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Preschool Burnout

When Amy Capeci was a little girl she said she remembered her pre-school as a place of wonder and discovery so when she began to search for a pre-school for her own child, she was very surprised at the competitive landscape that had replaced the magical classrooms she remembered.

“When I went to school … my experience was very different from the environment we have today,’’ says Capeci of Eastchester, the mother of two boys, 2 1/2 and 4. “I had a positive, uplifting, joyous experience that I carried with me my whole life. My teachers were so loving. I never felt intimidated or afraid. Now you see children screaming and being dragged in the door. I didn’t understand the problem.”

What’s Up?

The problem, say many educators, is that many schools are introducing children to a more formalized education at an earlier age in order to prepare them for standardized tests. Many pre-schools spend greater portions of the day on direct instruction of literacy and math, formerly done mainly in the upper grades, in an effort to have children reading by kindergarten because they think it will get them ready to meet the expectations of the Common Core testing.

Testing and Creativity

While all sides in the Common Core debate seem to agree that standards are needed, some educators and parents believe that the way we prepare children for standardized tests may, in fact, smother creativity. Testing intended to measure what children have learned serves instead, they say, as a blueprint for instruction – one that produces children who can parrot facts, but who have limited ability to think creatively and solve real world problems.

Benefits of Play

Lorayne Carbon, Director of Sarah Lawrence College’s Early Childhood Center where Capeci’s children attend school, says the school, located on the college’s campus in east Yonkers, encourages play and exploration because they are the building blocks of learning that promote creativity and critical thinking.

Mary Hebron, Director of the College’s Art of Teaching Graduate Program, which is founded on this progressive model of teaching, says teachers support “deep thinking” in children by observing them closely and tailoring teaching to the child. Hebron says by building on children’s individual strengths and interests, teachers can promote lifelong learning, which achieves better results in the long run.

Some current research seems to support this theory. Atlantic Magazine recently cited a study of Tennessee’s publicly funded preschool system, which found that although children initially exhibited more school readiness in kindergarten than their non-preschool-attending peers, their attitudes toward school had deteriorated by first grade. And by second grade they did not perform as well on literacy and math tests. The researchers blamed direct instruction and repetitive learning, stating that these children had simply burned out.

Parents and Teachers

Parents are starting to get the message too. Last April, some 200,000 parents statewide – or about 20 percent – chose to opt out of standardized tests; and based on early predictions, the numbers of families who boycotted the tests this year also equaled about 20 percent.

Ali Petschek of New Rochelle, an elementary substitute teacher and mother of two boys, 6 and 4, says parents feel a lot of pressure when it comes to their children’s education. “There is this concerted cultivation even when children are not in school,’’ she says. “There is a lot of scheduled activity, soccer, music, T-ball. There is a worry that ‘my kids are going to fall behind … they are not learning Mandarin.’ But when do kids get the chance to come up with activities for themselves?”

This led Petschek to look long and hard for an early childhood program. “I didn’t want my kids to have direct instruction so early, and it’s becoming harder and harder to find a pre-school that doesn’t do this,’’ she says. “I feel children learn best by doing, especially young children. Building blocks, painting, make believe, social interaction: all these things are really great for them.”

Kamili Bell Hill of New Rochelle, the mother of two daughters 4 and 10, said an early education free from direct academic instruction has had a lasting effect on her older daughter.

“There is something to be said for just letting them be children during that early stage of their lives,’’ she says. “I was really worried when we decided not to take a purely academic preschool route, but I see that the foundation that was laid resulted in a really super enthusiastic 10-year-old. She has warm and fuzzy memories of pre-school that we still talk about.’’

 

Victoria Hochman, a White Plains resident and mother of two daughters, is a former journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner who has written extensively about education.



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