New Haven Independent

posted by: davec on October 15, 2010  11:33am

I personally couldn’t agree more with Gesell’s.

posted by: embee on October 15, 2010  2:32pm

As a mom to a New Haven Kindergartner who spent that last two years loving his pre-school, but so far this year, hates school, I have to agree.

My son’s first question to me after his first week of school, was, “Mom, why do they have toys in the classroom if we aren’t allowed to play with them?”. 

He gets 14 - 20 pages of homework a week, math tests, etc. in KINDERGARTEN!  It has been a huge transition for us all.

posted by: David on October 16, 2010  3:15am

Greetings from Canada….

Check out my essay “When did education become a race?” at:

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/schoolview/2010/08/30/when-did-education-become-race

In the essay I quote parenting author Steve Biddulph(http://www.stevebiddulph.com) who was a keynote speaker at the Gender and Student Achievement Conference in Kamloops, B.C., Canada (Oct. 18-20, 2007)

According to Biddulph, full-day Kindergarten for 5-year-olds is too long, and any younger is a big mistake developmentally. In support
of Biddulph’s claim, a major review of British primary schools by Cambridge University stated the practice of allowing children to start
school at age four was found to be stressful. Yet its authors found that in some countries where students start school up to two years later, many outperform their English peers.

Biddulph says the calendar is a poor guide for when a child should start school as most boys (and some girls) are slower to develop fine-motor and language skills.

But if we followed the Finland model, children would have access to free, full-day daycare (up to age five), full-day Kindergarten (age six), and wouldn’t begin Grade 1 until age seven.

Carl Honoré (http://www.carlhonore.com) writes in “Under Pressure: Putting the Child Back in Childhood” (2009): “Their [Finnish children] early childhood is spent at home or in nursery programs where play is king. When they finally do reach school, they enjoy short days, long vacations and plenty of music, art and sports.” (p. 122)

“Apart from final exams at the end of high school, Finnish kids face no standardized tests. Teachers use quizzes, and individual schools use tests to track their pupils’ progress, but the idea of cramming for SATs is as alien to Finland as a heat wave in winter. This presents a delicious irony: the nation that puts the least stress on competition and testing, that shows the least appetite for cram schools and private tutoring,
routinely tops the world in PISA’s competitive exams.” (p. 123).

http://www.vancouversun.com/story_print.html?id=3583900&sponsor;=

A kindergarten teacher talks about expectations
Vancouver Sun, September 27, 2010

http://www.progressive.org/print/147874

As a teacher, kindergarten is now not so exciting
By Kelly McMahon, September 2, 2010

posted by: Zanfirico on October 16, 2010  9:56am

Embee, are you me?!  We’re having exactly the same experience here—my son, who loved preschool and was so engaged in all its activities, is hating kindergarten so far.  He says it’s “boring,” and I’m finding it hard to disagree; all those poor kids do all day is reading, writing, and math—minimal art, minimal music, virtually no science/nature/exploration, and the only play time is half an hour for recess.  Why do we make our little kids work so darn hard when playing is their true task and the way they learn best?

posted by: Tom Burns on October 17, 2010  12:44am

Please let them all play——K to 12—-it will work—-or should we have everyone from birth to death never play in the search of better student achievement—-are you kidding me——if we let them play and learn to socialize with each other——-they will learn at a much higher rate and level——

Test scores are for the simple and greedy—-no educator or person with an IQ over 90 believes that test scores are important in the big picture of our children’s ability to learn—as a matter of fact its a hindrance to their ability to learn—

but for the simple people, they need to take the simplest route and for the greedy (corporate takeover of schools) well we know why they need scapegoats—so they can make more money while our most needy kids lose——-for the charters don’t and wont take on these kids as a whole——-

Kudos to those charters that do—-Please let them play—-Tom

posted by: Karen on October 17, 2010  11:07am

Is there a Montessori magnet school in New Haven? If not, why not?
The Montessori philosophy is to cultivate a child’s natural desire to learn. A motivated child, no matter what age/grade level, will have the persistence to meet challenges and the desire to seek out new learning experiences.

posted by: Kathy Fite on October 18, 2010  10:22am

Gesell and his work have helped parents and children for generations. Dr. Marcy Guddemi, and the results of the Gesell study, will inform the public, parents, and educators as to what is best for the well being of the children of today and tomorrow.