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Childhood's End: Growing Up Too Fast
Something is lost when little red wagons and mud pies make way for worksheets and tests.
by M. Jones
Credit: Indigo Flores
She waltzes into my room on winged feet -- all 3 feet and a bit of her, with a pixie cut and huge brown eyes. She is Katy (not her real name), and she is in the first grade. As everyone else settles down, Katy twirls in a dizzying display of excess energy. She is wearing her favorite outfit -- a rainbow poncho and a tiara with pink feathers. The rest of the class sits on the rug, crisscross applesauce. They stare up at me expectantly. Katy is trying to lie across my lap and peer up into my face. She slithers down, bounces up again, and moves to her desk to see what treasures might be in her backpack. Her bottom has never touched her chair. I invite her back to the group and sit her right next to me -- her favorite place in the room.
A little young, I tell myself on the first day. Not ready for first grade and the rigors of state standards. I'm new to the school so I do not know her history. Perhaps she's just young for her age. I can't help thinking someone dropped the ball here. She's a kindergartner dressed in first-grade clothing.
When I check her file in the office, I am dumbfounded by an inch-thick IEP folder. This is not good news. An Individualized Education Program usually signals some serious area of concern. The plan spells out goals for the student and how the teacher will monitor and assess the accomplishment of those goals. Benchmarks are set. Meetings are held. I've never had a first grader with an IEP. Most students come equipped with a slim folder holding their vaccination records and birth certificate. What could possibly be wrong with this girl that warrants this level of scrutiny?
The answer: nothing. She has an older brother with a learning disability and anxious parents who want to make sure Katy doesn't "fall through the cracks." I keep reading, looking for a diagnosis, some indication that there is something wrong with this sprite. But the only thing I see is that she "doesn't know her entire alphabet." She can't write all her numbers to thirty. She's "inattentive" during instruction.
There is nothing wrong with Katy except that she is a kindergartner deprived of kindergarten. Ten years ago she would have been in the dress-up corner in front of the mirror, draping feather boas across her thin shoulders. But on this particular day, she's a first grader with an IEP and goals that are unattainable for someone at her stage of development. She will go to special classes three times a week to make up for her "deficits." She will continue to smile boldly, but soon she will start to wonder what is wrong with her. She will leave our classroom three times a week and trudge, not dance, down to room 15. She will start to feel the weight of those goals. The benchmarks will pinch just a bit.
Katy is not my first kindergartner. In the past five years, as expectations have continued to expand at each grade level, teachers have scrambled to help students feel successful. A good proportion of my class is not at grade level. They are taking multiple-choice tests and filling in bubbles with the anxiety of their older siblings. We throw around terms like "algebra" and "response to literature" to six-year-olds who are barely decoding words. We push and cajole and yes, sometimes secretly curse the child with her head in the clouds. We are accountable. We are observed. Our jobs may depend on the ability of our students to understand the subtle distinction between strategies like "predict" and "infer."
There is no kindergarten. It has gone the way of the little red wagon and mud pies. The time when children learned how to go to school, how to use a tricycle, or wait their turn on the swing is gone. These were important skills -- vital to success in the grades to come. We do not have time to teach them now. We have worksheets that need completing. We have take-home books to copy and homework packets to staple. We have accountability.
I look down at Katy while she copies the words from the whiteboard. Every now and then, she holds up her paper for me to see, and smiles. I love how the light dances off the rhinestones on her tiara. And I wonder how long it will be before someone tells her that she can't wear hats in class and she can't dance in the hallways. I will miss the pink feathers and rainbow poncho. But while she is mine, I will dance around the rules just a little and find places for her to stand, not sit. I will teach her what I can to the best of my ability. I will hold off, as long as I can, the weight of the file that dogs her footsteps. And I'll look for a rainbow poncho of my own to remind me that the Katys of this world just might be on the brink of extinction.
Ending too soon!!
Submitted by Amy Adams (not verified) on September 30, 2008 - 06:41.
My school has just changed over from 3/4 day Kindergarten to Full day Kindergarten. I am absolutely loving the extra time at the end of the day. My students are finally “allowed” to play. For 1 hour I lay out materials, games, activities, paint, and let them “go at it”!!! They have come up with the most creative activities and many of my brainstorming ideas come from my students at that time. It gives me a chance to see who my students are and listen to them without the feeling of being RUSHED through the academic part of the morning.
If I spent that hour for what the district wants me to do, I would be progress monitoring for the DIBLES tests and making sure they are “ready for 1st grade”. I have to slow down and remember that I am only 6 weeks into my school year with these kids. And that is just what they are… KIDS.
Is there anything that we can do? Write our politicians? Make this a public issue? Discuss our frustrations at a state level!?!? I want to know what I can do to make a change and a difference for our students! I agree with some of the other bloggers that Mom’s and Dad’s used to spend time with their children teaching them their letters, numbers, shapes, colors, and the correct ways to play. I have found from my experience lately that parents are spending LESS time with their children. My parents at my school are too busy working three jobs to keep food on the tables or uneducated on how to raise their children. I would love to see our country take three steps back and start educating the parents on how to educate and nurture our students.
Childhood's End
Submitted by Melissa (not verified) on September 28, 2008 - 15:39.
We all seem to agree that we are stealing the childhood away from our children. Why do we continue to do it? We do it because the people who develop state standards and researched based curriculums have never been in the classroom with 4-6 year olds or have been out of the classroom for so long that they are clueless. I teach a full day kindergarten. At least that's what it's called because I feel as if I am teaching 1st and 2nd grade to my 5 year olds. They have to be reading, writing, and doing simple math problem solving by the end of the year. Every year something new is pushed into kindergarten. Last year it was a spelling program, including tests, for the last third of the school year. I can only imagine what they will tell us to do this year. To make things worse - our district just started a full day 3 & 4 year old program. I don't understand why 3 year olds have to be in school all day five days a week.
kinder blues
Submitted by Hilda (not verified) on September 29, 2008 - 21:10.
Dear Melissa,I was reading your post and couldn't agree more. Our kids are not allowed to be kids. I used to teach Kindergarten a couple of years ago and finally one day I just could not cram another boring, repetitive, phonic skill down their throat. Our district had adopted a new reading curriculum, not in the best interest of 5 year olds but in the interest of test scores. I could not teach a program that I did not believe in. At the time my daughter was three and I thought I do not want my daughter to have to go to school and be taught this way. What happened to getting children interested in reading by reading rich literature to them? Suddenly I could not read stories that my kids had loved before, now it was all about this new curriculum. I left teaching because my kinder kids suddenly all hated reading. It broke my heart to hear them say this over and over. "Not reading againg, its boring, I hate reading " etc... How are we going to have children who are life-long learners if we push so hard that they don't want to do learn because they love to learn(or are intereted) but because we make they have too. I think adults forget sometimes how they feel when they have to do something that they do not want to do. I think parents would be wise to hold off one more year in sending their five year old to a Kindergarten class. Have your child be a child one more year. What a great gift.
Kids are Growing Up Too Fast
Submitted by Dee (not verified) on September 21, 2008 - 08:06.
I so agree with a lot of those post. I think children are being cheated out of their childhood. when I was little we didn't have kindergarten,but we were taugh at home by our parents, about play, and play we did. My Mother read to us, played with us, and also let us play by ourselves, my brother and I made mud pies, climbed trees, played red rover with the neighbor kids and did all kinds of fun things. Our parents never forced us to do anything but play, we could join any club we wanted when we got bigger but when we were kids we got to be kids. I miss those days. My daughter got to run and play and be a kid even though she had to go to preschool and kindergarten, because at home she got to be a kid. And now that I have two grandsons the same goes to them too, they are allowed to be kids, we have toys all over the yard for them to play and explore with, they might have to go to preschool and kindergarten but at Nanny's house they can just be a kid. I think that is so important for them, we can't take away their play, it is just wrong. That is how they learn is through playing and enteracting with others, dressing up, playing in the sand box, the water table. My daughter had a home made sand box she just loved, you could always find her playing in the sand box, as you will find both of my grandsons they love it. I am going to let my grandkids be a child as long as they like, cause it is way to soon taken away from they .
Childhood's End: Growing Up Too Fast
Submitted by Joy A. (not verified) on July 21, 2008 - 16:13.
As a preschool teacher I feel I am responsible for teaching four year-olds what they would have learned in kindergarten. We talk about how to be a friend, accepting each other’s diversity, sharing, how to walk down the hall, understanding right from wrong, improve our color and shape recognition, how to sit in a group, and more. I even feel pressure to teach them the alphabet (recognition and sounds). Parents are concerned if their child does not know all the letters of the alphabet before kindergarten. This goes to show teachers are not the only ones feeling the pressure for children to perform beyond their developmental levels. I am afraid for my "Katys" that I watch move on to kindergarten, realizing they will have to grow up too fast next school year, as they are expected to learn to read, perform formal arithmetic, and so much more they are not ready for. I have kindergarteners visit my classroom and say how much they miss being able to play at school. When I hear this I am sadden, realizing they should still be “playing” as they learn in kindergarten.
Preschool
Submitted by Lenee Bowles (not verified) on September 26, 2008 - 15:53.
I agree with you. I have taught preschoolers for two years and they are expected to learn all letters and sounds and be able to write by the end of the school year if not earlier. These children now a days are not learning how to be social towards one another they are learning how to NOT be social. You can't expect your child to be social if all you concentrate on are studies. Its better to have street smarts and common sense then to be book smart with no common sense.
Middle school intervention English
Submitted by Kacie (not verified) on July 11, 2008 - 20:16.
After reading this blog it reminded me of my students. I teach middle school intervention English and I was surprised to see the similarities between little Katy and my own 7th and 8th graders. They are pushed through the system with huge gaps in education. They are also required to take state mandated tests in the same manner as other mainstreamed students. It is not fair, and I feel as though my hands are tied. There is also the issue of closing the gaps, but they lack such skills as simply sitting still, and now I am responsible for teaching them the difference between a predicate and a noun. I do funthings in class to grab their attention and help them learn. Other teachers are upset with me because they claim that is not the norm and I am setting them up with a false sense of security. The only security I need to give them is safety in my class and an ability to be a better learner.
Your post resonated with me.
Submitted by Martha (not verified) on September 27, 2008 - 22:27.
Your post resonated with me. As a teacher of primarily 11th and 12th grade students, I often am called into sit in on IEP meetings to discuss student deficiencies and short comings. Each time that I sit down at the table with my administration, special education department and the latest student up for discussion, there, sitting on the table glaring back at each one of us, is a multiple-inch-thick "profile" - a tattered folder stamped with the school district seal containing all of the information, data and anecdotal evidence proving that the student of the moment is "not good enough".
As a teacher, in order to maintain my spirit and, quite frankly, sanity, I put forth a serious effort to focus on only what is within my locus of control. I cannot control what did not happen for my students in their past, though I can control every action I take, which is then ultimately a catalyst for their actions in my classroom. Students may be restless, inattentive or lacking skills (or, in some cases, all three combined); however, I know that whatever "childhood" was stolen from them, whatever administrator thought it was better to enforce social promotion - advancing students in school to stay with their peer group, as opposed to making the judgment call based on achievement and meaningful data - I have to push it aside. When they are with me, I am in control. It is up to me to decide, then, how we are going to take these obstacles in front of us and maneuver around them and be successful, no matter what the reason the "profile" says they are "not good enough".
cover up
Submitted by Maurice Frank (not verified) on June 27, 2008 - 10:15.
The long term wrecking effect on life, of having wild expectations attached to you, and spending your school-age life with unattainable objectives and constantly seen as offending by letting them down. The accounts that survivors can tell, of the outcome upon the rest if your life of having teachers with this greedy fanatical attitude, are being deliberately excluded from the media and politics. Parents are being deliberately barred from realising the danger before it happens.
Learning to play...Playing to learn...
Submitted by Retired Kindergarten teacher (not verified) on May 17, 2008 - 19:05.
As a recently retired Kindergarten teacher, I now have the time to look back at the students I taught. I often get feedback from these students. They don't talk about the worksheets they did, but about the fun they had dancing around a Maypole, learning lessons in a tent, or making all kinds of things out of recycled milk caps or odd pieces of cardboard. Did they learn math, reading, and writing? Yes, but in the everyday fun ways that are life.
It is heartbreaking to see the things that are mandated and the time frames that are set for these young children. I now see these young children being forced out of that precious time of just being a child. I see children under pressure to measure up to something that should be beyond their present developmental stage in life. Perhaps the people who are setting these new standards should take some time to just sit and watch children in free play. It should be easy to see that they are very successful being exactly who they are...children.
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