last four years there's been a push to 'play based learning', presumably resulting from the same kind of research mentioned in the article.
By and large it seems fine, though it doesn't alleviate some of the problems they mention; specifically my wife still feels the pressure to move through the curriculum, but it's a little less clear how. Part of the 'learning through play' initiative also pushes heavily on 'self guided learning', and while all of this seems great, there's not a lot of guidance given on how to execute. I think most of us would agree that it's better if the student is interested & wants to learn the subject, but there's no real help about what to do if the student /isn't/ interested. Presumably the teacher just forces the kid to learn what has to be learned, but all the material provided leans heavily on instructing teachers not to do that.
At any rate, this is mostly just typical of governments adopting something and not thinking through how to implement fully. Still, the impression I get from my wife & her colleagues is that the ideas are good (play-based learning) but it'd have been nice if there was better instruction on how to follow through.
Wood Shavings!
- Godai
If these other countries' education systems are so great, then why is everything invented in America? Because we (used to) take the time to allow people to think creatively. This includes recess, music, art and after-school playing around the neighborhood. As these things disappear from the education system, so will our lead in invention.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
What gave us the edge in the past was more than academics. It was the creativity and willingness to take risks. Those are things that are learned when kids are allowed to be kids. They need recess and play time to learn social skills, learn leadership, learn problem solving, learn independence and learn to take risks. Pushing academics too soon and regimenting their day too soon destroys the qualities that made this country a leader in innovation.
Society is continuing to advance. Kids should have to learn more, because WE have learned more. 200 years ago they weren't being taught what we were being taught and 200 years before that the same thing. The problem is this antiquated notion that school should start at 7:45AM and end at 2-3PM with sports taking up until 7-8PM. Of course that 7 hours has to include lunch, breaks, gym, and anything else that isn't directly "education" related. Children have more history to learn, more science, more technoloy, and they have to be better thinker/problem solvers/etc. Perhaps I'm strange, but I just think that's a natural progression. What needs to happen, instead of cutting back on necessary education, is adding another hour or two to each day (especially to the older grade levels).
The solution to the problem is already known and long ignored in the USA.
Michael Moore documentary clip of on Finland's school system:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Unless they just made that up for the film.
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
My 5 year old was coming home from Kindergarten with an hour of homework more than three days a week.
http://www.edutopia.org/no-proven-benefits
"It may surprise you, as it did me, to learn that no study has ever demonstrated any academic benefit to assigning homework before children are in high school."
There have been many studies that prove that homework not only does not help the young, but can harm them.
Also, this lovely chestnut that happened to my normal 5 year old boy. No recess... AT ALL.
Why you may ask?
We asked the teacher. The twenty something childless lady told us that our 5 year old son had trouble sitting still and filling out his math and sight word work sheets. So to 'help' she decided that the best course to deal with a fidgety 5 year old boy was to keep him in class during recess every day and have him sit quietly at his desk.
Really, you remove all chance of physical activity and wonder why a small child can't sit still?
We asked if it helped.... She said his 'restlessness' was getting worse and wondered if we needed to enroll him in special education... Really?
We took him out of that nightmare and enrolled him in an 'IDEA' school. You can read up on it but basically, as far as we can tell, it is simply the same kind of school I went to in the 80's.. No more problems, good grades, and 3 recess times a day and gym every other. Minimal 10 min home work once a week and most is the same type I had; Name you family members, ask what grandpa did/does for work, read a simple book with a parent, etc.
Also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindergarten
"A kindergarten from German, which means literally "garden for the children"[1]) is a preschool educational approach traditionally based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school."
NOTE: "transition from home to school"
Kindergarten, when I went to school, was mostly about lining up for recess, sharing toys, and learning colors and the names of the letters.
Some counting perhaps. But mostly just how to get along, raise your hand if you need to ask something, and wash your own hands after using the bathroom.
That was the entire idea from the start.
My child came home with and hour of math worksheets and sight words (not phonics, but rote memorization). Children in his class had trouble sharing, playing nice, working in teams, and being good losers... Because they are no longer allowed to do what Kindergarten was intended for in the first place. To learn all the basic social norms needed to actually be ready to be a student. He was hating going to school... AT 5 YEARS OLD!
He is now doing great at the new school.
Is it such a wonder that letting small kids play helps them to behave and learn how to get along with others? Is it strange that a 5 year old will resist busy work?
We need to go back to proper early childhood teaching and allow our children to be children.
Until you have something that absolutely, definitely works, let's just teach kids with teachers who are masters of their subject.
That sounds good, but in practice it's not good. Why? To be a master of your subject, you have to live and breathe your subject. To be a good teacher you need to be a bit of a generalist. You can't be so hyper-focused on one thing that everything else in life gets excluded.
I've got an education degree and some teaching experience, and I've also spent a fair bit of time working in and around grad-school STEM programs. The experts in those programs are the shittest teachers, for the most part. Why? They never learned about how kids learn, because they were busy becoming experts. They never learned the basics of assessing learning because they were becoming experts. They never learned motivational strategies because they were hyper-motivated on an exclusive topic, and it never occurred to them that some students need some motivation the way they would for any other topic.
What we need are not masters of their subjects, but communicators and collaborators who can give kids access to people who are masters of their subjects. I once filled that role, connecting NASA scientists to middle school science classrooms. The NASA scientists weren't teachers and didn't know the first thing about it, and the middle school science teachers weren't scientists and engineers. But when we set up the communication and collaboration between the kids and the experts, amazing stuff happened.
That's one thing we need. The other is equitable funding. I think that it's Germany that does the opposite of what the US does. They still have standardized tests, but the results are secret. The lowest performing schools get more money, and the highest performing schools get less. That makes all of the schools roughly the same, and parents don't know which ones are better, so the rich parents can't move their kids out, leaving behind the poor (minority) kids. The US does the opposite - we openly publish our assessment scores, and we threaten to withhold funds from poorly performing schools. Since we also have wacky local funding, parents create these "ghetto schools", as rich parents move their kids to the best performing schools, and work to ensure that they don't need to pay for the schools they left behind. Great for their kids, but terrible for all the other kids. But who cares when you can live in a gated community with a guard to keep the rabble out, right?
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Some of my best learning opportunities came from play. I played in the woods and road my bike around town with friends (those big scary places that today's parents tell their kids to avoid). I had to fix my dad's computer after breaking stuff because I messed with IRQ settings to get my mouse and my sound working at the same time (and I had to do it before he got home from work and found out!). I played Axis and Allies, Risk, Chess, and other games that required thinking. I pieced together civilizations and learned how people react when playing Sim City and Civilization games. I tinkered with electronics. My parents let me build a fort. I planted seeds I found and watched them grow. I moved spiders to different parts of the yard, watched them build a web, then observed them eating mosquitoes.
This is where I learned the most. Play keeps learners engaged. Strictly academics is boring. I think society is too focused on maintaining the status quo and it is killing the fire of desire for learning that burns in the hearts of young children. Without play, and with an overemphasis on memorization (as opposed to experimentation) you make dull, lifeless people who lose the ability to be more than cogs in the machine of society.