Who's With Me?

My last three posts have circled around the idea of what it would mean to not just reform, but totally transform education in America (here, here, and here). 

The corporate education "reformers," lead by dilettantes such as Bill Gates have taken an ideologically driven approach, imposing a faith-based regime of standardized curricula and high stakes standardized testing, magnifying the worst of the past, while ignoring the voices of education professionals, parents, and students. They have manufactured their own "research," based not on how humans best learn, building on the work of education giants such as Piagett, Vygotsky, and Montessori, but rather focusing narrowly on how children function in schools. It's like claiming to understand tigers by studying them in a zoo. And from this, they've fashioned a Dickensian set of devices that have been working their way downward over this past decade from high school toward our youngest children.

Up here in the Pacific Northwest, we've apparently been spared the brunt of it until recently, but now it's here and it's getting ugly. Up until 2012, one hundred percent of my former students surveyed told me, without question, that kindergarten "is better than preschool." For the past two years, their responses have been much less enthusiastic, even from the ones who have thrived, while a small, but significant percentage have been reduced to tears and the kind of self-doubt that, according to their parents, leads them to question their ability to learn.

We have not changed what we do at Woodland Park. We proudly offer a progressive, play-based curriculum, based upon the best science about how children learn. We send enthusiastic, motivated, curious, self-directed learners out in to the world. Kindergarten has changed, with a heightened emphasis on developmentally inappropriate "academics," and it is not sitting well with children who expect, as they properly should, to be in charge of their own learning.

Yesterday, a former parent posted this on Facebook (edited to protect privacy):

Not happy about kindergarten, for many reasons. One of which is that his teacher won't allow them to make paper airplanes at school. So we made them at home. And he can fold one all by himself now. What his teacher doesn't understand yet is that paper airplanes are a study of science for this kid-engineer. With a discussion of symmetry, creasing, and types of triangles, (he) practiced unaided until he got it. We tested grandma and grandpa's design versus mommy's design and discussed the attributes of each. Yesterday, we studied painting in grandma's house for about 10 minutes, making astute observations of the feeling and mood portrayed, characters and setting. Discussing Impressionism. Before bed we observed a diagram of the moon rotating and revolving around the Earth as the Earth rotated and revolved around the sun, refreshing our vocabulary for these processes. All of this . . . He led. I hope his total anger toward kindergarten fizzles soon.

People often ask those of us who teach in play-based preschools, "But how to they adapt to traditional school?" Up until recently, the answer has been, "Just fine." But this is no longer even traditional school: from where I sit, kindergarten is rapidly turning into a test score coal mine employing child labor to earn profits for corporations like Microsoft and Pearson Education. I'd say that "total anger" is an appropriate response.

I will not drill-and-kill preschoolers, I will not pre-grind their noses, I will not turn my back on the science of education in order to somehow "prepare" them for this. Indeed, developmentally appropriate play-based education is the only preparation there is. In the words of Sydney Guerwitz Clemons, "We don't starve to prepare for a famine. We fatten them up to the best of our ability and hope they survive."

It's not our job to get children ready for kindergarten. We are sending them enthusiastic, motivated, curious, self-directed learners. It's kindergarten's responsibility to get ready for them as they are doing in Ontario, Canada where play-based kindergartners are at the lead in transforming elementary schools.

I've come to the conclusion that if we are going to transform education, it is going to have to come from the "bottom" up. What we are doing in our play-based preschools follows the science of how children learn and places democracy at its center. As I suggested yesterday, the process that lead to New Zealand's beloved Te Whāriki early childhood curriculum framework could be an appropriate model for us. 

In President Obama's most recent State of the Union address he announced that his administration was coming after us next:

"And as Congress decides what it's going to do, I'm going to pull together a coalition of elected officials, business leaders, and philanthropists willing to help more kids access the high-quality pre-K they need."

Please note that he makes no mention of including professional educators or parents in this process. He's turning to the same cast of "jobs of tomorrow" dilettantes who brought us the anti-democratic fiasco of Common Core, across the board standardization, job and college prep for kindergarteners, and high stakes standardized testing. I don't claim to know how to do this, but we must begin our own process: a democratic one that honors the voices of government and business, yes, but that leans primarily upon the science of how children best learn, the experience of professional educators, the love of parents, and the promise of democracy.

Preschool teachers can lead this and increasingly it's looking like we must lead this. A revolution is coming. Who's with me?

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!

-->