Monday, June 25, 2012
A Summer Hiatus for Kindergarten Reconciliation
Now that my older daughter's first year as a student in the public schools has concluded, my daughter and I will be shedding the focus and pace of the school year to experience, instead, the more free flowing rhythms of summer. My hope for my daughter is that she will be able to let down the guard which was acquired in her journey through kindergarten, and get swept up in the "here and now" of summer. I, too, am ready to embrace the vicissitudes of summer alongside my daughters, and thus I will be taking a hiatus from this "Kindergarten Reconciliation" blog through the end of August. I plan to return to my reflections on the possibilities and challenges of public schooling after Labor Day. I invite my readers to join me in this evolving dialogue when the upcoming school year begins anew.
Monday, June 11, 2012
What Has My Daughter Learned in Kindergarten?
The last few weeks of the school year are a time to celebrate the growth and learning of our children and to see them perform some of what they have learned in the past year. At my older daughter's local elementary school, we have recently been invited to attend an all-school math night, a school carnival, a kindergarten picnic, and a "Tribute to Mother Goose" performance by the kindergarten children. My husband has attended his last PTA meeting of the year, and I have volunteered in my daughter's kindergarten classroom for the last time. As I commiserated with the other kindergarten parents last Friday before and after our childrens' performance of nursery rhymes, we all agreed that they have become strikingly more mature over these past ten months. As I watched my older daughter and her classmates perform, I was struck with how capable they appear to me in comparison to the youngsters who nervously began kindergarten together last August. My DD1 has "grown up" before my eyes through this kindergarten year, and so have her peers. Thus, as I reflect back upon the journey of this kindergarten school year, I am left wondering: Is one of the primary purposes of Kindergarten to prepare youngsters to function independently in school? What other noteworthy knowledge and/or skills have my daughter and her classmates acquired through their schooling this year? And how does what she has learned compare to what I hoped she would learn in Kindergarten?
I learned at Math Night that my older daughter can do "brain teaser" problems in which she must determine what combination of coins equal a set amount, such as "if you have four coins that equal sixteen cents, which coins do you have?" I learned during my final observation of literacy block last week that my DD1 can write a summary of a book that is read aloud during circle time. I learned at bed time several nights ago that my older daughter is able to read her way through unfamiliar picture books from the library. And I learned at the Mother Goose performance that my older daughter has memorized half a dozen newly refurbished songs, and that instead of being nervous about performing them in front of the parents she was excited.
Because kindergarten has demanded so much self-sufficiency from her, I can attest to the fact that my older daughter has risen to the occasion. In the mornings at school drop-off, she jumps out at the traffic circle and bounds to the playground unaccompanied by me. At lunch, she opens her own ketchup packets, milk carton, and other packaged food in her lunch. She can now tie her own shoes and zip her own sweatshirt. And, most importantly, she has become more willing and able to speak up for herself among her peers to indicate when she wants to join in or when she wants some solitude. At home, she pours her own milk and makes her own hot chocolate in the microwave. She brushes her teach in the morning by herself, and she can now also brush her own curly hair and bunch it together with an elastic band into a ponytail. She likes to read to her younger sister at bedtime, and she often helps to buckle her sibling in and out of her carseat, too.
Before this school year began, did I expect that my older daughter's reading skills and numerical sense-making would be so developed by the end of kindergarten? No, I did not. Did I imagine that she would become familiar with how to use internet learning tools, time lines, maps, scales, rulers, magnifying glasses, classroom charts, jump ropes, percussion instruments, the Dewey Decimal system, etc, in kindergarten? Perhaps. Did I foresee that she would become proficient at listening to instructions, working independently at her desk, lining up with her classmates, and raising her hand when she needs help or wants to contribute her thoughts. Yes -- it was this set of skills that I did anticipate would become routine in kindergarten. My surprise through this year has been how much of the emphasis in kindergarten has been on learning serious academic content in reading, mathematics, science, and social studies, rather than thoughtfully engaging our children in a collective socialization process that can serve as a shared foundation through the remainder of their public schooling.
In closing, I ask my readers to consider with me: What should our children learn in Kindergarten? And to the educators who read this blog, I ask: How have the learning targets for children in Kindergarten been established in your district? And are these Kindergarten learning goals holistic or mostly academic?
I learned at Math Night that my older daughter can do "brain teaser" problems in which she must determine what combination of coins equal a set amount, such as "if you have four coins that equal sixteen cents, which coins do you have?" I learned during my final observation of literacy block last week that my DD1 can write a summary of a book that is read aloud during circle time. I learned at bed time several nights ago that my older daughter is able to read her way through unfamiliar picture books from the library. And I learned at the Mother Goose performance that my older daughter has memorized half a dozen newly refurbished songs, and that instead of being nervous about performing them in front of the parents she was excited.
Because kindergarten has demanded so much self-sufficiency from her, I can attest to the fact that my older daughter has risen to the occasion. In the mornings at school drop-off, she jumps out at the traffic circle and bounds to the playground unaccompanied by me. At lunch, she opens her own ketchup packets, milk carton, and other packaged food in her lunch. She can now tie her own shoes and zip her own sweatshirt. And, most importantly, she has become more willing and able to speak up for herself among her peers to indicate when she wants to join in or when she wants some solitude. At home, she pours her own milk and makes her own hot chocolate in the microwave. She brushes her teach in the morning by herself, and she can now also brush her own curly hair and bunch it together with an elastic band into a ponytail. She likes to read to her younger sister at bedtime, and she often helps to buckle her sibling in and out of her carseat, too.
Before this school year began, did I expect that my older daughter's reading skills and numerical sense-making would be so developed by the end of kindergarten? No, I did not. Did I imagine that she would become familiar with how to use internet learning tools, time lines, maps, scales, rulers, magnifying glasses, classroom charts, jump ropes, percussion instruments, the Dewey Decimal system, etc, in kindergarten? Perhaps. Did I foresee that she would become proficient at listening to instructions, working independently at her desk, lining up with her classmates, and raising her hand when she needs help or wants to contribute her thoughts. Yes -- it was this set of skills that I did anticipate would become routine in kindergarten. My surprise through this year has been how much of the emphasis in kindergarten has been on learning serious academic content in reading, mathematics, science, and social studies, rather than thoughtfully engaging our children in a collective socialization process that can serve as a shared foundation through the remainder of their public schooling.
In closing, I ask my readers to consider with me: What should our children learn in Kindergarten? And to the educators who read this blog, I ask: How have the learning targets for children in Kindergarten been established in your district? And are these Kindergarten learning goals holistic or mostly academic?
Monday, May 28, 2012
Celebrating Diversity in Kindergarten
Last Friday, my husband and my two daughters stayed up well past their bedtimes because they were unable to leave the dance floor at our local elementary school's "International Night" event. The evening culminated with a dance party, and my older daughter (DD1) has been gushing all week about how she didn't want to leave because she was having so much fun dancing with her friends. While I, too, have fond memories of school and community dances from my childhood, it is a striking contrast to me that my daughter's school dance party included a Zumba lesson, a Salsa lesson, a traditional continental Indian dance performance, as well as the free form dancing to Top 40 Pop music which I remember fondly from my youth. The dance party was preceded by a communal, pot luck dinner which featured Ethiopian, Moroccan, Croatian, and El Salvadorian dishes. The evening celebrated the cultural pluralism of the school's population, and I marvel that my DD1's kindergarten experience has been, at least in part, an immersion into the world of diversity.
According to the district website school profile, at my daughter's elementary school 49% of students are black, 16.5% are white, and 26.0% are Hispanic. Some 33.5% are English Language Learners, and 60% of students quality for Free and Reduced Lunch. In my daughter's kindergarten class, none of her classmates are white, and more than half of her classmates entered school with limited oral English proficiency because English is not the primary language spoken at home. Many of her classmates who are English Language Learners are the offspring of parents who have recently immigrated (within the last five+ years) to the United States from an array of Central and South American, East, West and North African, Eastern European, and Middle Eastern countries. Because so many of her kindergarten peers are bilingual, my older daughter (DD1) has wondered aloud with me why she, too, is not fluent in another language beyond English, or why her parents don't speak another language with her and each other at home. My DD1 has queried me about if coming from a different country means that the food that the family eats at home is different than what we do, if the church they attend is different than ours, and if they celebrate the same or different holidays as our family does. She has also noticed and inquired about why with many of her classmates we can't schedule a playmate, why they don't belong to our community pool, or why her kindergarten friends can't be signed up to do some of the same after school enrichment or summer camp activities that she will.
My DD1's observations are poignant to me because when we became a part of the cooperative preschool community where my younger daughter is still enrolled, my husband and I congratulated ourselves on the fact that the families who made up the school were so diverse. In our older daughter's class, for example, close to one third of the children were bi-racial because their parents were a mix of two ethnicities, and several of her preschool peers had been adopted from China. In addition to her classmates whose skin color was brown like hers, many other parents at the school represented a blend of cultures and countries of origin, such as South American and American or European and American, or a blend of religion, such as Christian and Jewish. However, what we all shared in common at the preschool was the fact that almost all of us were older parents who had completed many years of higher education before settling down to start our families, and who had had transplanted to the area for work from across the country (and world). And because of the similarities in our soci0-economic situations, with the other children from the preschool my daughter and I came to expect that we would inhabit the world in strikingly similar ways, wherein we dropped in and out of each others' homes and fluidly exchanged tips for which extracurricular activities were favored, which summer camps were enticing, and which community pools had the best swim lesson and swim team programs.
In a 1998 Report published by the Center on Education Policy, it states that "public schools are one of the main institutions that create cohesion among diverse groups of Americans. . . schools are places where children learn social and citizenship skills that help them to live harmoniously and become contributing members of society. In a nation as complex and diverse as the United States, a critical part of becoming a good citizen is learning how to get along with others, especially those whose racial, ethnic, religious, or economic backgrounds are different than our own." Given the profile of the student body at my older daughter's elementary school, it would appear that she has a terrific opportunity to experience and embrace the diversity of the human spectrum, as it is represented in the array of cultures, languages, and religions of her classmates. And perhaps even more importantly, my daughter's foray into the public schools have provided her with a sometimes difficult, but perhaps vitally important opportunity, to engage with peers whose socio-economic circumstances are different from her own. I close this blog by asking my readers: How important is it to you that your children have the opportunity through their schooling to engage with peers whose circumstances are different than their own? And for those of you among my readers who are educators, I ask: What is the role of educators to foster children's capacity to forge connections with peers who are different from one another? And how should the school day and curriculum be structured to engender students' embrace of diversity?
According to the district website school profile, at my daughter's elementary school 49% of students are black, 16.5% are white, and 26.0% are Hispanic. Some 33.5% are English Language Learners, and 60% of students quality for Free and Reduced Lunch. In my daughter's kindergarten class, none of her classmates are white, and more than half of her classmates entered school with limited oral English proficiency because English is not the primary language spoken at home. Many of her classmates who are English Language Learners are the offspring of parents who have recently immigrated (within the last five+ years) to the United States from an array of Central and South American, East, West and North African, Eastern European, and Middle Eastern countries. Because so many of her kindergarten peers are bilingual, my older daughter (DD1) has wondered aloud with me why she, too, is not fluent in another language beyond English, or why her parents don't speak another language with her and each other at home. My DD1 has queried me about if coming from a different country means that the food that the family eats at home is different than what we do, if the church they attend is different than ours, and if they celebrate the same or different holidays as our family does. She has also noticed and inquired about why with many of her classmates we can't schedule a playmate, why they don't belong to our community pool, or why her kindergarten friends can't be signed up to do some of the same after school enrichment or summer camp activities that she will.
My DD1's observations are poignant to me because when we became a part of the cooperative preschool community where my younger daughter is still enrolled, my husband and I congratulated ourselves on the fact that the families who made up the school were so diverse. In our older daughter's class, for example, close to one third of the children were bi-racial because their parents were a mix of two ethnicities, and several of her preschool peers had been adopted from China. In addition to her classmates whose skin color was brown like hers, many other parents at the school represented a blend of cultures and countries of origin, such as South American and American or European and American, or a blend of religion, such as Christian and Jewish. However, what we all shared in common at the preschool was the fact that almost all of us were older parents who had completed many years of higher education before settling down to start our families, and who had had transplanted to the area for work from across the country (and world). And because of the similarities in our soci0-economic situations, with the other children from the preschool my daughter and I came to expect that we would inhabit the world in strikingly similar ways, wherein we dropped in and out of each others' homes and fluidly exchanged tips for which extracurricular activities were favored, which summer camps were enticing, and which community pools had the best swim lesson and swim team programs.
In a 1998 Report published by the Center on Education Policy, it states that "public schools are one of the main institutions that create cohesion among diverse groups of Americans. . . schools are places where children learn social and citizenship skills that help them to live harmoniously and become contributing members of society. In a nation as complex and diverse as the United States, a critical part of becoming a good citizen is learning how to get along with others, especially those whose racial, ethnic, religious, or economic backgrounds are different than our own." Given the profile of the student body at my older daughter's elementary school, it would appear that she has a terrific opportunity to experience and embrace the diversity of the human spectrum, as it is represented in the array of cultures, languages, and religions of her classmates. And perhaps even more importantly, my daughter's foray into the public schools have provided her with a sometimes difficult, but perhaps vitally important opportunity, to engage with peers whose socio-economic circumstances are different from her own. I close this blog by asking my readers: How important is it to you that your children have the opportunity through their schooling to engage with peers whose circumstances are different than their own? And for those of you among my readers who are educators, I ask: What is the role of educators to foster children's capacity to forge connections with peers who are different from one another? And how should the school day and curriculum be structured to engender students' embrace of diversity?
Sunday, May 13, 2012
What is the Role of the PTA in Kindergarten?
According to the website of the National Parent Teachers Association, the PTA exists "to bring into closer relation the home and school, that parents and teachers may cooperate intelligently in the education of children and youth." Having selected a cooperative nursery school for our daughters' early childhood education, I imagined that it would be an easy transition from preschool to elementary school in terms of maintaining my involvement as a parent in the life of the school. At the beginning of my daughter's year in kindergarten, I wondered how our local elementary PTA would help foster a sense of partnership between school and home. I imagined that the PTA might welcome us as new parents, provide us with an overview of the ways in which we could jump in and get involved, and coordinate efforts to solicit parent volunteers in the classroom. Moreover, I hoped that the PTA would help promote a sense of connectedness and community among the new kindergarten families. Yet here it is the middle of May and I have yet to attend a PTA sponsored event this year, nor their monthly membership meeting. So I find myself wondering: How has my lack of participation in the PTA affected my sense of connection to my daughter's elementary school?
What I have learned through this kindergarten year is that two small commitments have contributed enormously to my sense of connection to my daughter's elementary school: 1) volunteering in my daughter's classroom several times a month; and 2) spending at least one afternoon at week on the playground with my daughter, her classmates, their siblings, and the other kindergarten parents. My intention for volunteering in my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s classroom was to contribute to the students' learning in some small way; the reward I have reaped is coming to know my daughter's classmates individually and personally. My commitment to spending Friday afternoons on the playground of my DD1's elementary school evolved organically. When I discovered that several of the other kindergarten moms bring snacks and drinks to the playground on Fridays, I joined in the festivities. Through my participation in this Friday afternoon ritual, I have gotten to know a fleet of children from across the four kindergarten classes at the school as well as a small army of younger siblings who will be going through elementary school with my younger daughter, too. In addition, it is on the playground that I have become acquainted with half a dozen or more other kindergarten parents. Every Friday afternoon, we swap stories about our children, their relationships with their siblings, and their adjustment and growth in kindergarten.
My husband has taken a different tack with his involvement in our daughter's school. He has volunteered to serve as a chaperone on several kindergarten field trips. Additionally, he has jumped in and gotten involved in the PTA this year as a volunteer for the school's "International Week & International Night." He has spent many hours calling, e-mailing and faxing foreign embassies in the effort to entice members of the embassy staffs to visit our school and to describe what school is like for children who live in different countries. And he has spent at least half a dozen evenings meeting with a small cadre of parents to plan and coordinate the activities that comprise this annual tradition.
As I reflect on the level of my husband's and my involvement over this kindergarten year at school, what is most clear to me is that our mutual involvement has engendered a sense of connection to my DD1's elementary school and has seeded a fledgling sense of community. My focus has been exclusively on the field of kindergarten, even as I can also see how there are many ways to engage in service to the school at the classroom, grade, and school-wide levels. I have learned that the role of the PTA is to enrich the whole school community, through the annual Book Drive, the after school Enrichment activity offerings, and the International Week events, etc. I look forward to the years to come when I will be better able to contribute to these traditions, and come into community with a broader range of parents and families. In closing, I ask my readers: What forms of school involvement have contributed most to your sense of connection and community at your children's schools? And for those of you who are educators, I ask: what forms of involvement in the classroom and the school do you encourage?
What I have learned through this kindergarten year is that two small commitments have contributed enormously to my sense of connection to my daughter's elementary school: 1) volunteering in my daughter's classroom several times a month; and 2) spending at least one afternoon at week on the playground with my daughter, her classmates, their siblings, and the other kindergarten parents. My intention for volunteering in my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s classroom was to contribute to the students' learning in some small way; the reward I have reaped is coming to know my daughter's classmates individually and personally. My commitment to spending Friday afternoons on the playground of my DD1's elementary school evolved organically. When I discovered that several of the other kindergarten moms bring snacks and drinks to the playground on Fridays, I joined in the festivities. Through my participation in this Friday afternoon ritual, I have gotten to know a fleet of children from across the four kindergarten classes at the school as well as a small army of younger siblings who will be going through elementary school with my younger daughter, too. In addition, it is on the playground that I have become acquainted with half a dozen or more other kindergarten parents. Every Friday afternoon, we swap stories about our children, their relationships with their siblings, and their adjustment and growth in kindergarten.
My husband has taken a different tack with his involvement in our daughter's school. He has volunteered to serve as a chaperone on several kindergarten field trips. Additionally, he has jumped in and gotten involved in the PTA this year as a volunteer for the school's "International Week & International Night." He has spent many hours calling, e-mailing and faxing foreign embassies in the effort to entice members of the embassy staffs to visit our school and to describe what school is like for children who live in different countries. And he has spent at least half a dozen evenings meeting with a small cadre of parents to plan and coordinate the activities that comprise this annual tradition.
As I reflect on the level of my husband's and my involvement over this kindergarten year at school, what is most clear to me is that our mutual involvement has engendered a sense of connection to my DD1's elementary school and has seeded a fledgling sense of community. My focus has been exclusively on the field of kindergarten, even as I can also see how there are many ways to engage in service to the school at the classroom, grade, and school-wide levels. I have learned that the role of the PTA is to enrich the whole school community, through the annual Book Drive, the after school Enrichment activity offerings, and the International Week events, etc. I look forward to the years to come when I will be better able to contribute to these traditions, and come into community with a broader range of parents and families. In closing, I ask my readers: What forms of school involvement have contributed most to your sense of connection and community at your children's schools? And for those of you who are educators, I ask: what forms of involvement in the classroom and the school do you encourage?
Thursday, May 3, 2012
The Countdown to Summer Begins
When I turned the kitchen calendar to the first day of May this week, my older daughter (DD1) asked if it was the last month of school yet? When I shook my head "no" in response, she asked me to help her construct a calendar on which she could mark off the remaining days of school. Together, we counted the number of weeks remaining in school, added together the number of total days remaining in school, and then decided upon how to best represent this roster of days in a format through which each day could be easily checked off. My DD1 organized her calendar into rows of ten squares, each big enough to fit an "x." And at the end of the rows of square boxes, she drew a smiling sun indicating the first official day of summer vacation.
As my DD1 was constructing her countdown calendar, I asked her what she thought she would miss most about kindergarten when summer vacation got underway. She replied, "my friends, and my teacher," and then she added, "and getting to learn lots of new stuff every day." Then she quickly continued that she was really looking forward to summer for many reasons including, going swimming at our local community pool, eating popsicles on our front stoop, running through the sprinklers with her sister, staying up late and sleeping in, staying in her pajamas until lunchtime, going on vacation on the West Coast to see her extended family and cousins, and attending camp at the zoo and our local nature preserve. I wondered as I listed to my DD1's enticing list, if her friends at school felt the same way she did about the lure of summer. I took the opportunity to ask her classmates over lunch what they liked best about school and about summer this week. Several of her peers chimed in that they loved to watch television and play video games when they were not at school, and a couple mentioned that they liked to play with their brothers and/or sisters. However, when I turned to my daughter's over zealous classmate and asked her whether she preferred school or summer vacation, she quietly replied, "I like school, Mrs. ___." Her poignant response jarred me out of my summer reverie and reminded me of how for some low-income children the summer months can be the longest months of the year.
In our family, summer is a welcome respite from the grind of the school year. Summer affords me and my daughters a chance to move through our days at a different pace without the pressures of being on a strict schedule wherein we have to keep things moving. Even though my husband and I must head off to work each weekday morning, in the summer months we can do so without the stress related to accomplishing getting our daughters dressed, combing their hair, brushing their teeth, mandating the intake of breakfast, packing school lunches, and remembering what is required for the day away from home. Instead, we get to luxuriate in the privilege of having a college student babysitter arrive at our house every morning to whom we hand off our daughters until the late afternoon when one or both of us returns home for the evening. And we get to look forward to hearing a full report over dinner from our girls about what their caregiver engaged them in that day, such as art and craft projects, trips to the library, local parks, and community pool, or bigger outings to the zoo or to the museums.
Decades of research on the summer learning gap or "slide" for low income children documents how much academic learning deteriorates over the summer due to the lack of publicly funded summer school for those children most in need of academic enrichment. The National Summer Learning Association reports that more than half of the achievement gap between low and middle income students "can be explained by unequal access to summer learning opportunities." According to their website, research suggests that while all students typically lose the equivalent of two months of mathematical knowledge and computational skill over the summer, low income students also lose several months of progress in reading, even as their middle income peers typically gain slightly in reading over the summer months.
Recently, despite the fact that the percentage of children who qualify for free and reduced lunch remaining the same, our local elementary school lost its classification as a Title I school. With this re-classification, the district sponsored and supported summer school is no longer available to the low income children at our daughter's school. As I was reading with my daughter and several of her classmates this week, I was impressed by how adeptly they have started to become readers in English, a language that for many of my daughter's peers differs from the language which is spoken at home. And I am now left wondering: How can the gaps in English fluency, foundations in literacy and numeracy, and overall enrichment learning experiences between low income and middle income students be closed through schooling when during the summer months these divides widen? If there is no learning intervention available to our highest needs students during the summer months, how is it possible to expect that they can re-engage in school learning as readily as their more economically privileged peers?
As my DD1 was constructing her countdown calendar, I asked her what she thought she would miss most about kindergarten when summer vacation got underway. She replied, "my friends, and my teacher," and then she added, "and getting to learn lots of new stuff every day." Then she quickly continued that she was really looking forward to summer for many reasons including, going swimming at our local community pool, eating popsicles on our front stoop, running through the sprinklers with her sister, staying up late and sleeping in, staying in her pajamas until lunchtime, going on vacation on the West Coast to see her extended family and cousins, and attending camp at the zoo and our local nature preserve. I wondered as I listed to my DD1's enticing list, if her friends at school felt the same way she did about the lure of summer. I took the opportunity to ask her classmates over lunch what they liked best about school and about summer this week. Several of her peers chimed in that they loved to watch television and play video games when they were not at school, and a couple mentioned that they liked to play with their brothers and/or sisters. However, when I turned to my daughter's over zealous classmate and asked her whether she preferred school or summer vacation, she quietly replied, "I like school, Mrs. ___." Her poignant response jarred me out of my summer reverie and reminded me of how for some low-income children the summer months can be the longest months of the year.
In our family, summer is a welcome respite from the grind of the school year. Summer affords me and my daughters a chance to move through our days at a different pace without the pressures of being on a strict schedule wherein we have to keep things moving. Even though my husband and I must head off to work each weekday morning, in the summer months we can do so without the stress related to accomplishing getting our daughters dressed, combing their hair, brushing their teeth, mandating the intake of breakfast, packing school lunches, and remembering what is required for the day away from home. Instead, we get to luxuriate in the privilege of having a college student babysitter arrive at our house every morning to whom we hand off our daughters until the late afternoon when one or both of us returns home for the evening. And we get to look forward to hearing a full report over dinner from our girls about what their caregiver engaged them in that day, such as art and craft projects, trips to the library, local parks, and community pool, or bigger outings to the zoo or to the museums.
Decades of research on the summer learning gap or "slide" for low income children documents how much academic learning deteriorates over the summer due to the lack of publicly funded summer school for those children most in need of academic enrichment. The National Summer Learning Association reports that more than half of the achievement gap between low and middle income students "can be explained by unequal access to summer learning opportunities." According to their website, research suggests that while all students typically lose the equivalent of two months of mathematical knowledge and computational skill over the summer, low income students also lose several months of progress in reading, even as their middle income peers typically gain slightly in reading over the summer months.
Recently, despite the fact that the percentage of children who qualify for free and reduced lunch remaining the same, our local elementary school lost its classification as a Title I school. With this re-classification, the district sponsored and supported summer school is no longer available to the low income children at our daughter's school. As I was reading with my daughter and several of her classmates this week, I was impressed by how adeptly they have started to become readers in English, a language that for many of my daughter's peers differs from the language which is spoken at home. And I am now left wondering: How can the gaps in English fluency, foundations in literacy and numeracy, and overall enrichment learning experiences between low income and middle income students be closed through schooling when during the summer months these divides widen? If there is no learning intervention available to our highest needs students during the summer months, how is it possible to expect that they can re-engage in school learning as readily as their more economically privileged peers?
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Learning to Ask for Help in Kindergarten
Perhaps it is merely coincidence that this evening my older daughter (DD1) and I read a new library book at bedtime entitled, Polka Dot Fixes Kindergarten, in which the kindergarten protagonist begins her first day of school with a "fix it kit" attached to her pocket so that she is prepared in case of any emergencies or situations requiring a degree of resourcefulness. The protagonist, nicknamed Polka Dot, comes to realize very quickly that without her grandfather nearby to help her when problems arise, kindergarten is a much more challenging world than home. Since my daughter began kindergarten at our local public elementary school last fall, she, like Polka Dot, has felt at times somewhat lost as to how to ask for help. Until last week, I, too, have felt regularly unsure about when I can seek help on my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s behalf or from whom. After meeting with our older daughter's elementary principal last Thursday, however, I now know who is available and ready to assist my husband, daughter(s), and me when present and future concerns arise -- namely, the warm, responsive, and insightful Principal at our local elementary school.
What is the help my daughter, my husband, and I have been seeking through most of this year of kindergarten? As should be evident from many of my previous blog entries, my DD1's on-going struggle this year has been to establish and maintain a workable boundary between herself and an over zealous classmate (OZC) who has determinedly pursued our daughter's "friendship." It has been taxing for my accommodating daughter to remain vigilant against this classmate's encroachment of her attention and personal space. When my DD1 has stood up for herself and said "no" or "stop" to her OZC, her requests have not been heeded. And because my amenable daughter values establishing positive relationships with all of the children in her kindergarten class, she has struggled internally to reconcile her desire to have a permanent break from her OZC and her desire to get along with all of her classmates. Thus, my DD1 has looked to me for help in navigating these murky waters, and I have, in turn, tried to enlist the personnel at the school to assist and reinforce our daughter in securing some degree of separation from her classmate.
What have I learned this year about asking for help with this matter on behalf of our daughter? I have learned that while the classroom teacher can and has positively guided the interactions among my DD1 and her classmates during much of the school day, there are other significant parts of the school day, such as lunch, recess, and art, P.E., and music, in which the primary classroom teacher and her guiding hand is absent. I have learned that while the guidance counselor has engaged with my daughter to generate strategies for how to better assert herself with her peers, the GC's role does not appear to involve disseminating an update about these suggested strategies to her teacher colleagues at the school. I have learned that while the assistant principal did inform my daughter and her OZC that they were no longer to play with each other at school, my DD1 felt reprimanded rather than supported. I have learned that while the paraeducators who supervise lunch and recess have at times intervened to separate my DD1 from her OZC, they have done so in such a way that my daughter has felt stigmatized for having done something wrong and embarrassed because she was spotlighted in front of her peers. And I have learned that up to this point there has been no mechanism by which the three "specials" teachers were informed about our request for help regarding our DD1 and her OZC, and therefore these three teachers have been, in effect, sidelined from doing their potential part to aid our daughter through her struggle.
I have been reminded through my reflections on my daughter's year in kindergarten of Vygotsky's "Zone of Proximal Development," and how learning precedes development for children, children who need to be assisted in growing to the next development stage through the coaching of more capable adults. Before talking to my daughter's Principal last week, it appeared that we, my husband and I, were largely left to our own devices to teach our daughter how to protect and distance herself from her OZC. Yet after talking to my daughter's Principal last week, I now have real hopes that the Principal will work in close, coordinated alliance with the personnel at the school to assist our daughter in negotiating an end-of-the-year detente with her OZC. Moreover, I am reminded of what a profound difference the Principal's response of "I am here to help you" can make to re-enlisting the faith of this new kindergarten parent in the public schools.
What is the help my daughter, my husband, and I have been seeking through most of this year of kindergarten? As should be evident from many of my previous blog entries, my DD1's on-going struggle this year has been to establish and maintain a workable boundary between herself and an over zealous classmate (OZC) who has determinedly pursued our daughter's "friendship." It has been taxing for my accommodating daughter to remain vigilant against this classmate's encroachment of her attention and personal space. When my DD1 has stood up for herself and said "no" or "stop" to her OZC, her requests have not been heeded. And because my amenable daughter values establishing positive relationships with all of the children in her kindergarten class, she has struggled internally to reconcile her desire to have a permanent break from her OZC and her desire to get along with all of her classmates. Thus, my DD1 has looked to me for help in navigating these murky waters, and I have, in turn, tried to enlist the personnel at the school to assist and reinforce our daughter in securing some degree of separation from her classmate.
What have I learned this year about asking for help with this matter on behalf of our daughter? I have learned that while the classroom teacher can and has positively guided the interactions among my DD1 and her classmates during much of the school day, there are other significant parts of the school day, such as lunch, recess, and art, P.E., and music, in which the primary classroom teacher and her guiding hand is absent. I have learned that while the guidance counselor has engaged with my daughter to generate strategies for how to better assert herself with her peers, the GC's role does not appear to involve disseminating an update about these suggested strategies to her teacher colleagues at the school. I have learned that while the assistant principal did inform my daughter and her OZC that they were no longer to play with each other at school, my DD1 felt reprimanded rather than supported. I have learned that while the paraeducators who supervise lunch and recess have at times intervened to separate my DD1 from her OZC, they have done so in such a way that my daughter has felt stigmatized for having done something wrong and embarrassed because she was spotlighted in front of her peers. And I have learned that up to this point there has been no mechanism by which the three "specials" teachers were informed about our request for help regarding our DD1 and her OZC, and therefore these three teachers have been, in effect, sidelined from doing their potential part to aid our daughter through her struggle.
I have been reminded through my reflections on my daughter's year in kindergarten of Vygotsky's "Zone of Proximal Development," and how learning precedes development for children, children who need to be assisted in growing to the next development stage through the coaching of more capable adults. Before talking to my daughter's Principal last week, it appeared that we, my husband and I, were largely left to our own devices to teach our daughter how to protect and distance herself from her OZC. Yet after talking to my daughter's Principal last week, I now have real hopes that the Principal will work in close, coordinated alliance with the personnel at the school to assist our daughter in negotiating an end-of-the-year detente with her OZC. Moreover, I am reminded of what a profound difference the Principal's response of "I am here to help you" can make to re-enlisting the faith of this new kindergarten parent in the public schools.
Friday, April 6, 2012
To Transfer or Not to Transfer?
This week is spring break from kindergarten. Last night as she was falling asleep, my older daughter ("Darling Daughter 1/DD1) remarked, "Mommie, I don't like it when my sister wakes up from a bad dream, because then she wakes me up and I start thinking about school and my "over zealous classmate" (OZC). I don't think I want to have to be friends with her anymore, but I don't know how I can stop having to be her friend." Leave it to my DD1 to express herself so poignantly. It has not been the tasks of learning to read, or write, or add, or subtract that has been challenging for my DD1 in kindergarten this year. No, instead, my older daughter has met a different kind of challenge; she has come up against a classmate who is determined to be her "friend" and who has thrust herself upon my daughter at every opportunity (Please see "What is Bullying in Kindergarten, Takes 1-3). How can my DD1 get her OZC to back off so that my daughter has the space to choose for herself whether or not she wants to be this classmate's friend? How can my daughter learn to shut down her compassion for her classmate, and instead, become cold enough towards her OZC that it is clear that my DD1 is no longer interested in participating in this "friendship." How can my daughter muster enough internal courage and force to deter her classmate's willful imposition of "friendship"?
While my DD1 has struggled to manage the demands of her OZC, my husband and I have struggled to navigate what we can expect from the staff at our local elementary school in terms of assisting our DD1 with this challenge from her peer. As a kindergartener, is it reasonable to expect that our daughter should have the social and emotional skill set required to repel a forceful classmate? Given that my DD1 has a sweet-natured, accommodating temperament, is it only by shedding some of this disposition towards being 'nice' that my older daughter can learn to stand up for herself fully? Is it reasonable to expect that our DD1 should be able to manage all on her own without some help from the adults at the school? Or should we be able to to turn to the personnel at the school for assistance? And if so, what forms of assistance might/should be available to our older daughter and to us?
With each round of conversation with the various staff members at the school regarding our concerns about our daughter's on-going struggle with her OZC, my husband and I have met with some empathy for our daughter's strained relationship with her classmate. And yet in not one interaction with either the classroom teacher, the guidance counselor, the assistant principal, or the assistant principal, have the members of the school staff who are responsible for our daughter's growth in kindergarten communicated that it is either an individual or a collective priority to attend to our daughter's development socially, emotionally, or interpersonally. So my husband and I are left wondering: if the focus of the school personnel at our local elementary school is almost exclusively on the academic needs and progress of students, then what about the other development areas in which children need coaching -- are these, by default, left solely to us as parents to guide and nurture?
And thus, my husband and I are also left wondering whether there are alternatives within the system of public schooling with a more holistic approach to working with children, particularly in the primary grades? How might we go about detecting if one of our other nearby elementary schools has a broader focus? And if so, should we be starting the process of requesting a transfer to another school?
While my DD1 has struggled to manage the demands of her OZC, my husband and I have struggled to navigate what we can expect from the staff at our local elementary school in terms of assisting our DD1 with this challenge from her peer. As a kindergartener, is it reasonable to expect that our daughter should have the social and emotional skill set required to repel a forceful classmate? Given that my DD1 has a sweet-natured, accommodating temperament, is it only by shedding some of this disposition towards being 'nice' that my older daughter can learn to stand up for herself fully? Is it reasonable to expect that our DD1 should be able to manage all on her own without some help from the adults at the school? Or should we be able to to turn to the personnel at the school for assistance? And if so, what forms of assistance might/should be available to our older daughter and to us?
With each round of conversation with the various staff members at the school regarding our concerns about our daughter's on-going struggle with her OZC, my husband and I have met with some empathy for our daughter's strained relationship with her classmate. And yet in not one interaction with either the classroom teacher, the guidance counselor, the assistant principal, or the assistant principal, have the members of the school staff who are responsible for our daughter's growth in kindergarten communicated that it is either an individual or a collective priority to attend to our daughter's development socially, emotionally, or interpersonally. So my husband and I are left wondering: if the focus of the school personnel at our local elementary school is almost exclusively on the academic needs and progress of students, then what about the other development areas in which children need coaching -- are these, by default, left solely to us as parents to guide and nurture?
And thus, my husband and I are also left wondering whether there are alternatives within the system of public schooling with a more holistic approach to working with children, particularly in the primary grades? How might we go about detecting if one of our other nearby elementary schools has a broader focus? And if so, should we be starting the process of requesting a transfer to another school?
Saturday, March 31, 2012
What Is the Role of Physical Fitness in Kindergarten?
My kindergartener has joined the school running club. Every Tuesday afternoon, my daughter, her teacher, a small army of parent volunteers, and kids from all grade levels across the school gather in the gymnasium, walk together to a nearby county park, run laps, cool down with water and snacks, and walk back together to the school playground. After her first week, I asked her how she liked the running part of the running club, and she gave me a "thumbs up" and said, "It was great!" After she returned from running, her exhilaration extended to an additional hour of playing, running, climbing, and jumping on the playground with her friends. We returned home two hours after the final school bell, happy, tired, and ready to settle down the remainder of the evening's routine activities.
In our local school district, each elementary school is staffed with at least one full-time P.E. teacher. With a full time P.E. teacher on staff, the students at my daughter's elementary school participate in P.E. class once a week as part of the weekly "specials" rotation. P.E. is one of the highlights of the week at school for my daughter, and it ranks first in the order of favorites among the specials (which included media, music, and art). Our school district states that the goal for all students is to "be physically fit and have a mindset that values physical activity and its benefits in sustaining healthy lifestyles." According to the curriculum guide for Physical Education in our school district, P.E. class is designed to promote physical activity and physical skillfulness, along with cognitive and social growth for kindergartners.
With these lofty goals for the students in our district, how has it come to be that only one 45 minute period a week is deemed sufficient to engender "a mindset that values physical activity" among the incoming class of kindergartners? Perhaps my school district tacitly presumes that recess is a part of the physical education umbrella. As such, along with one 45 minutes block a week my daughter and her classmates are released onto the playground, weather permitting, for 25- 30 minutes each day. Yet, I am left wondering how 30 minutes a day, plus one 45 minute block a week, can constitute a meaningful physical fitness program? I do appreciate how my daughter's school community is working conscientiously to nurture students' understanding of the importance of physical activity. As such, it appears that the parents and teachers who are sponsoring the running club are supplementing the weekly P.E. and daily recess offerings in order to model for students what a commitment to physical fitness can look like, and to provide students with the opportunity to experience communal movement.
I have large aspirations for my daughter's physical development in the years ahead. I want her to continue to enjoy exploring the world through the movement and use of her body, along with the engagement of her brain and imagination. I want her to play on an athletic team and to learn teamwork and discipline. I want her to keep dancing as long as she experiences the joy of rhythm. I want her to learn to swim the crawl stroke and to be able to carry herself in the water. I want her to spend a lot of time in the outdoors exploring with her five senses and developing her full motor capacities. And I want her to build up her physical strength, stamina, and flexibility.
Therefore, given the minimal opportunities for physical activity during the school day at my daughter's school, it has become clear to me of the necessity that some significant time be dedicated to physical exploration outside of school. As such, I have worked to organize our lives so that my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) can stay after school several days a week to romp on the playground with her kindergarten buddies. Perhaps more than recess or P.E., it is the time after school on the playground that has contributed most to my daughter's physical education and growth this year. Seven months into kindergarten, my DD1 can now scale the playground wall, jump from a four foot platform, go across the parallel bars hanging by her hands, hang upside down by her knees on the monkey bars, and roll like a log down the hillside. So my question to those of you who have come before me as parents is: How do you maintain a commitment to physical fitness in the lives of your children, when the time in school dedicated to this enterprise is so minimal?
In our local school district, each elementary school is staffed with at least one full-time P.E. teacher. With a full time P.E. teacher on staff, the students at my daughter's elementary school participate in P.E. class once a week as part of the weekly "specials" rotation. P.E. is one of the highlights of the week at school for my daughter, and it ranks first in the order of favorites among the specials (which included media, music, and art). Our school district states that the goal for all students is to "be physically fit and have a mindset that values physical activity and its benefits in sustaining healthy lifestyles." According to the curriculum guide for Physical Education in our school district, P.E. class is designed to promote physical activity and physical skillfulness, along with cognitive and social growth for kindergartners.
With these lofty goals for the students in our district, how has it come to be that only one 45 minute period a week is deemed sufficient to engender "a mindset that values physical activity" among the incoming class of kindergartners? Perhaps my school district tacitly presumes that recess is a part of the physical education umbrella. As such, along with one 45 minutes block a week my daughter and her classmates are released onto the playground, weather permitting, for 25- 30 minutes each day. Yet, I am left wondering how 30 minutes a day, plus one 45 minute block a week, can constitute a meaningful physical fitness program? I do appreciate how my daughter's school community is working conscientiously to nurture students' understanding of the importance of physical activity. As such, it appears that the parents and teachers who are sponsoring the running club are supplementing the weekly P.E. and daily recess offerings in order to model for students what a commitment to physical fitness can look like, and to provide students with the opportunity to experience communal movement.
I have large aspirations for my daughter's physical development in the years ahead. I want her to continue to enjoy exploring the world through the movement and use of her body, along with the engagement of her brain and imagination. I want her to play on an athletic team and to learn teamwork and discipline. I want her to keep dancing as long as she experiences the joy of rhythm. I want her to learn to swim the crawl stroke and to be able to carry herself in the water. I want her to spend a lot of time in the outdoors exploring with her five senses and developing her full motor capacities. And I want her to build up her physical strength, stamina, and flexibility.
Therefore, given the minimal opportunities for physical activity during the school day at my daughter's school, it has become clear to me of the necessity that some significant time be dedicated to physical exploration outside of school. As such, I have worked to organize our lives so that my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) can stay after school several days a week to romp on the playground with her kindergarten buddies. Perhaps more than recess or P.E., it is the time after school on the playground that has contributed most to my daughter's physical education and growth this year. Seven months into kindergarten, my DD1 can now scale the playground wall, jump from a four foot platform, go across the parallel bars hanging by her hands, hang upside down by her knees on the monkey bars, and roll like a log down the hillside. So my question to those of you who have come before me as parents is: How do you maintain a commitment to physical fitness in the lives of your children, when the time in school dedicated to this enterprise is so minimal?
Friday, March 23, 2012
What is Bullying in Kindergarten, Take 3
Our family recently returned from a extended weekend in New York City to visit my husband's family. We received several pieces of welcome news from the school at the end of last week just before we headed north to New York City. First, we learned that the Guidance Counselor met with our Darling Daughter1 (DD1) and her over-zealous classmate (OZC) who led the haircutting incident last month. In this meeting, the guidance counselor facilitated a conversation between the two girls regarding how friends should treat each other. And second, the assistant principal confirmed that she had been in contact with the father of our daughter's OZC to discuss the haircutting incident and the school's follow up. In response to these updates, as my husband, my daughters, and I were driving to New York I remarked that we could, perhaps, celebrate the close of this challenging episode at school and look forward to a more carefree spring. However, as my husband and I reflected more closely upon this seeming resolution over the weekend, we have not yet been able to put the incident behind us because we have realized that we do not yet perceive that the school has responded adequately to our concerns for our daughter's safety. After spending this morning volunteering at school with my DD1 and observing closely the interaction between my daughter and her OZC, I remain disturbed by what appears to be the OZC's fixation on my DD1. I believe that her OZC is not be trusted in terms of my daughter's emotional and physical safety at the school, for at every opportunity she was not being directly supervised in the two hours I was at school today, including lunch time, the line going to recess, and the playground, the OZC had her hands and arms perpetually flung around my DD1.
What constitutes inappropriate and/or aggressive behavior on the part of one student to another? What constitutes harassment and what constitutes bullying? Why do the personnel at my daughter's local elementary school seem intent on minimizing how serious the haircutting incident was, or how concerned they or we should be about the OZC's mode of interaction with our daughter throughout the year? In the notes from our school conference several weeks ago, the assistant principal stated that the staff at the school have not witnessed any "aggressive behavior" nor any "physical contact" between the OZC and our daughter, and she reiterated in an email last week that the haircutting incident was not considered to be an event warranting a discipline referral or a recognized case of "inappropriate behavior," even though the incident was significant enough to result in a trip to the principal's office for the three kindergarteners who were directly involved. Furthermore, in the most recent email from the assistant principal in which she communicated that she had made contact with the OZC's father, she indicated that they discussed the school-related "consequences" of the haircutting incident. And yet when I look back upon the events of the last several weeks, it is not at all clear to me what meaningful consequences have been imposed on the OZC by the faculty or administrators at the school. What on-going help is she receiving from the school in learning a modulated approach to befriending our daughter? And what degree of "monitoring" can be expected from the lunchroom and recess aides, when the assistant principal reports that they have not previously noticed anything amiss between the two girls?
My husband and I are left with the task of deciding what we want to do and for what we need to advocate next. At a minimum, we will be scheduling another meeting with the school principal soon to formally request that our daughter not be enrolled in the same first grade class as her OZC. What we are not so clear on is whether or not we want to or should engage with the deputy superintendent to notify her of our concerns regarding the way the school personnel has responded to the haircutting incident and our lingering fears regarding our daughter's safety. We also will be deliberating upon whether or not we want to request a school transfer to another nearby elementary school. At the core of our deliberations is the central question of whether or not our daughter's over-zealous classmate poses a genuine threat to our daughter's safety, and if so, what needs to be done to contain the threat. How do we know as parents and/or as educators when a child's safety is at risk? How do we know if/when one child poses a threat to another child? How can we tell if our daughter is in danger, and if so, what should be done about the risk posed?
What constitutes inappropriate and/or aggressive behavior on the part of one student to another? What constitutes harassment and what constitutes bullying? Why do the personnel at my daughter's local elementary school seem intent on minimizing how serious the haircutting incident was, or how concerned they or we should be about the OZC's mode of interaction with our daughter throughout the year? In the notes from our school conference several weeks ago, the assistant principal stated that the staff at the school have not witnessed any "aggressive behavior" nor any "physical contact" between the OZC and our daughter, and she reiterated in an email last week that the haircutting incident was not considered to be an event warranting a discipline referral or a recognized case of "inappropriate behavior," even though the incident was significant enough to result in a trip to the principal's office for the three kindergarteners who were directly involved. Furthermore, in the most recent email from the assistant principal in which she communicated that she had made contact with the OZC's father, she indicated that they discussed the school-related "consequences" of the haircutting incident. And yet when I look back upon the events of the last several weeks, it is not at all clear to me what meaningful consequences have been imposed on the OZC by the faculty or administrators at the school. What on-going help is she receiving from the school in learning a modulated approach to befriending our daughter? And what degree of "monitoring" can be expected from the lunchroom and recess aides, when the assistant principal reports that they have not previously noticed anything amiss between the two girls?
My husband and I are left with the task of deciding what we want to do and for what we need to advocate next. At a minimum, we will be scheduling another meeting with the school principal soon to formally request that our daughter not be enrolled in the same first grade class as her OZC. What we are not so clear on is whether or not we want to or should engage with the deputy superintendent to notify her of our concerns regarding the way the school personnel has responded to the haircutting incident and our lingering fears regarding our daughter's safety. We also will be deliberating upon whether or not we want to request a school transfer to another nearby elementary school. At the core of our deliberations is the central question of whether or not our daughter's over-zealous classmate poses a genuine threat to our daughter's safety, and if so, what needs to be done to contain the threat. How do we know as parents and/or as educators when a child's safety is at risk? How do we know if/when one child poses a threat to another child? How can we tell if our daughter is in danger, and if so, what should be done about the risk posed?
Thursday, March 15, 2012
The Joy of Dr. Seuss in Kindergarten
Several weeks ago, a note was sent home from school informing us that the school would be celebrating "Dr. Seuss Week" in March. My daughter was excited that she would have the opportunity to share some of our beloved books from home with her classmates, such as Don't Hop on Pop, and Cat in the Hat, and she was eager to expand her Dr. Seuss repertoire. During Dr. Seuss Week, I had the chance to volunteer in the classroom during the literacy block, and I, too, got caught up in the magic of this beloved children's author. During the Read Aloud circle, my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s teacher led us through the story of the Bartholomew and the Oobleck, and as she turned the pages more and more oobleck fell from the sky, and more and more characters were immobilized. My DD1 and her classmates were captivated, and they listened intently up to the last page wherein the King utters two simple and profound words: "I'm sorry." With the utterance of this phrase, the oobleck stops raining and the kingdom is restored. Following the Read Aloud, students experimented with making their own oobleck from cornstarch, water, and food coloring. My DD1 insisted on bringing her oobleck home to show her younger sister what she had made at school that day.
As our school district is one of the largest and most well-resourced school districts in the country, the Board and the Superintendent of my local school district have set their sights on "The Seven Keys to College Readiness," which start with the goal of having all 2nd graders meet or exceed the target performance benchmarks in reading. In the county curriculum framework, the standards for PreK-12 Reading/Language Arts delineate the four components of literacy: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This framework characterizes good readers as those who can "use strategies before, during, and after reading or listening to construct and extend meaning according to the text and purpose. They access background knowledge, survey structure, predict, question, summarize, clarify, visualize, draw conclusions, validate perceptions, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate." Moreover, skilled readers can "examine how authors use language, literary elements, and genres to provide their audiences with new insights and perspectives." In my DD1's kindergarten class, for example, the primary level reading program appears to be focused on helping students to develop the skills of decoding, gaining fluency with sight words, and deciphering the context clues that are provided. However, what is not so clear to me is whether or not all of this time and effort spent on ensuring that students acquire a foundational skill set as readers, may or may not ensure that they become "hooked" as readers. After spending an hour in the company of Dr. Seuss, however, I was reminded of just how easy it may be to hook young readers with great literature.
I have been visiting my daughter's classroom regularly since October, and as a volunteer during the literacy block I have observed at least a dozen Read Aloud circles. Yet only with Dr. Seuss' story of the oobleck have I witnessed the students being mesmerized by what the teacher was reading to them. The story of the oobleck features a young protagonist, probably not much older than the students in my daughter's kindergarten class, the plot is well-paced and builds terrific suspense, and the language through which the story is conveyed is lyrical. After all, what's not to love about this story as a kindergartener?
My recent reacquaintance with Dr. Seuss has left me wondering: How much opportunity do kindergarteners have to fall 'in love' with books at school? Does a heavy emphasis on ensuring that all students become skilled readers detract from enticing children to become engaged readers?
I have been visiting my daughter's classroom regularly since October, and as a volunteer during the literacy block I have observed at least a dozen Read Aloud circles. Yet only with Dr. Seuss' story of the oobleck have I witnessed the students being mesmerized by what the teacher was reading to them. The story of the oobleck features a young protagonist, probably not much older than the students in my daughter's kindergarten class, the plot is well-paced and builds terrific suspense, and the language through which the story is conveyed is lyrical. After all, what's not to love about this story as a kindergartener?
My recent reacquaintance with Dr. Seuss has left me wondering: How much opportunity do kindergarteners have to fall 'in love' with books at school? Does a heavy emphasis on ensuring that all students become skilled readers detract from enticing children to become engaged readers?
Sunday, March 11, 2012
What is Bullying in Kindergarten, Take 2
Three weeks after the haircutting incident (Please see 2 previous entries: "Our First Call from the Principal's Office" and "What is Bullying in Kindergarten?"), my husband and I met with the principal and the assistant principal at my daughter's school on Thursday after school, as well as the guidance counselor and my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s kindergarten teacher. We initially called the meeting to discuss what had happened and to determine a shared, productive course of action in response to the incident. The good news is that my DD1appears to be exhibiting new found confidence in her ability to be a friendly girl who can also effectively set boundaries with her school peers. More specifically, my DD1 has recently expressed a desire to be friends with the classmate who cut off a lock of her hair. When I asked her "What has changed?" my daughter replied that her classmate now listens to her when she says "stop" and "no," and consequently my DD1 perceives that it is now possible to choose to engage with this classmate because the terms of their interactions are no longer controlled solely by her classmate. Given my daughter's change of heart over the past two weeks, my agenda for the meeting with the school administration shifted from exploring how the school could work with us to protect my DD1 from her harasser, to how we could work as a team to sustain this change in their peer dynamic.
I have been wondering what might account for the change in my DD1's classmate's mode of interaction from intrusive and at times intimidating to more responsive and respectful? I have been wondering, too, what might account for my daughter's increased capacity to speak up for herself with a challenging classmate? Is it coincidence that this over-zealous classmate (OZC) started listening better to my DD1 after their classroom teacher returned and met with OZC one on one to recount the incident? Or the fact that the OZC was then approached by the assistant principal and told to leave our DD1 alone? Has my daughter's new assertiveness been spurred on by the fact that the school guidance counselor has finally met with her twice in the last 2 1/2 weeks? Or, perhaps, by the fact that at home my husband and I have given our DD1 explicit permission to say "no" to her OZC? And how much of this stepped up effort on the part of the school personnel was triggered by our filing of a formal "Bullying and Harassment Reporting Form"?
What we learned in last Thursday's meeting is probably emblematic of both the promise as well as the limitations of public education. For we learned that while the assistant principal did think it was important to call home to report the incident directly to me three weeks ago, the other girl's parents have not yet been called because it was the OZC's first referral to the principal's office. And while our daughter has finally had the opportunity to meet individually with the school guidance counselor, my DD1's classmate has not yet been similarly engaged. Furthermore, neither the teacher, the assistant principal, nor the guidance counselor has checked in with my DD1 to inquire as to whether or not the OZC has yet apologized, nor have any of them yet facilitated such an apology. And finally, while the assistant principal has recently informed both girls that they are not to play with each other at recess, and she has communicated this expectation to the three lunchroom and recess aides, what has not yet been made clear to either girl is that this hiatus period is only until the time at which these two classmates can participate in a facilitated conversation about the haircutting incident.
What I have learned from my conversation with the principal is that it will likely be incumbent on us, my husband and me, to keep the school informed of any patterns that appear to be emerging, positive or negative, regarding our daughter. We cannot assume that the school personnel will interpret the seriousness or magnitude of a particular incident as we do. Second, I think it is probably best if we do not expect that our daughter's teachers will reach out proactively to communicate individually with my husband and me regarding our daughter. Instead, perhaps what is a more reasonable expectation is to hope for our daughters' teachers to be responsive to our on-going requests for communication, counsel, and/or assistance. And third, if we do not conceive of kindergarten as a forum for the modeling and development of our daughters' social-emotional skills, but rather we understand it as a tightly academic enterprise, then we will have adjusted our expectations to better fit the current kindergarten priorities in our local school district.
I ask my readers in closing: What can and should parents expect of the public schools, in terms of the degree of communication about their individual children's progress, challenges, and strengths?
I have been wondering what might account for the change in my DD1's classmate's mode of interaction from intrusive and at times intimidating to more responsive and respectful? I have been wondering, too, what might account for my daughter's increased capacity to speak up for herself with a challenging classmate? Is it coincidence that this over-zealous classmate (OZC) started listening better to my DD1 after their classroom teacher returned and met with OZC one on one to recount the incident? Or the fact that the OZC was then approached by the assistant principal and told to leave our DD1 alone? Has my daughter's new assertiveness been spurred on by the fact that the school guidance counselor has finally met with her twice in the last 2 1/2 weeks? Or, perhaps, by the fact that at home my husband and I have given our DD1 explicit permission to say "no" to her OZC? And how much of this stepped up effort on the part of the school personnel was triggered by our filing of a formal "Bullying and Harassment Reporting Form"?
What we learned in last Thursday's meeting is probably emblematic of both the promise as well as the limitations of public education. For we learned that while the assistant principal did think it was important to call home to report the incident directly to me three weeks ago, the other girl's parents have not yet been called because it was the OZC's first referral to the principal's office. And while our daughter has finally had the opportunity to meet individually with the school guidance counselor, my DD1's classmate has not yet been similarly engaged. Furthermore, neither the teacher, the assistant principal, nor the guidance counselor has checked in with my DD1 to inquire as to whether or not the OZC has yet apologized, nor have any of them yet facilitated such an apology. And finally, while the assistant principal has recently informed both girls that they are not to play with each other at recess, and she has communicated this expectation to the three lunchroom and recess aides, what has not yet been made clear to either girl is that this hiatus period is only until the time at which these two classmates can participate in a facilitated conversation about the haircutting incident.
What I have learned from my conversation with the principal is that it will likely be incumbent on us, my husband and me, to keep the school informed of any patterns that appear to be emerging, positive or negative, regarding our daughter. We cannot assume that the school personnel will interpret the seriousness or magnitude of a particular incident as we do. Second, I think it is probably best if we do not expect that our daughter's teachers will reach out proactively to communicate individually with my husband and me regarding our daughter. Instead, perhaps what is a more reasonable expectation is to hope for our daughters' teachers to be responsive to our on-going requests for communication, counsel, and/or assistance. And third, if we do not conceive of kindergarten as a forum for the modeling and development of our daughters' social-emotional skills, but rather we understand it as a tightly academic enterprise, then we will have adjusted our expectations to better fit the current kindergarten priorities in our local school district.
I ask my readers in closing: What can and should parents expect of the public schools, in terms of the degree of communication about their individual children's progress, challenges, and strengths?
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
The Importance of Diversity in Kindergarten
Over the weekend, I took my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) shopping for some new clothes. Due to the early onset of spring as well as the fact that she seems to have been growing like a weed, my DD1's wardrobe had lately begun to consist of a single pair of jeans, a tattered skirt, and several pairs of leggings that were functioning as capris. As we embarked on our shopping expedition, my daughter commented; "Mommy, can we go shopping where Danielle* gets her clothes? She always looks so pretty at school." Her comment echoed a series of remarks that have cropped up in the last few weeks about her favorite classmate, Danielle. For example, as I was combing out my older daughter's hair recently, she mentioned that she wished her hair were a darker brown like Danielle's. Additionally, in a another exchange my DD1 also noted that she hoped she would be able to get some earrings like Dannielle's when the waiting period for her new pierced ears was over. My readers may be wondering why I would dedicate a blog entry to sharing stories about my daughter's "crush" on one of her classmates? Before I seemingly digress further, I will acknowledge what touched me about my daughter's characterizations of her classmate: her classmate, Danielle, is African American, who is brown-skinned with brown, curly hair like my daughter.
What am I coming to appreciate more and more about my DD1's experiences in her local elementary school is the fact that my daughter's teacher looks like her this year, and that all of the other girls in her class are brown skinned, too. Moreover, I appreciate the fact that the principal of the school is African American, as are the guidance counselor, the family coordinator, and my daughter's two favorite paraeducators who supervise lunch and recess. No longer is my daughter the only brown skinned girl in her school peer group; instead, she is now among a sea of children whose ancestors hail from parts of the Caribbean, Latin American, and Africa. And thus I wonder: How does and will the racial makeup of my daughter's peer group influence her sense of herself? Of what is "normal"? Of what constitutes "pretty"? Given that what is notable about my DD1 in her current context is not her race or her skin color, will this environment provide her with greater freedom to discover how she is unique?
Psychologist and identity theorist Beverly Tatum suggests that our identities are shaped, at least in part, by those parts of us "that other people notice and reflect back to us . . often it is what sets us apart as exceptional or 'other' in their eyes" ("The Complexity of Identity"). In an earlier entry I asked about what the importance of diversity in kindergarten is, and now I wonder if my previous question missed the point. As an educator, I can espouse that for all children the experience of attending public school with a mix of students from a range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds is important because it provides the rising generation with an opportunity to discover their common humanity and pluralist identity as Americans. Yet as a parent, I wonder more about how the composition of my daughters' peer group will influence her identity development and her aspirations for her future. And thus I wonder: Is it, at least in part, because of her current peer group at school, that my daughter's conception of who is pretty revolves around the features of an African American classmate, and not around a blonde haired, blue-eyed, Caucasian ideal? Do I have our local public elementary school to thank for this aspect of my daughter's healthy identity development?
My wondering continues: if my daughter had white skin like me, would I be ready to embrace her place in a school and in a kindergarten classroom in which she were the only white child? Or would I worry that this distinction would prove to be somehow undermining to her? Conversely, if my daughter were the only or one of a very few brown skinned children in a class of predominantly white students, wouldn't I worry that she would be marginalized? As an educator and as a parent, it is my deep hope for all children to feel a sense of belonging at school. And so I close with a revised line of inquiry: How does diversity influence students' understanding of themselves and their sense of belonging in school?
*Please note that the name Danielle is a pseudonym.
Psychologist and identity theorist Beverly Tatum suggests that our identities are shaped, at least in part, by those parts of us "that other people notice and reflect back to us . . often it is what sets us apart as exceptional or 'other' in their eyes" ("The Complexity of Identity"). In an earlier entry I asked about what the importance of diversity in kindergarten is, and now I wonder if my previous question missed the point. As an educator, I can espouse that for all children the experience of attending public school with a mix of students from a range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds is important because it provides the rising generation with an opportunity to discover their common humanity and pluralist identity as Americans. Yet as a parent, I wonder more about how the composition of my daughters' peer group will influence her identity development and her aspirations for her future. And thus I wonder: Is it, at least in part, because of her current peer group at school, that my daughter's conception of who is pretty revolves around the features of an African American classmate, and not around a blonde haired, blue-eyed, Caucasian ideal? Do I have our local public elementary school to thank for this aspect of my daughter's healthy identity development?
My wondering continues: if my daughter had white skin like me, would I be ready to embrace her place in a school and in a kindergarten classroom in which she were the only white child? Or would I worry that this distinction would prove to be somehow undermining to her? Conversely, if my daughter were the only or one of a very few brown skinned children in a class of predominantly white students, wouldn't I worry that she would be marginalized? As an educator and as a parent, it is my deep hope for all children to feel a sense of belonging at school. And so I close with a revised line of inquiry: How does diversity influence students' understanding of themselves and their sense of belonging in school?
*Please note that the name Danielle is a pseudonym.
Friday, March 2, 2012
The Conundrum of School Lunch
In December 2010, President Obama signed the "Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act" into law. The law, which extended the "National School Lunch Program," (NSLP) authorizes the USDA to set nutritional standards for all food sold in the public schools, and it rewards districts with an increase in the federal reimbursement rate for all purchased school lunches that are in compliance with the new nutritional standards. The first federal school lunch and milk program was enacted in 1943, and legislation to make the federal program permanent was passed in 1946. According to the USDA, in 2010 the NSLP served over 31 million children each day. School lunch guidelines dictate a cap in the percentage of calories that come from fat and from saturated fat, and require that daily lunches must include a minimum of three items, including an entree and either milk or a nutritionally equivalent non-dairy beverage.
I remember vividly watching my mother make my father's lunch each morning, which included a rotation of sandwiches, a piece of fruit, and an accompanying thermos. I also remember how hungry my brother was at the end of the school day when he would barge into the kitchen and help himself to two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. What I do not remember so clearly is what I myself actually ate every day at school, or if I liked school lunch or not. Six months into kindergarten, my daughter has declared herself a school lunch drop out -- she has defected to the ranks of those who carry a lunch from home. The impact on me is that each morning along with hustling to read a new chapter of our current book series from the library, brush hair, eat breakfast, and brush teeth, I must also now pack a healthy, satisfying lunch for my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1.
Each week when I volunteer in my daughter's class during the morning literacy block, I stay for an additional forty-five minutes to join my daughter and her classmates for the ritual of school lunch. This week the menu consisted of milk, banana, and either cheese or pepperoni pizza OR hamburger au jus with a whole wheat bun. Last week, the menu was chicken nuggets with sectioned oranges, and the week before that it was a chicken patty sandwich and canned peaches. While my DD1 was at first compelled to take school lunch because it appeared to her, I think, that such was what "real" kindergarteners do. What my DD1 does not know is that 60% of her classmates quality for free and reduced lunch, which may account in large part for why the clear majority of her peers go through the cafeteria lunch line each day. However, after partaking in the district lunches for the first few months of the school year, my DD1 announced after Christmas that the food in our kitchen "smells and tastes better," and she asked if it would be okay to start bringing her lunch from home. And thus my life as a daily "short order" lunch packer began.
I certainly did not expect my daughter's elementary cafeteria to be as zealous about fresh fruit (locally grown when possible), organic milk, eggs, and meat/chicken, and wild caught fish as I am. And yet I am somewhat surprised that school lunch rotates through the most mainstream of American fare, rather than providing a sampling of foods from a healthier and broader spectrum. For example, the district lunch menu does not appear to be at all in sync with the fact that at home such food as rice, lentils, beans, mango, avocado, fish, noodles, spinach, sweet potatoes, or cantaloupe are likely to be commonplace. While I have reviewed the district's "nutrition action plan", and can plainly see in print the school board's commitment to using "whole grains" whenever possible, and to working towards "low sodium" and "low fat" food choices, the fact that most featured of the offerings are the equivalent of fast food dining does concern me.
With all of the other transitional issues to kindergarten that have required our energy this year thus far, I wonder to my readers: Given what the school lunch menu appears to offer as daily fare, is one of the accommodations I need to make to the public schools to accept that I will be packing my daughters' lunches for the next many years? Or, is this another issue which warrants some individual, and perhaps collective, attention? Is school lunch as described above good enough to meet our children's nutritional needs?
I remember vividly watching my mother make my father's lunch each morning, which included a rotation of sandwiches, a piece of fruit, and an accompanying thermos. I also remember how hungry my brother was at the end of the school day when he would barge into the kitchen and help himself to two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. What I do not remember so clearly is what I myself actually ate every day at school, or if I liked school lunch or not. Six months into kindergarten, my daughter has declared herself a school lunch drop out -- she has defected to the ranks of those who carry a lunch from home. The impact on me is that each morning along with hustling to read a new chapter of our current book series from the library, brush hair, eat breakfast, and brush teeth, I must also now pack a healthy, satisfying lunch for my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1.
Each week when I volunteer in my daughter's class during the morning literacy block, I stay for an additional forty-five minutes to join my daughter and her classmates for the ritual of school lunch. This week the menu consisted of milk, banana, and either cheese or pepperoni pizza OR hamburger au jus with a whole wheat bun. Last week, the menu was chicken nuggets with sectioned oranges, and the week before that it was a chicken patty sandwich and canned peaches. While my DD1 was at first compelled to take school lunch because it appeared to her, I think, that such was what "real" kindergarteners do. What my DD1 does not know is that 60% of her classmates quality for free and reduced lunch, which may account in large part for why the clear majority of her peers go through the cafeteria lunch line each day. However, after partaking in the district lunches for the first few months of the school year, my DD1 announced after Christmas that the food in our kitchen "smells and tastes better," and she asked if it would be okay to start bringing her lunch from home. And thus my life as a daily "short order" lunch packer began.
I certainly did not expect my daughter's elementary cafeteria to be as zealous about fresh fruit (locally grown when possible), organic milk, eggs, and meat/chicken, and wild caught fish as I am. And yet I am somewhat surprised that school lunch rotates through the most mainstream of American fare, rather than providing a sampling of foods from a healthier and broader spectrum. For example, the district lunch menu does not appear to be at all in sync with the fact that at home such food as rice, lentils, beans, mango, avocado, fish, noodles, spinach, sweet potatoes, or cantaloupe are likely to be commonplace. While I have reviewed the district's "nutrition action plan", and can plainly see in print the school board's commitment to using "whole grains" whenever possible, and to working towards "low sodium" and "low fat" food choices, the fact that most featured of the offerings are the equivalent of fast food dining does concern me.
With all of the other transitional issues to kindergarten that have required our energy this year thus far, I wonder to my readers: Given what the school lunch menu appears to offer as daily fare, is one of the accommodations I need to make to the public schools to accept that I will be packing my daughters' lunches for the next many years? Or, is this another issue which warrants some individual, and perhaps collective, attention? Is school lunch as described above good enough to meet our children's nutritional needs?
Friday, February 24, 2012
What is Bullying in Kindergarten?
Over this past week, my husband and I have been winding down each day by trading worries about the incident that occurred last Friday at school. Has our Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s teacher been informed of the incident? Do the other girls' parents know what happened, and how was the incident conveyed? Did the school administration express "zero tolerance" for the behavior, or did they simply report "the facts"? What will be the follow up for what happened? What should be the response, follow up, and accountability on the part of the school personnel to assure our daughter's safety?
I spent two hours yesterday afternoon on the elementary playground enjoying the early onset of spring and the informal celebration of my younger daughter's birthday with her sister's friends and siblings. The perpetrator of the incident last Friday was part of the mix on the playground yesterday, and she appeared to be in hot pursuit of my daughter's attention and affection. Several times, my DD1 shrugged off her classmate's arm around her shoulder, or shook off her hand in an attempted grasp. When we got home yesterday evening, I spoke with my DD1 about her feelings regarding her classmate; "Do you want to be friends with this classmate? Do you like it when she puts her arm around you or chases you on the playground?" I asked. "No, Mommy, I don't want to be friends with her" my DD1 stated. "Are you afraid of her?" I queried next. "No, I'm not afraid of her, but she doesn't listen when I say 'no' or 'stop,' and I don't think the teachers would understand if she tells on me."
Our school district has a formal anti-bullying policy, in which the school board signals a commitment to ensuring that all schools are "safe" environments in which students are free of "bullying, harassment, or intimidation." Bullying or harassment is defined in this policy as "intentional conduct that creates a hostile educational environment by substantially interfering with a student’s educational benefits, opportunities, or performance, or with a student’s physical or psychological well-being." Upon the submission of a formal "Bullying, Harassment, or Intimidation Incident Reporting Form," the school district policy requires that school personnel take immediate action to intercede on behalf of the student who is being bullied or harassed.
Given our concerns for the toll that her classmate's over-zealous attention may (continue to) take on our daughter, I am coming to see that what my husband and I have been deliberating upon through our back and forth this week is whether or not the hair cutting incident last Friday, in combination with the history of their prior interactions, can be identified as harassment or bullying? If we don't characterize this classmate's interactions with our daughter as such, can we trust that the school personnel will take our concerns seriously enough? Or is it only by naming what happened last week as bullying or as harassment, and by signaling this framing through the submission of a formal incident report, that we can be assured that our daughter's teachers, guidance counselor, and school administrators will act to help protect her, and will support our DD1 in her attempts to establish a firmer boundary between herself and her classmate?
My questions to my readers extend from my week's deliberations with my husband: What is our role in helping our daughter navigate the intrusive demands of her classmate? How do you know when a pattern of peer interaction is a form of harassment or bullying? In kindergarten, what forms of intervention on behalf of our daughter should we be seeking from the personnel at the school?
I spent two hours yesterday afternoon on the elementary playground enjoying the early onset of spring and the informal celebration of my younger daughter's birthday with her sister's friends and siblings. The perpetrator of the incident last Friday was part of the mix on the playground yesterday, and she appeared to be in hot pursuit of my daughter's attention and affection. Several times, my DD1 shrugged off her classmate's arm around her shoulder, or shook off her hand in an attempted grasp. When we got home yesterday evening, I spoke with my DD1 about her feelings regarding her classmate; "Do you want to be friends with this classmate? Do you like it when she puts her arm around you or chases you on the playground?" I asked. "No, Mommy, I don't want to be friends with her" my DD1 stated. "Are you afraid of her?" I queried next. "No, I'm not afraid of her, but she doesn't listen when I say 'no' or 'stop,' and I don't think the teachers would understand if she tells on me."
Our school district has a formal anti-bullying policy, in which the school board signals a commitment to ensuring that all schools are "safe" environments in which students are free of "bullying, harassment, or intimidation." Bullying or harassment is defined in this policy as "intentional conduct that creates a hostile educational environment by substantially interfering with a student’s educational benefits, opportunities, or performance, or with a student’s physical or psychological well-being." Upon the submission of a formal "Bullying, Harassment, or Intimidation Incident Reporting Form," the school district policy requires that school personnel take immediate action to intercede on behalf of the student who is being bullied or harassed.
Given our concerns for the toll that her classmate's over-zealous attention may (continue to) take on our daughter, I am coming to see that what my husband and I have been deliberating upon through our back and forth this week is whether or not the hair cutting incident last Friday, in combination with the history of their prior interactions, can be identified as harassment or bullying? If we don't characterize this classmate's interactions with our daughter as such, can we trust that the school personnel will take our concerns seriously enough? Or is it only by naming what happened last week as bullying or as harassment, and by signaling this framing through the submission of a formal incident report, that we can be assured that our daughter's teachers, guidance counselor, and school administrators will act to help protect her, and will support our DD1 in her attempts to establish a firmer boundary between herself and her classmate?
My questions to my readers extend from my week's deliberations with my husband: What is our role in helping our daughter navigate the intrusive demands of her classmate? How do you know when a pattern of peer interaction is a form of harassment or bullying? In kindergarten, what forms of intervention on behalf of our daughter should we be seeking from the personnel at the school?
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Our First Call from the Principal's Office
Friday afternoon at 2pm I received a call from the assistant principal at my older daughter's school. "Don't be alarmed," the assistant principal assured me as she opened the conversation. "I am calling to report an incident. Your daughter was involved in an interaction with two other girls in her class in which a piece of her hair was cut off. We have spoken with all three girls and your daughter is fine. It is school policy to inform all parents when their children are taken to the principal's office."
My stomach lurched as I listened to my daughter's assistant principal explain the situation. My eyes welled up with tears, and a lump formed in my throat. I could feel the slow burn of anger gathering inside me as I attended to the principal's full report. My questions gathered, too: Where was the teacher? Which girls were involved in the incident? Was my daughter hurt? Was the intent malicious? Or did one of her classmates just get carried away by curiosity, as my two daughters have done at home with scissors and hair?
The next hour and a half after this phone call was a long wait. I wanted, no I needed, to be reassured that my daughter was okay, and the only reassurance I could trust was my own first hand verification. As I waited outside the kindergarten doors on Friday afternoon, I hoped that she would emerge and then offer her usual smile, hug, and skip before charging off to play. And she did -- my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) smiled at me, and then ran over to hug me before asking me to hold her backpack and coat so she could be freed to play. My daughter was okay.
24 hours plus later, I, too, am working to find my equilibrium. My DD1 provided me with the full story of what happened after we left the playground. The incident took place in the housekeeping corner of her classroom, which is somewhat hidden from sight. My DD1 was working with scissors and paper to cut out shapes with another classmate, when a third classmate came over to the housekeeping area holding her own scissors and announced that she was going to cut off her tongue. After being ignored, this classmate instructed the other girl to cover my DD1's eyes while she held her down to snip off some hair. My DD1 kicked in protest as she was being held down, and after a lock of her hair was captured she was released. She immediately went to the substitute teacher to report the incident; her story was confirmed by the ESOL teacher who witnessed the interaction. The three girls were then taken to the office by the ESOL teacher, and my DD1 repeated her story to the principal, which was corroborated by the two other girls who were involved in the exchange.
My daughter also revealed that the perpetrator was, indeed, the classmate whom I suspected. From the first week of school, my DD1 has been troubled by this girl's mode of interaction. She has pushed my DD1 on the stairs, pulled on her sweatshirt hood, taken away her stuffed dog and ignored my DD1's request to return her toy. When they were in the same reading group, my DD1 complained of the bickering that seemed required of her. When I have volunteered in my DD1's classroom, I have noticed that this classmate seems to be seeking my daughter's attention and friendship, which she exhibits by rushing to stand next to her in line, requesting to sit next to her at lunch, and chasing her at recess. And yet her manner of eliciting connection is challenging to my daughter because she is repeatedly invasive of her personal space and she is too often up in my daughter's face.
As a teacher, I would work each day to see and commend the good in this child who has been so irksome to my daughter. However, as a parent, I am ready to dismiss this child as unfit for my daughter's company. I fiercely want to protect my daughter from anything or anyone who can do her harm. Consequently, my dialogue with my DD1 has shifted this year away from how important it is to be friends with all the children in her class to how it is sometimes necessary to distance ourselves from those who do not know how to be friends. As of Friday, I have given my DD1 explicit permission to say "No" to this classmate's request to sit together at lunch or to play at recess. Yet what is not so clear to me is how I should engage with the educators at my daughter's elementary school regarding this pattern of problematic behavior with another child in her class. Is this incident an example of what can happen when the focus of kindergarten becomes too exclusively focused on the academic and not enough on the social and emotional developmental needs of children? If the kindergarten curriculum no longer teaches children how to positively interact with one another, then how can my daughter's classmate practice the kinds of behaviors that could better lead to authentic friendship and connection with her peers? What is the responsibility of the educators at my daughter's school to protect students from harm, particularly the harm that children can inflict on one another?
My stomach lurched as I listened to my daughter's assistant principal explain the situation. My eyes welled up with tears, and a lump formed in my throat. I could feel the slow burn of anger gathering inside me as I attended to the principal's full report. My questions gathered, too: Where was the teacher? Which girls were involved in the incident? Was my daughter hurt? Was the intent malicious? Or did one of her classmates just get carried away by curiosity, as my two daughters have done at home with scissors and hair?
The next hour and a half after this phone call was a long wait. I wanted, no I needed, to be reassured that my daughter was okay, and the only reassurance I could trust was my own first hand verification. As I waited outside the kindergarten doors on Friday afternoon, I hoped that she would emerge and then offer her usual smile, hug, and skip before charging off to play. And she did -- my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) smiled at me, and then ran over to hug me before asking me to hold her backpack and coat so she could be freed to play. My daughter was okay.
24 hours plus later, I, too, am working to find my equilibrium. My DD1 provided me with the full story of what happened after we left the playground. The incident took place in the housekeeping corner of her classroom, which is somewhat hidden from sight. My DD1 was working with scissors and paper to cut out shapes with another classmate, when a third classmate came over to the housekeeping area holding her own scissors and announced that she was going to cut off her tongue. After being ignored, this classmate instructed the other girl to cover my DD1's eyes while she held her down to snip off some hair. My DD1 kicked in protest as she was being held down, and after a lock of her hair was captured she was released. She immediately went to the substitute teacher to report the incident; her story was confirmed by the ESOL teacher who witnessed the interaction. The three girls were then taken to the office by the ESOL teacher, and my DD1 repeated her story to the principal, which was corroborated by the two other girls who were involved in the exchange.
My daughter also revealed that the perpetrator was, indeed, the classmate whom I suspected. From the first week of school, my DD1 has been troubled by this girl's mode of interaction. She has pushed my DD1 on the stairs, pulled on her sweatshirt hood, taken away her stuffed dog and ignored my DD1's request to return her toy. When they were in the same reading group, my DD1 complained of the bickering that seemed required of her. When I have volunteered in my DD1's classroom, I have noticed that this classmate seems to be seeking my daughter's attention and friendship, which she exhibits by rushing to stand next to her in line, requesting to sit next to her at lunch, and chasing her at recess. And yet her manner of eliciting connection is challenging to my daughter because she is repeatedly invasive of her personal space and she is too often up in my daughter's face.
As a teacher, I would work each day to see and commend the good in this child who has been so irksome to my daughter. However, as a parent, I am ready to dismiss this child as unfit for my daughter's company. I fiercely want to protect my daughter from anything or anyone who can do her harm. Consequently, my dialogue with my DD1 has shifted this year away from how important it is to be friends with all the children in her class to how it is sometimes necessary to distance ourselves from those who do not know how to be friends. As of Friday, I have given my DD1 explicit permission to say "No" to this classmate's request to sit together at lunch or to play at recess. Yet what is not so clear to me is how I should engage with the educators at my daughter's elementary school regarding this pattern of problematic behavior with another child in her class. Is this incident an example of what can happen when the focus of kindergarten becomes too exclusively focused on the academic and not enough on the social and emotional developmental needs of children? If the kindergarten curriculum no longer teaches children how to positively interact with one another, then how can my daughter's classmate practice the kinds of behaviors that could better lead to authentic friendship and connection with her peers? What is the responsibility of the educators at my daughter's school to protect students from harm, particularly the harm that children can inflict on one another?
Thursday, February 16, 2012
What Is the Role of Play in Kindergarten?
In Beverly's Cleary's ode to kindergarten, Ramona the Pest, the kindergarten protagonist describes kindergarten as being "divided into two parts" -- the part which includes "games, dancing, finger painting, and playing," and the part called "seat work". Ramona calls out the importance of play in her kindergarten experience as a kind of counter balance to the "serious" part of school. My favorite educational philosopher, Vivan Paley, also signals the importance of play to learning in her book You Can't Say You Can't Play, a study of her students' social relationships with one another as developed through classroom play. After having spent a morning in my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s classroom this week on Valentine's Day wherein I got to observe my daughter and her classmates during a half hour of free choice play, and having had a lengthy conversation this week, too, with two colleagues at my younger daughter's preschool about the purpose of free play, I find myself wondering: what is the role of play in kindergarten, in terms of students' academic learning and social development?
At home, my DD1 loves to engage in imaginative free play with her younger sister. They usually enlist a legion of stuffed animals to act out their scenarios. They collect props from their room as well as from throughout the house to furnish scenes for their staged play. In the spring and summer, they move seamlessly between inside the house, the patio, and the yard to create a series of elaborate sets. What is the purpose of this free play during my daughters' extracurricular hours? To enjoy being alive and the sparks of their own lively imaginations? To experience the thrill of creativity and the power of their own agency? To expand language skills and fine and gross motor production skills? All of the above and more?
And at school, what is the purpose of play? On Valentine's Day, my DD1 and her classmates could select the block area, the housekeeping area, puzzles, the writing center, books, or the computer and Promethean board stations. Because it was a special holiday, the students were not assigned to their usual small groups or to a specific rotation of centers. Rather, they could choose which form of play they wanted to engage in, and with whom. And yet instead of blissful engagement and the visible enrapture of fun, I noticed several of the kindergarteners wandering around the classroom, apparently not sure where to go or what to do. For those at the computer stations, tension erupted as to whose turn it was to use the mouse and the Promethean pencil. And on both the carpet with the puzzles as well as in the block station, the kindergarteners in those areas bickered with each other as to how long the block road should be, which animals should be allowed on the road, and which puzzle pieces could be used by who. Where was the fun? Where was the productive learning? And where was sense of the social connectedness that can come through children playing together?
Clearly play is important in elementary school and in kindergarten because recess on the playground is an integral part of the daily schedule for students. At my DD1's school, the kindergarteners have their own dedicated playground which is adjacent to the Pre-K and kindergarten wing of the school. I can tell a positive difference in my daughter's energy and behavior on the days when she plays outside during recess or after school versus the days when the weather or our schedules do not permit her this playground time. However, I am coming to see that I cannot really articulate what this playground time during school hours is for, given how little guidance there is of childrens' interactions with one another.
I appeal to my readers to consider with me: How purposeful does play need to be in order to be productive? Under what conditions is play beneficial to children's learning and development? And under what conditions can free, unstructured play become counterproductive?
At home, my DD1 loves to engage in imaginative free play with her younger sister. They usually enlist a legion of stuffed animals to act out their scenarios. They collect props from their room as well as from throughout the house to furnish scenes for their staged play. In the spring and summer, they move seamlessly between inside the house, the patio, and the yard to create a series of elaborate sets. What is the purpose of this free play during my daughters' extracurricular hours? To enjoy being alive and the sparks of their own lively imaginations? To experience the thrill of creativity and the power of their own agency? To expand language skills and fine and gross motor production skills? All of the above and more?
And at school, what is the purpose of play? On Valentine's Day, my DD1 and her classmates could select the block area, the housekeeping area, puzzles, the writing center, books, or the computer and Promethean board stations. Because it was a special holiday, the students were not assigned to their usual small groups or to a specific rotation of centers. Rather, they could choose which form of play they wanted to engage in, and with whom. And yet instead of blissful engagement and the visible enrapture of fun, I noticed several of the kindergarteners wandering around the classroom, apparently not sure where to go or what to do. For those at the computer stations, tension erupted as to whose turn it was to use the mouse and the Promethean pencil. And on both the carpet with the puzzles as well as in the block station, the kindergarteners in those areas bickered with each other as to how long the block road should be, which animals should be allowed on the road, and which puzzle pieces could be used by who. Where was the fun? Where was the productive learning? And where was sense of the social connectedness that can come through children playing together?
Clearly play is important in elementary school and in kindergarten because recess on the playground is an integral part of the daily schedule for students. At my DD1's school, the kindergarteners have their own dedicated playground which is adjacent to the Pre-K and kindergarten wing of the school. I can tell a positive difference in my daughter's energy and behavior on the days when she plays outside during recess or after school versus the days when the weather or our schedules do not permit her this playground time. However, I am coming to see that I cannot really articulate what this playground time during school hours is for, given how little guidance there is of childrens' interactions with one another.
I appeal to my readers to consider with me: How purposeful does play need to be in order to be productive? Under what conditions is play beneficial to children's learning and development? And under what conditions can free, unstructured play become counterproductive?
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Building Bridges across Diversity in Kindergarten
Friday afternoons I have a standing date to pick up my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) from kindergarten. I have come to rely on this weekly ritual as an important opportunity to check in with my daughter's teacher and to connect with the other kindergarten parents. During these Friday afternoons on the playground, I have learned about how to best combat lice, what kind of candy is preferred among my daughter and her peers, and the names of younger siblings. Most importantly, this time on the playground has allowed me to observe my DD1's budding friendship with her new best friend (NBF), a kindergartener in another class at school.
Her new best friend is a lovely young girl -- energetic, playful, and cheerful with a beautiful smile. It so happens that my DD1's NBF has a younger sister who is the same age as my younger daughter, so our shared afternoons on the playground are pleasurable for both of my girls and me, for I have also enjoyed getting to know the mother of my daughter's NBF. I noticed my new mother comrade (NMC) in the second month of school because she often arrived in the afternoons with a ball of some sort or a jump rope, and she was also noticeably friendly with the other mothers on the playground. I noticed, too, that she often gathered the children round her on Fridays to distribute an end-of-the-week treat -- candy, or cookies, or lollipops. I have been impressed by the warmth that is displayed between my NMC and her daughters, and level of engagement she demonstrates with the cluster of kindergarten children on the playground after school.
My NMC emigrated from East Africa to the United States ten or so years ago and joined her husband in Maryland. They live a block away from the elementary school and are well connected to their cultural community as well as the members of their Coptic church congregation. At home and on the playground, my NMC and her husband speak both English and their native language with each other and with their community associates. Their primary community in Maryland is comprised, perhaps not surprisingly, of those who have also transplanted themselves to the United States and who share their native language, religion, and customs.
As an educator who believes that it is important for each rising generation of American children to have the opportunity to interact with a heterogeneous group of students in our public schools, I am really glad that by attending our local, public elementary school my DD1 gets to become acquainted with such a diverse array of peers. What a tremendous opportunity to become "educated" about the rich complexity of human society and to learn first hand how much she has in common with those who are also different from her.
However, as a parent, I am learning that by selecting a NBF whose family is, in essence, worlds apart from ours, it is not clear how my DD1 or I can bridge the distance between our two families. My daughter does not really understand why, despite the genuine friendliness of her NBF's mother and sisters and the easy exchange we've developed on the playground, her NBF can't come over to play at our house after school or on the weekends. Nor does it make sense to her why her NBF can't join her soccer team, take dance class, or sign up for summer camp with her. My questions are similar: How can I make overtures of friendliness and express interest in getting to know my NMC and her daughters without becoming too pushy or intrusive? How can I best support my daughter in growing this friendship with her NBF without inserting myself unnecessarily? Or is it best to simply let my daughter and her NBF find their own way, come what may?
Her new best friend is a lovely young girl -- energetic, playful, and cheerful with a beautiful smile. It so happens that my DD1's NBF has a younger sister who is the same age as my younger daughter, so our shared afternoons on the playground are pleasurable for both of my girls and me, for I have also enjoyed getting to know the mother of my daughter's NBF. I noticed my new mother comrade (NMC) in the second month of school because she often arrived in the afternoons with a ball of some sort or a jump rope, and she was also noticeably friendly with the other mothers on the playground. I noticed, too, that she often gathered the children round her on Fridays to distribute an end-of-the-week treat -- candy, or cookies, or lollipops. I have been impressed by the warmth that is displayed between my NMC and her daughters, and level of engagement she demonstrates with the cluster of kindergarten children on the playground after school.
My NMC emigrated from East Africa to the United States ten or so years ago and joined her husband in Maryland. They live a block away from the elementary school and are well connected to their cultural community as well as the members of their Coptic church congregation. At home and on the playground, my NMC and her husband speak both English and their native language with each other and with their community associates. Their primary community in Maryland is comprised, perhaps not surprisingly, of those who have also transplanted themselves to the United States and who share their native language, religion, and customs.
As an educator who believes that it is important for each rising generation of American children to have the opportunity to interact with a heterogeneous group of students in our public schools, I am really glad that by attending our local, public elementary school my DD1 gets to become acquainted with such a diverse array of peers. What a tremendous opportunity to become "educated" about the rich complexity of human society and to learn first hand how much she has in common with those who are also different from her.
However, as a parent, I am learning that by selecting a NBF whose family is, in essence, worlds apart from ours, it is not clear how my DD1 or I can bridge the distance between our two families. My daughter does not really understand why, despite the genuine friendliness of her NBF's mother and sisters and the easy exchange we've developed on the playground, her NBF can't come over to play at our house after school or on the weekends. Nor does it make sense to her why her NBF can't join her soccer team, take dance class, or sign up for summer camp with her. My questions are similar: How can I make overtures of friendliness and express interest in getting to know my NMC and her daughters without becoming too pushy or intrusive? How can I best support my daughter in growing this friendship with her NBF without inserting myself unnecessarily? Or is it best to simply let my daughter and her NBF find their own way, come what may?
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
My Daughter's 1st Report Card
For the past three years, my husband and I have engaged of the ritual of sitting down with our daughters' teachers and talking with them about our children's developmental progress, as observed at the cooperative preschool where they were enrolled. Through each of these meetings, we learned about to what kind of play and activities each daughter was drawn, how their fine and gross motor skills were developing, and, most importantly, what characterized their interpersonal interactions at school. When were they timid or shy about speaking up for themselves? Under what circumstances did conflict emerge with their peers? And how did they negotiate the sharing and turn taking that was required of them at school?
The report card I opened last Friday evening was a very different paradigm. Instead of focusing on the multiple aspects of our daughter's holistic development, my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s first report card primarily chronicles her academic progress and performance through the first half of kindergarten. There are roughly 45 indicators in reading, math, science, and social studies, along with some 'personal and social development" and a few more "physical motor development" items. We now know that our daughter is "proficient" at retelling important details in stories and hearing and identifying sounds in words. She is also proficient at sorting objects, writing her numbers, and identifying patterns using concrete objects, even as our DD1 is "in progress" with modeling numbers in a variety of ways and in reading simple high frequency words.
In the summary comments, my older daughter's teacher clearly communicates her appreciation for our daughter's intelligence and her pleasant demeanor in class and with her peers, and her recognition of our DD1's emerging academic skill set in literacy and mathematics. I should probably be thrilled with these "results." And yet instead of being elated at the profile crafted of my DD1 from her first report card, I find myself dwelling on what is not included in this seemingly thorough description of my daughter's capacities. I find myself wondering: Is it enough to know my daughter as a reader and as a cooperative member of the class? What does it mean for my DD1's teacher not to know her more personally or individually?
Perhaps it is easy for me to be somewhat cavalier about my DD1's academic progress when I have always imagined my daughters doing well in school. Yet I do wish that my daughter's kindergarten teacher had more opportunity and capacity to tune into her particular interests and to help her develop more as an individual learner and person. My reaction to my DD1's first report card helps me to see more clearly that my aspirations for my daughter are not so well-aligned with the collection of 50+ benchmarked targets for kindergarteners across my daughter's school district.
So what is a parent like me to do? Blog and ask for my readers to share and comment regarding their reaction to their children's first report cards!
The report card I opened last Friday evening was a very different paradigm. Instead of focusing on the multiple aspects of our daughter's holistic development, my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s first report card primarily chronicles her academic progress and performance through the first half of kindergarten. There are roughly 45 indicators in reading, math, science, and social studies, along with some 'personal and social development" and a few more "physical motor development" items. We now know that our daughter is "proficient" at retelling important details in stories and hearing and identifying sounds in words. She is also proficient at sorting objects, writing her numbers, and identifying patterns using concrete objects, even as our DD1 is "in progress" with modeling numbers in a variety of ways and in reading simple high frequency words.
In the summary comments, my older daughter's teacher clearly communicates her appreciation for our daughter's intelligence and her pleasant demeanor in class and with her peers, and her recognition of our DD1's emerging academic skill set in literacy and mathematics. I should probably be thrilled with these "results." And yet instead of being elated at the profile crafted of my DD1 from her first report card, I find myself dwelling on what is not included in this seemingly thorough description of my daughter's capacities. I find myself wondering: Is it enough to know my daughter as a reader and as a cooperative member of the class? What does it mean for my DD1's teacher not to know her more personally or individually?
Perhaps it is easy for me to be somewhat cavalier about my DD1's academic progress when I have always imagined my daughters doing well in school. Yet I do wish that my daughter's kindergarten teacher had more opportunity and capacity to tune into her particular interests and to help her develop more as an individual learner and person. My reaction to my DD1's first report card helps me to see more clearly that my aspirations for my daughter are not so well-aligned with the collection of 50+ benchmarked targets for kindergarteners across my daughter's school district.
So what is a parent like me to do? Blog and ask for my readers to share and comment regarding their reaction to their children's first report cards!
Thursday, February 2, 2012
How Does Diversity Matter in Kindergarten?
This week, I stepped back into my role as a teacher educator (after a six month break from teaching) at the first meeting of a semester long "Diversity and Equity Foundations" course for aspiring secondary teachers -- all juniors or seniors. The course is designed to expose aspiring teachers to the diversity of students who are populating American public school classrooms, and to help these candidates examine their own identities, views, and perceptions of those who are dissimilar from them. After introducing my new students to some basic facts about the system of public schooling in the United States, I then led them through a profile of the diversity demographics that are prevalent in our schools today.
In Maryland, for example, 54% of students enrolled in the public schools are children of color (A Public Education Primer, 2012, Center on Education Policy). In my local school district, 35% of enrolled students are white, 25% are black, 21% are Hispanic, and 12.5% of students are English Language Learners (The Fact Book 2011-12, MSDE). At my daughter's school, 49% of students are black, 16.5% white, 26% Hispanic, 33.5% are English Language Learners, and 60% of students quality for Free and Reduced Lunch. In our opening discussion last night about how and why diversity can enrich public schooling for all, several of my undergraduate students suggested that in order to be prepared to live in the broad "real" world as adults, it is important for young people to have exposure and practice in interacting with others of various customs, religion, language, and culture. At first glance it would seem that my older daughter's school is a wonderful example of such rich diversity, as the demographic statistics above suggest. However, this week I also learned that one of my older daughter's classmates--the only white child in her kindergarten class--has transferred to another school.
Upon learning of her white classmate's departure, I have been left wondering: Is it significant that in my daughter's kindergarten class there are no white children remaining? Which is more important -- for brown-skinned children to be educated alongside white children or for white children to be educated alongside brown-skinned children, or both, and why? If my daughter were white-skinned like me rather than brown-skinned like her father, would I be thinking more seriously about transferring her to a different, less "diverse", school, too?
As I reflect on my reaction to the departure of my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s white classmate, and with report cards coming out this week, I find myself curious about the impact of the factors of diversity on students' individual and collective academic achievement at my older daughter's school. We have always expected that our DD1 will do well in school. And yet in a diverse setting like my daughter's neighborhood school, how much can the wonders of heterogeneous, public schooling mitigate against the predictive factors of race, language, and class? And how much of the correlating effect of achievement and SES is at play in the fact that many of the white families in our neighborhood appear to be opting for alternatives to our diverse, neighborhood school?
In Maryland, for example, 54% of students enrolled in the public schools are children of color (A Public Education Primer, 2012, Center on Education Policy). In my local school district, 35% of enrolled students are white, 25% are black, 21% are Hispanic, and 12.5% of students are English Language Learners (The Fact Book 2011-12, MSDE). At my daughter's school, 49% of students are black, 16.5% white, 26% Hispanic, 33.5% are English Language Learners, and 60% of students quality for Free and Reduced Lunch. In our opening discussion last night about how and why diversity can enrich public schooling for all, several of my undergraduate students suggested that in order to be prepared to live in the broad "real" world as adults, it is important for young people to have exposure and practice in interacting with others of various customs, religion, language, and culture. At first glance it would seem that my older daughter's school is a wonderful example of such rich diversity, as the demographic statistics above suggest. However, this week I also learned that one of my older daughter's classmates--the only white child in her kindergarten class--has transferred to another school.
Upon learning of her white classmate's departure, I have been left wondering: Is it significant that in my daughter's kindergarten class there are no white children remaining? Which is more important -- for brown-skinned children to be educated alongside white children or for white children to be educated alongside brown-skinned children, or both, and why? If my daughter were white-skinned like me rather than brown-skinned like her father, would I be thinking more seriously about transferring her to a different, less "diverse", school, too?
As I reflect on my reaction to the departure of my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s white classmate, and with report cards coming out this week, I find myself curious about the impact of the factors of diversity on students' individual and collective academic achievement at my older daughter's school. We have always expected that our DD1 will do well in school. And yet in a diverse setting like my daughter's neighborhood school, how much can the wonders of heterogeneous, public schooling mitigate against the predictive factors of race, language, and class? And how much of the correlating effect of achievement and SES is at play in the fact that many of the white families in our neighborhood appear to be opting for alternatives to our diverse, neighborhood school?
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Will Kindergarten Help My daughter to Find or to Lose Her Voice?
Yesterday evening, I learned that my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) has been invited by her teacher to represent her kindergarten classmates in the Student Government meeting coming up on Friday. An hour after my daughter reported this good news, she revealed that she is scared she won't do a good job by asking me: "What if I don't have anything to say at the meeting? Will there be lots of other big kids there, too? Why can't my teacher pick someone else?" My heart went out to my daughter as she shared her fears. And I was left wondering, how can I work with my DD1 to help her cultivate some confidence about expressing her own voice?
Since the beginning of the school year, my daughter has been struggling to learn how to assert herself. Because my DD1 and her classmates are left largely to themselves to work through whatever dynamics and conflicts arise in their small group classroom interactions, as well as in the larger settings of the lunchroom and the playground, she has complained regularly throughout kindergarten that she does not have any "real friends" at school because no one really "listens" to her, including the teacher. In Rachel Simmon's The Curse of the Good Girl, the author asserts that being a "good girl" is a "richly rewarded pursuit . . . yet many girls learn to succeed by sequestering the most genuine parts of their developing selves. . . . Many girls are disconnecting from the truest parts of themselves, sacrificing essential self-knowledge to the pressure of who they think they ought to be." How has my DD1 come to believe in kindergarten that she should accommodate to the wishes of others rather than assert her own desires? How has she become so ready to comply rather than to be true to herself?
I picked this book up from one of my favorite, local bookstores as I was struggling to get my bearings and to better understand not only why my daughter was so miserable in the first several months of kindergarten, but also to get some insights about how to work with my daughter's teacher and other school personnel to assist in the transition. At home, my DD1 does not to have any trouble conveying how she feels or what she wants to her family, and yet she reports that while at school she is "afraid" to stand up for herself because she does not want her friends to get "mad" or "laugh" at her, or to get in "trouble" with the teacher. My husband and I have reached out to both my daughter's teacher and to the guidance counselor and asked for their help in modeling ways to work through conflict with peers. We were promised by the guidance counselor last fall that she would set up some one to one coaching sessions with our DD1, and yet nothing has come to pass. I am compassionate to the fact that my daughter's kindergarten teacher is under a great deal of pressure in our school district to utilize every moment of the school day in kindergarten to focus on academic outcomes. However, if the steely focus on academics means that her teacher can no longer attend to the development of her students' social-emotional needs, too, then how will my sensitive and accommodating DD1 fare over time?
What parts of herself is my DD1 at risk of losing if there is no attention or support for children's social and emotional development at school? Given the emphasis in my daughter's kindergarten class on working independently, doesn't it make sense that the teacher should be providing her students with on-going practice and coaching in how to work through conflicts when they arise? What responsibility, if any, ought our public school teachers have in helping their students develop an authentic, individual voice?
Since the beginning of the school year, my daughter has been struggling to learn how to assert herself. Because my DD1 and her classmates are left largely to themselves to work through whatever dynamics and conflicts arise in their small group classroom interactions, as well as in the larger settings of the lunchroom and the playground, she has complained regularly throughout kindergarten that she does not have any "real friends" at school because no one really "listens" to her, including the teacher. In Rachel Simmon's The Curse of the Good Girl, the author asserts that being a "good girl" is a "richly rewarded pursuit . . . yet many girls learn to succeed by sequestering the most genuine parts of their developing selves. . . . Many girls are disconnecting from the truest parts of themselves, sacrificing essential self-knowledge to the pressure of who they think they ought to be." How has my DD1 come to believe in kindergarten that she should accommodate to the wishes of others rather than assert her own desires? How has she become so ready to comply rather than to be true to herself?
I picked this book up from one of my favorite, local bookstores as I was struggling to get my bearings and to better understand not only why my daughter was so miserable in the first several months of kindergarten, but also to get some insights about how to work with my daughter's teacher and other school personnel to assist in the transition. At home, my DD1 does not to have any trouble conveying how she feels or what she wants to her family, and yet she reports that while at school she is "afraid" to stand up for herself because she does not want her friends to get "mad" or "laugh" at her, or to get in "trouble" with the teacher. My husband and I have reached out to both my daughter's teacher and to the guidance counselor and asked for their help in modeling ways to work through conflict with peers. We were promised by the guidance counselor last fall that she would set up some one to one coaching sessions with our DD1, and yet nothing has come to pass. I am compassionate to the fact that my daughter's kindergarten teacher is under a great deal of pressure in our school district to utilize every moment of the school day in kindergarten to focus on academic outcomes. However, if the steely focus on academics means that her teacher can no longer attend to the development of her students' social-emotional needs, too, then how will my sensitive and accommodating DD1 fare over time?
What parts of herself is my DD1 at risk of losing if there is no attention or support for children's social and emotional development at school? Given the emphasis in my daughter's kindergarten class on working independently, doesn't it make sense that the teacher should be providing her students with on-going practice and coaching in how to work through conflicts when they arise? What responsibility, if any, ought our public school teachers have in helping their students develop an authentic, individual voice?
Monday, January 23, 2012
The Privilege of Comparison and Choice; the Challenge of Public Kindergarten
Last week, I enjoyed the opportunity to lead several groups of visiting parents on tours through the cooperative pre-school where my younger daughter currently attends, and from which my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) "graduated" last June. A few days later, I waited in the on-line cue to enroll my daughters in our favorite summer day camp. By talking with these aspiring parents, and in setting my phone to alert me of the precise minute in which the camp registration opened, I was reminded this week of just how intent my husband and I have been about finding the right preschool and enrichment activities for our daughters.
I recognize the privileged choices that my husband and I have had as parents of young children, including the choice of caregiver, nursery education, summer camp, and extracurricular activities. Moreover, I am deeply appreciative of the fact that we have been able to look for and choose the "just right" option for each. However, I am also increasingly aware of the fact that this orientation to comparison and choice, and our commitment to selecting the best environments we can to foster our daughters' growth, has created quite a dilemma for us through this transition to kindergarten. I now find myself wondering: By choosing the public schools and not a private alternative, is it necessary to shed this desire to give our children "the best" we can? Yet what is the alternative paradigm?
It seems to me that the challenge for parents like my husband and me is to shift away from a consumer-driven orientation towards schooling to a more values-driven orientation, wherein the reason to choose the public schools is not because it can be ensured that our individual children will receive the "best" education possible. Instead, the reason to enroll our children in the public schools is because of both the individual and the public good that can only be achieved if we collectively maintain our investment in the public schools. In a report from the Center on Education Policy entitled Why We Still Need the Public Schools (Kober, 2007), the author asserts that there are six reasons why the public schools are necessary to the vitality of American society, which include: 1) to provide universal access to free education; 2) to guarantee equal opportunities for all children; 3) to unify a diverse population; 4) to prepare people for citizenship in a democratic society; 5) to prepare people to become economically self-sufficient; 6) to improve social conditions. As an educator, it is easy to testify to the importance of our public schools for all of the reasons listed above. And yet as a high aspiring parent, I wonder: How do I learn to trust that the public schools will serve my daughters well?
I recognize the privileged choices that my husband and I have had as parents of young children, including the choice of caregiver, nursery education, summer camp, and extracurricular activities. Moreover, I am deeply appreciative of the fact that we have been able to look for and choose the "just right" option for each. However, I am also increasingly aware of the fact that this orientation to comparison and choice, and our commitment to selecting the best environments we can to foster our daughters' growth, has created quite a dilemma for us through this transition to kindergarten. I now find myself wondering: By choosing the public schools and not a private alternative, is it necessary to shed this desire to give our children "the best" we can? Yet what is the alternative paradigm?
It seems to me that the challenge for parents like my husband and me is to shift away from a consumer-driven orientation towards schooling to a more values-driven orientation, wherein the reason to choose the public schools is not because it can be ensured that our individual children will receive the "best" education possible. Instead, the reason to enroll our children in the public schools is because of both the individual and the public good that can only be achieved if we collectively maintain our investment in the public schools. In a report from the Center on Education Policy entitled Why We Still Need the Public Schools (Kober, 2007), the author asserts that there are six reasons why the public schools are necessary to the vitality of American society, which include: 1) to provide universal access to free education; 2) to guarantee equal opportunities for all children; 3) to unify a diverse population; 4) to prepare people for citizenship in a democratic society; 5) to prepare people to become economically self-sufficient; 6) to improve social conditions. As an educator, it is easy to testify to the importance of our public schools for all of the reasons listed above. And yet as a high aspiring parent, I wonder: How do I learn to trust that the public schools will serve my daughters well?
Friday, January 20, 2012
What is Rigor in Kindergarten?
Maryland has joined the majority of states across the country in adopting the Common Core State Standards. These standards will now guide the work of most public school educators in terms of establishing what students should know and be able to do from kindergarten to twelfth grades in English/Language Arts and Mathematics. In the description of these standards on the Common Core website, it is indicated that these standards were adopted to ensure that students across the country had access to "rigorous content" as well as opportunities to develop "higher order thinking skills." Similarly, in the "Guiding Tenants" of my daughter's school district Mission Statement, it is asserted that the county is committed to "the pursuit of excellence for all children," through which they will be pushed to learn and perform at "high levels." And yet as I spend time in my older daughter's kindergarten classroom, I find myself wondering: What is the place of rigor in kindergarten?
As a member of a university faculty, the question of rigor surfaces regularly. During this past week, for example, I participated in a Webinar in which the presenters from University of Washington shared their emerging insights about what "ambitious pedagogy" looks like in their teacher education program. Earlier this week in another setting, I contributed to a conversation with leaders from a nearby suburban/urban school district in which they revealed that one of the serious dilemmas they face is how to foster "high expectations" among all of their teachers for all of their students, particularly those students from poverty. The goal among the educators with whom I interact appears to be crystal clear -- to provide students with consistent, high quality learning experiences. Yet the question of what constitutes excellent, ambitious, high quality, or rigorous learning in the classroom day to day, lesson by lesson, remains much more murky for most of us as educators.
During my two hours in my older daughter's classroom this week, I listened to the teacher read aloud a story about Martin Luther King, Jr., which was followed up by a coloring and sequencing activity for the students. The kindergarteners then spent an hour rotating through several of the classroom's literacy centers, which include two computer stations, a writing center, a listening center, a block area, a housekeeping area, a classroom library/reading corner, and a puzzle station. As the children worked independently in their small groups in the various centers, my daughter's kindergarten teacher met with individual and clusters of students to diagnose their progress in reading. The conversation among the kindergarteners during these rotations did not sound much different to me than the kind of peer to peer talk that is common at my younger daughter's preschool -- which is to say that the kindergarteners' conversation among themselves did not appear to be particularly academic or rigorous. Neither did the snippets of dialogue that I overheard between the teacher the individual students with whom she was working sound like evidence of rigor in the kindergarten classroom either. Rather, it appeared that the focus of these exchanges was drilling for sight words and vocabulary extension.
As an educator, I welcomed the opportunity this week to consider anew the importance of rigor in our public school classrooms. However, I wonder if I know enough about what rigor can look like or sound like in a kindergarten classroom? In contrast as a parent, I wonder about whether or not rigor is even a developmentally appropriate goal for my kindergartener? I was glad to see my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) and her classmates engaging in free play for a part of their school day, and was cheered to hear them swapping imagined stories about their plastic elephants, lions, and zebras. I was happy to hear my DD1 and her friends laughing in the classroom. So how do I reconcile my ambitions as an educator and my experiences as a parent? Should I be heartened that there is some room for fun in my older daughter's classroom, or should I be concerned that my daughter's kindergarten class is not rigorous enough?
As a member of a university faculty, the question of rigor surfaces regularly. During this past week, for example, I participated in a Webinar in which the presenters from University of Washington shared their emerging insights about what "ambitious pedagogy" looks like in their teacher education program. Earlier this week in another setting, I contributed to a conversation with leaders from a nearby suburban/urban school district in which they revealed that one of the serious dilemmas they face is how to foster "high expectations" among all of their teachers for all of their students, particularly those students from poverty. The goal among the educators with whom I interact appears to be crystal clear -- to provide students with consistent, high quality learning experiences. Yet the question of what constitutes excellent, ambitious, high quality, or rigorous learning in the classroom day to day, lesson by lesson, remains much more murky for most of us as educators.
During my two hours in my older daughter's classroom this week, I listened to the teacher read aloud a story about Martin Luther King, Jr., which was followed up by a coloring and sequencing activity for the students. The kindergarteners then spent an hour rotating through several of the classroom's literacy centers, which include two computer stations, a writing center, a listening center, a block area, a housekeeping area, a classroom library/reading corner, and a puzzle station. As the children worked independently in their small groups in the various centers, my daughter's kindergarten teacher met with individual and clusters of students to diagnose their progress in reading. The conversation among the kindergarteners during these rotations did not sound much different to me than the kind of peer to peer talk that is common at my younger daughter's preschool -- which is to say that the kindergarteners' conversation among themselves did not appear to be particularly academic or rigorous. Neither did the snippets of dialogue that I overheard between the teacher the individual students with whom she was working sound like evidence of rigor in the kindergarten classroom either. Rather, it appeared that the focus of these exchanges was drilling for sight words and vocabulary extension.
As an educator, I welcomed the opportunity this week to consider anew the importance of rigor in our public school classrooms. However, I wonder if I know enough about what rigor can look like or sound like in a kindergarten classroom? In contrast as a parent, I wonder about whether or not rigor is even a developmentally appropriate goal for my kindergartener? I was glad to see my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) and her classmates engaging in free play for a part of their school day, and was cheered to hear them swapping imagined stories about their plastic elephants, lions, and zebras. I was happy to hear my DD1 and her friends laughing in the classroom. So how do I reconcile my ambitions as an educator and my experiences as a parent? Should I be heartened that there is some room for fun in my older daughter's classroom, or should I be concerned that my daughter's kindergarten class is not rigorous enough?
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
My Kindergartener is an Emerging Reader
This weekend, I experienced a profound moment as a mother. My Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) read a book to me independently for the first time, cover to cover. Yes, the book was a leveled reader text with a basic plot and characters that have only one syllable names. Yet still, my daughter's basic level reading voice was, indeed, music to my ears.
I do not, myself, remember learning to read. I do not remember laboring over words, struggling to sound out words by going letter by letter, or becoming frustrated if/when I could not readily see the pattern in a series of words. I do not remember the first time I read to my parents, nor actually do I remember much about reading with them. Instead, when I recall my childhood I remember myself as an already established reader who seemingly has always loved to read. My hope for my daughters is that the process of learning to read does not thwart their emerging capacity, confidence, nor pleasure as readers.
In "A Parent's Guide to the Integrated Curriculum," published and distributed by my school district, the learning goals for all PreK through Fifth grade students in Reading are that they will "develop the knowledge and skills essential to becoming literate, thoughtful communicators," who can "strategically read texts with fluency, purpose, and comprehension," and who can "understand and appreciate language and literature as a catalyst for deep thought and emotion." For kindergarteners, this overarching reading goal is translated into learning literary routines as well as the text features of fiction and non-fiction, becoming fluent with phonetic word recognition, and acquiring a strong foundational vocabulary and handwriting skills.
I find myself wondering: Can this emphasis on developing students' foundational skill set for reading detract from fostering a sense of joy, curiosity, and imagination in students through reading? I wonder: Will learning to read serve as a kind of portal to the enticing and wide-ranging world of learning for my daughters, or could it become a merely perfunctory task required by school for my DD1 and DD2? I wonder: What kind of reader my DD1 will become?
I do not, myself, remember learning to read. I do not remember laboring over words, struggling to sound out words by going letter by letter, or becoming frustrated if/when I could not readily see the pattern in a series of words. I do not remember the first time I read to my parents, nor actually do I remember much about reading with them. Instead, when I recall my childhood I remember myself as an already established reader who seemingly has always loved to read. My hope for my daughters is that the process of learning to read does not thwart their emerging capacity, confidence, nor pleasure as readers.
In "A Parent's Guide to the Integrated Curriculum," published and distributed by my school district, the learning goals for all PreK through Fifth grade students in Reading are that they will "develop the knowledge and skills essential to becoming literate, thoughtful communicators," who can "strategically read texts with fluency, purpose, and comprehension," and who can "understand and appreciate language and literature as a catalyst for deep thought and emotion." For kindergarteners, this overarching reading goal is translated into learning literary routines as well as the text features of fiction and non-fiction, becoming fluent with phonetic word recognition, and acquiring a strong foundational vocabulary and handwriting skills.
I find myself wondering: Can this emphasis on developing students' foundational skill set for reading detract from fostering a sense of joy, curiosity, and imagination in students through reading? I wonder: Will learning to read serve as a kind of portal to the enticing and wide-ranging world of learning for my daughters, or could it become a merely perfunctory task required by school for my DD1 and DD2? I wonder: What kind of reader my DD1 will become?
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Is Thriving a Reasonable Aim for Kindergarten?
What is thriving? How can I as a parent work to engender conditions for my daughters' thriving? How do I know when they are thriving? And how do I recognize when the hurdles they face are a necessary part of growing up versus an obstacle to their thriving?
In Beverly Cleary's Ramona the Pest, Ramona enters kindergarten and meets "the nicest teacher in the world." Through her interactions with Miss Binney and her classmates, this young protagonist learns about the world of playground games, seat work, getting along with others, and the anguish of being too big to get away with babyish behavior, like tantrums or too much play, and yet still too young to fully discipline herself all day, every day. What makes Cleary's Ramona series so compelling to me as I read it again as a mom and an educator (having also read the Ramona books when I was a young girl), is that the author captures so poignantly the travails an imaginative young girl might face in her journey to grow up and become a responsible being.
My older daughter has had a hard week as a kindergartner. Her teacher was absent from school on Monday, and my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) reported that not much happened in class while they were being overseen by the substitute. I learned last night over dinner that my DD1 did not eat the lunch on Tuesday or Wednesday because she did not like what was served. In addition, she misses the fact that one of her two new best friends in kindergarten is away on vacation this week. And to top it off, she woke up yesterday morning with a swollen knee and we are now investigating whether or not she may have Lyme Disease. It does not appear that this is a week in which my daughter is exactly thriving.
One line of on-going inquiry that I intend to explore in this blog is to examine my own assumptions as a parent and as an educator about my desire for my daughters' thriving, and to differentiate between what may be my hopes for my daughters and my expectations. Is it reasonable on my part to want my daughters to thrive through each developmental stage? How do you keep yourself in check from expecting too much for your children or from the public schools?
In Beverly Cleary's Ramona the Pest, Ramona enters kindergarten and meets "the nicest teacher in the world." Through her interactions with Miss Binney and her classmates, this young protagonist learns about the world of playground games, seat work, getting along with others, and the anguish of being too big to get away with babyish behavior, like tantrums or too much play, and yet still too young to fully discipline herself all day, every day. What makes Cleary's Ramona series so compelling to me as I read it again as a mom and an educator (having also read the Ramona books when I was a young girl), is that the author captures so poignantly the travails an imaginative young girl might face in her journey to grow up and become a responsible being.
My older daughter has had a hard week as a kindergartner. Her teacher was absent from school on Monday, and my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) reported that not much happened in class while they were being overseen by the substitute. I learned last night over dinner that my DD1 did not eat the lunch on Tuesday or Wednesday because she did not like what was served. In addition, she misses the fact that one of her two new best friends in kindergarten is away on vacation this week. And to top it off, she woke up yesterday morning with a swollen knee and we are now investigating whether or not she may have Lyme Disease. It does not appear that this is a week in which my daughter is exactly thriving.
One line of on-going inquiry that I intend to explore in this blog is to examine my own assumptions as a parent and as an educator about my desire for my daughters' thriving, and to differentiate between what may be my hopes for my daughters and my expectations. Is it reasonable on my part to want my daughters to thrive through each developmental stage? How do you keep yourself in check from expecting too much for your children or from the public schools?
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