WITH
the introduction of universal pre-K in New York City, we have created a
new entry point into our public school system. This raises a key
question: What do we want our children’s first experiences in school to
be? What does a good education look like for 4-year-olds?
This
summer, Bank Street College of Education led training for 4,000 of New
York’s pre-K teachers, including both veterans and hundreds of people
who started teaching pre-K for the first time last month. Worried
teachers talked about how the pressure to achieve good outcomes on the
third-grade state exams has been trickling down to early childhood
classrooms in the form of work sheets, skill drills and other
developmentally inappropriate methods.
The
problem is real, and it is not unique to New York City. Earlier this
year, Daphna Bassok and Anna Rorem, educational policy researchers at
the University of Virginia, found strong evidence that current
kindergarten classrooms rely too heavily on teacher-directed
instruction. Their study, “Is Kindergarten the New First Grade?”
revealed that the focus on narrow academic skills crowded out time for
play, exploration and social interaction. In a 2009 report for the
Alliance for Childhood, “Crisis in the Kindergarten,”
Edward Miller and Joan Almon reported that kindergarten teachers felt
that prescriptive curricular demands and pressure from principals led
them to prioritize academic skill-building over play.
This is a false choice. We do not need to pick between play and academic rigor.
While
grown-ups recognize that pretending helps children find their way into
the world, many adults think of play as separate from formal learning.
The reality is quite different. As they play, children develop vital
cognitive, linguistic, social and emotional skills. They make
discoveries, build knowledge, experiment with literacy and math and
learn to self-regulate and interact with others in socially appropriate
ways. Play is also fun and interesting, which makes school a place where
children look forward to spending their time. It is so deeply formative
for children that it must be at the core of our early childhood
curriculum.
What
does purposeful play look like? When you step into an exemplary pre-K
classroom, you see a room organized by a caring, responsive teacher who
understands child development. Activity centers are stocked with
materials that invite exploration, fire the imagination, require
initiative and prompt collaboration. The room hums.
In
the block area, two girls build a bridge, talking to each other about
how to make sure it doesn’t collapse and taking care not to bump into
the buildings of children next to them. In an area with materials for
make-believe, children enact an elaborate family scenario after
resolving who will be the mommy, who will be the grandpa and who will be
the puppy. Another group peers through a magnifying glass to examine a
collection of pine cones and acorns. On the rug, children lie on their
stomachs turning the pages of books they have selected, while at the
easel a boy dips his brush into red paint and swoops the paint mostly
onto his paper.
The
teacher observes and comments. She shifts from group to group, talking
with children about their work (“I see that you made a big red
circle.”); helping children resolve a conflict (“You both want to be the
mommy. What should we do?”); posing an open-ended question to stimulate
exploration and problem-solving (“What do you notice when you use the
magnifying glass that is different from when you use your eyes?”); and
guiding children to manage themselves (“When you finish your snack, what
activity would you like to choose?”).
Barbara
Biber, one of Bank Street’s early theorists, argued that play develops
precisely the skills — and, just as important, the disposition —
children need to be successful throughout their lives. The child
“projects his own pattern of the world into the play,” she wrote, “and
in so doing brings the real world closer to himself. He is building the
feeling that the world is his to understand, to interpret, to puzzle
about, to make over. For the future we need citizens in whom these
attitudes are deeply ingrained.”
Earlier
in the 20th century, the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky made the
related argument that children’s thinking develops through
activity-based learning and social interactions with adults and peers.
When teachers base their curriculums on Dr. Vygotsky’s ideas, there are
significant benefits for children’s capacity to think, to plan and to
sustain their attention on difficult tasks.
Play
has long-lasting benefits. What is referred to as self-regulation in
preschool becomes resiliency in high school. The University of
Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth has found that this trait,
which she famously calls grit, can make or break students, especially
low-income students. Over the past three years, the New York City
Department of Education developed a framework to support the core
behavioral elements that drive college and career readiness. Many of
them — persistence, planning, the ability to communicate and the
capacity to collaborate — have their roots in early childhood.
Next
fall, there will be more students in pre-K in New York City than there
are in the entire school system of Atlanta or Seattle. To his credit,
Mayor Bill de Blasio has not only pushed for expanding access but has
also insisted on improving quality and put real money into training and
materials. This is a strong start. But we still need to help parents,
administrators and policy makers see what the children themselves know
intuitively: Classrooms that pulse with meaningful play are our smartest
investment.
No comments:
Post a Comment