Two recent articles shed light on some of the pressures our youngest learners are facing, not through any choice of their own. The first was a fascinating piece in Sunday’s New York Times magazine by Paul Tough, the author of “Whatever it Takes.”, which focuses on the Harlem Children’s Zone’s efforts to improve education for children from birth on.
Tough’s piece, entitled, “Can the right kind of play teach self control?” examined a relatively new way of getting little learners ready for the world they will one day face, via a curriculum that addresses a cognitive ability known by the non-child friendly term “executive function.”
According to Tough, the “new buzz phrase has emerged among scholars and scientists who study early-childhood development, ” although he acknowledged that the phrase “sounds more as if it belongs in the boardroom than the classroom.”
EarlyStories enjoyed reading all about the concept, but could not get past the photographs that told their own story: the children looked positively grim, and in some cases deeply unhappy.
On Monday, Meredith Kolodner of the New York Daily News broke a story about an assessment regime for three and four-year-olds in the city’s public pre-kindergarten programs, aimed at getting information about developmental delays.
The story raised questions about the relability of testing for children so young, and included the voices of parents who wonder why their children would be tested.
Reading the two stories comes at a time when the press has been focusing on the need for early childhood education to become more playful, so it set up some interesting questions.
What do we want from our next generation of learners, and what are the best ways to get them there?
Hechinger blogs
Tough love (but it’s really frustration)
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Week in Review
Week in Review
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Week in Review
Week in Review