"Mom, Why Can't They Make School More Kid Friendly?"

A couple weeks ago, a former Woodland Park parent whose son is in kindergarten this year shared the following:

Waking this morning with a (thankfully rare now) hateful vehemence toward going to school . . . M dropped all kinds of 6 year old expletives. Later on the ride in to school he sighed, "Mom, why can't they make school more kid friendly? I hate it." Me: "Do you mean like let you play more?" Him: "Yah! Like we only get two short recesses and the rest is just work work work."

Up until a couple of years ago, every former student to whom I had spoken reported to me that kindergarten was "better" than preschool. In just a few short years, that sentiment has become quite rare. In fact, in just the past two weeks, three former students have told me they wished they could come back to preschool. It breaks my heart. Kindergarten is broken and it has been broken by the ignorant dilettantes who hold the reigns of education policy in America. Kindergarten has been broken by Common Core and a generation of our youngest citizens are suffering. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this is child abuse.

No where is the Common Core more abusive than in it's emphasis on early literacy, expecting kindergarteners to "read emergent-reaer texts with purpose and understanding," ignoring the fact that many, if not most children, are simply not developmentally capable of learning to read at such a young age. In fact, both researchers and professional educators agree that the window for reading is quite broad, many perfectly normal children not really picking up the basic skills until they are seven or older. Indeed, most experts conclude that if formal literacy education should happen at all, it shouldn't even begin until children are at least seven.

This isn't to say that some children can't read at an earlier age. I've known two-year-olds who were teaching themselves to read and many who were reading quite well by four, in the same way that children learn to walk and talk at different ages. But the majority are simply not ready to begin reading and won't be for several years. Yet, the dictates of Common Core are relentless, leaving no room for the kind of individual variation for which young children are notorious, and punishing schools and teachers who cannot succeed in forcing their students to "read."

From the introduction to a scathing joint report issued by the Alliance for Childhood and Defending the Early Years:

(T)he pressure of implementing the reading standard is leading many kindergarten teachers to resort to inappropriate drilling on specific skills and excessive testing. Teacher-led instruction in kindergartens has almost entirely replaced the active, play-based experiential learning that children need based on decades of research in cognitive and developmental psychology and neuroscience.

This is what has motivated the parents of Woodland Park to start it's own, developmentally appropriate kindergarten for the 2015-16 school year. Young children should love school. There is simply no excuse for the abuses of Common Core.

I urge everyone to take a look at the report. If you don't have a lot of time, this Washington Post piece sums it up quite well. I leave you with this short video:

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