Update—December 2008:
Dear Friends,
You may have received this letter by regular mail. (If you didn’t and would like to get these updates on paper, e-mail us your address. Note: we never sell our lists.) This shortened version can easily be shared with others who might want to support our work.
In November the Alliance made several presentations at the annual conference of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) in Dallas. One was a discussion of the use of standardized tests on young children.
Susan Linn was one of the speakers. She is a psychologist at Harvard Medical School whose clinical work is with young children. She’s also a talented ventriloquist and uses her puppet, Audrey (a duck), in doing therapy with children. Susan’s talk that day took the form of a conversation with Audrey.
The previous speakers, including Sam Meisels of the Erikson Institute, Denise Collins of Dallas AEYC, and Ed Miller of the Alliance, had described the various ways that high-stakes tests were being misused and creating terrible problems for children, teachers, and schools. But Audrey announced that she was “pro testing.”
“You’re in favor of giving standardized tests to little children?” Susan asked her.
“Yes,” she said. “Because then the children will be like me. They’ll all be puppets.”
The audience gasped in recognition of a disturbing truth. For many four- and five-year-olds, school now means unrealistic demands for academic mastery, ever-increasing pressure to perform well on tests, and dwindling opportunities for creative play. Hundreds of educators at the conference spoke to us about their concerns for the well-being of young children in a destructive educational policy climate. Instead of learning to revel in their own ideas and inventions and express their natural creativity and exuberance, children are being taught to parrot facts and to “give the right answer.”
The Alliance Kindergarten Campaign
In the coming month the Alliance will release the preliminary findings of three research studies examining in detail how public school kindergarten children now spend their time in class and what resources and materials are available to them. Our report places this new information in the context of other important studies from the last two years, all of which document our contention that kindergarten is in crisis.
Education policymakers—and many parents—have bought in to some flawed ideas about how to help children succeed in school, including the idea that starting formal instruction in reading and writing at younger and younger ages will produce better students.
Parents and teachers may love seeing five-year-olds reading. But there is no evidence that early readers enjoy any long-term benefit. Children who learn to read at age six or seven are just as likely to become successful students as those who can read at four or five.
The earlier-is-better myth harms many children who are developing at a perfectly normal pace but cannot keep up with unrealistic expectations and standards. Many display stress, frustration, and rage. Some are expelled from preschool and fail kindergarten.
According to California’s standards, all kindergartners should be able to recognize and name all uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet and write them “independently, attending to the form and proper spacing of the letters.” But early childhood experts have long known that five-year-olds can generally name and identify only some letters, and that reversing letters is still quite normal for them.
In New York State, kindergarten children are expected to be able to “read aloud with expression and fluency.” This bar has been set so high that it virtually guarantees that children will fail.
The three studies we commissioned reveal common but disturbing patterns in New York and Los Angeles. Teachers reported they were spending two to three hours per day on reading, writing, and math and on giving tests or preparing their students for tests. At the same time, children have 30 minutes or less each day for indoor play or choice time.
It is time to reassess unrealistic standards for young children and restore play as an essential activity in early education. Watch for news of the Alliance’s national kindergarten campaign in the coming weeks and months.
Progress for Playwork
Our goal of restoring and enhancing play for all children includes a special focus on the role of playworkers, who support children’s play without dominating it. London playworker Penny Wilson will return to the U.S. in the spring under Alliance auspices to conduct workshops in a number of cities on inclusive play for children with disabilities as well as outdoor play in natural environments. Check the Alliance web site soon for details.
Interest in the profession of playwork is growing rapidly across the U.S. The Alliance is planning to gather playwork advocates and practitioners in May for the first-ever national consortium on this topic.
And we are developing new educational materials on play and playwork. A fact sheet with many helpful web links is already up on the Alliance web site. A playwork booklet and training video and a toolkit on facilitating unstructured outdoor play are in the works.
Coming to a Screen Near You—Documentaries on Play
We’re still distributing copies of the award-winning documentary Where Do the Children Play? for public screenings. The Alliance has so far made more than 500 such screenings possible by providing free copies of the film to community organizations and schools. We are also preparing to reissue the film study guide. Its first printing sold out quickly.
A new short film on children’s outdoor play with water has been produced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Alliance was honored to be included in it, along with Richard Louv (author of Last Child in the Woods). It’s called “Wetlands and Wonder” and can be viewed at www.epa.gov. Free copies can be ordered from the E.P.A.
We are grateful to the foundations that support our major projects. At the same time, much of our strength comes from you, our individual friends and donors, who support our overall efforts to defend childhood. Without you we could not set such high goals or achieve them. With you we hope to reverse many of the negative trends that have dominated childhood in the past decade and more. We are hopeful that genuine change is coming, and we’re planning our most intensive year of work to date. Please give as generously as you can to support a healthy and playful childhood for all children.
Once again, a long-time supporter of the Alliance has offered a $10,000 matching grant for our end-of-year fund appeal. Your donation will thus go twice as far.
Donors of $100 or more will receive a special thank you: a copy of Harvard psychologist-ventriloquist Susan Linn’s new book, The Case for Make Believe: Saving Play in a Commercialized World (The New Press). Susan sees the importance of make-believe play through a unique lens and writes about it beautifully. Even Audrey Duck thinks so.
We send best wishes to you all during this holiday season. Our greatest wish is that in this time of belt-tightening we can focus on the essentials of life, many of which cost little or nothing: loving relationships, artistic expression, creative play, enjoyment of nature, and the many other joys of childhood. Fortunately, they remain with us all through our lives.
