Re: [ndsgroup] Why not let kids be kids?

[Peter Campbell <campbellp@mail.montclair.edu>]

Hi, Deb. Thanks for your response.

I'm trying to be sympathetic to the proponents of the heavy cognitive/ 
academic approach for pre-K and K children. They say that 4-year-old  
children are "behind" on the first day of pre-K. I find this mind- 
numbingly idiotic and oxymoronic. How ironic that a policy called "No  
Child Left Behind" can define 4-year-olds as "behind" on day 1 of the  
grade BEFORE Kindergarten! But I'm trying to understand. Really. It's  
not easy. But I'm trying.

Take a look at this. Here's the language used by Missouri Senator  
Jeff Smith, a Democrat, in promoting a bill to provide free preschool  
in St. Louis:

"The facts are depressingly clear: more neurological development  
occurs by the age of 4 than in the rest of a person's life - and  
impoverished toddlers are at special risk of receiving limited brain  
stimulation. Children unable to read by third grade are unlikely to  
graduate high school, and will cost society dearly in increased  
social service costs. Our proposal will help kids come to  
kindergarten ready to read, and set them on a path to success."

In an effort to counter this logic and provide a counter to this  
cancerous meme, let's break this down, piece by piece:

Claim 1 - "more neurological development occurs by the age of 4 than  
in the rest of a person's life"

I've heard this cited over and over and am skeptical of its  
relevance. Might neurons be developing more rapidly in response to  
learning how to walk? how to speak? developing immune system? Our  
bodies are pretty busy when we're brand new, so you'd expect the  
brain to be equally busy. Yet we equate "neurological development  
"with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make our kids geniuses. You  
remember the scene from the movie Parenthood, where Steve Martin and  
Rick Moranis are discussing kids' cognitive ability?

Rick Moranis (Nathan):  Our children are more capable of absorbing  
information than we are, yet we insist on treating them like adorable  
little morons.

Steve Martin (Gil): Are you saying Patty can learn things l can´t learn?

Rick Moranis: (holding up a flashcard with red dots) Patty, which one  
of these is the square root of 8649?

Patty: Ninety-three.

Rick Moranis: They´re like sponges, Gil, just waiting to absorb.

So we use flashcards, enroll them in ballet, and sing lullabies in  
Swahili every night. We know our kids have these spongey brains, so  
if we do nothing to take advantage of this, we're negligent as  
parents. So whether you accept this belief about neurological  
development or not, this belief creates a kind of frenzy on the part  
of parents. Like Rick Moranis's character, we go a little nutty. We  
forget that neurological development might also benefit from playing  
dress-up, pretending to be a pony, or just staring at a cloud. We  
equate parenthood with filling kids up, and we see our kids as empty  
receptacles into which knowledge is poured. Raising little kids is  
about getting them ready because they are, by default, not ready.  
It's our job to get them ready. This makes parenting a lot like a job  
with a set of tasks and milestones. It makes parenting pretty  
depressing. And not much fun.

Claim 2 - " impoverished toddlers are at special risk of receiving  
limited brain stimulation"

If you believe that "impoverished toddlers are at special risk of  
receiving limited brain stimulation," then how do you go about  
stimulating their brains? In my daughter's pre-school, there's a lot  
of emphasis on letter recognition, graphing, tracing, sorting,  
initial sound recognition, recall of details from a story, etc.  
There's no time at all devoted to unstructured, whole-body play of  
any kind. Everything is provided for the kids and is supervised --  
closely -- by the adult(s) in the room. For 45 minutes each day, the  
children sit at the teacher's feet and listen to her read. She asks  
them a series of questions and then calls on children to respond.  
They either get it right or they get it wrong. I do not see this as  
terribly stimulating.  I have observed my daughter at these times.  
She sits there, very quietly, and says nothing. She does not raise  
her hand. She waits for the lesson to be over.

Claim 3 - "Children unable to read by third grade are unlikely to  
graduate high school"

While I have no doubt there's a correlation between being unable to  
read by 3rd grade and dropping out of school, the way this statement  
is framed suggests that not being able to read by 3rd grade CAUSES  
kids to drop out. I suspect that kids drop out for lots of reasons,  
chief of which is the fact that school is boring and irrelevant.  
Making schools more academically oriented at the expense of other  
subjects (like art, music, drama, foreign languages) is not going to  
help. It will only serve to make the problem worse because it will  
make schools that much more irrelevant and boring.

Claim 4 - "will cost society dearly in increased social service costs"

At least we can be clear about why we're doing this. We want to save  
money. Saving kids is more cost effective.

Claim 5 - "Our proposal will help kids come to kindergarten ready to  
read, and set them on a path to success."

In my local school district in Portland, OR, free half-day pre-K is  
offered to a handful of schools (8 out of the 73 elementary schools).  
The district hasn't quite figured out the impact of its policy. If  
the intention is to get these kids ready for Kindergarten (whatever  
the hell that means) because they are behind, then the policy creates  
its own achievement gap between the kids in the 8 pre-K schools and  
the other 65 schools. After all, the kids from the 8 pre-K classes  
will be "ready for Kindergarten." The other 65 won't.

Peter


On Mar 17, 2008, at 9:52 AM, Deborah Meier wrote:

> Peter,
>
> Did I ever respond?  I think your comments (below) are exactly right,
> and I appreciate both the care and precision of your argument.
>
> So what shall we do?  NYC is now planning on giving 4 and 5 and 6 year
> olds IQ tests to help sort  them out properly!  I imagine the high IQ
> kids may be able to retain a bit of that playful spirit while the
> least advantaged are drilled endlessly on schwa sounds.
>
> Keep an eye out for our NYC website--which we hope to update and make
> interactive--Indefenseofchildhood.org
>
> I think.
>
> Deb