Pre-k educators who began teaching before the dawn of the No Child Left Behind
era remember some important concepts that have since fallen into
disuse. Developing skills like thinking, feeling, talking, manipulating,
and moving are no longer as important as knowing the answer to a narrow
set of questions such as "What letter is this? What number is this?
What color is this?" When I began teaching in 1995, the five domains of child development were actually
considered to be equal to one another. The different fields include
cognitive development, social emotional development, speech and language
development, approaches to learning, and physical – motor development.
Pre-k educators were able to develop the whole child through the natural
flow of the school day. The social emotional domain was so integrated
into the day that it was not difficult to address. Fine motor
development was easily incorporated because we drew pictures every day
and did at least three crafts per week. Reinforcing gross motor skills
was easy, we would just sing, dance, run, jump, around and have fun.
Then
the push for accountability took such a hold of the political
consciousness that we had to become more focused on reading and, at
least in the beginning, that was a good thing. We devoted more attention
to emergent literacy (speech and language development) and I believe overall the
children in our
classes benefited
from the increased effort. Over time however,
cognitive development became the only thing administrators and policy
makers outside of the classroom cared about, possibly because it was the
only thing that was measurable. Over the past 15 years, pre-k has
become more about testing and less about learning. Here is a recent rant
from a pre-k teacher in Texas:
We are testing
things that I used to test in first grade, so that is how the curriculum
has bumped down. It is a waste of instructional time to ask our kiddos
40+ phonemic awareness questions, when they don't even know simple
rhyming words or nursery rhymes. [At my school], Kids don't come with
much home literacy experience, but many have the potential to learn in
the right environment.
When I read something like this I
know how this teacher feels. I have been there. I remember completing
an individual developmental screening followed by the Head Start
National Reporting System testing, then the state emergent literacy
assessment, then the Child Observation Record (COR), and
lastly a pre-k report card. Total time spent in assessment: 90 minutes
per child in a class of 19 students plus entering and scoring anecdotes
in the COR. This all happened in the first three months of school when,
as a teacher, I was really trying to develop relationships with my
students.
That much assessment can really warp your perception
of what you are supposed to be doing in a classroom. But, thanks to the
trend in brain research that looks at what happens with the brain while
it is learning, we find that good-old-fashioned developmentally
appropriate, touching, moving and playing type preschool practices are
what kids need for optimal brain development. A recent article on Early Childhood News titled,
Optimizing Early Brain
and Motor Development through Movement describes "windows of opportunity" in the early
childhood years for developing the brain. The authors, Carl Gabbard, Ed.D., and Luis Rodrigues
write:
These windows begin
opening before birth and then narrow as a child grows older. In theory,
there are a series of windows for developing motor control, vision,
language, feelings, etc. If a child misses an opportunity, his or her
brain may not develop its circuitry to its full potential for a specific
function.
So
apparently, it is OK with scientists if we play in the mud again. Maybe
it will be okay with policy makers too, as long as we can tell them,
"We're building neural pathways with every mud pie."
Thanks
to @balmeras of The Grass Stain Guru for the link on
twitter.
