When is learning too much?

Posted Aug 31, 2010 by Sherri Ackerman

Updated Aug 31, 2010 at 01:50 PM

I went to curriculum night last night at my son’s preschool and met all his teachers.

Yes, he has more than one teacher because at his school all the 4 year olds switch classes.

He has homeroom, then language arts, science, social studies and math. He loves it and, so far, so do I.

Everyday, he can’t wait to tell me what he’s learning. And I can see it.

In science, he does yoga and now revels in downward-facing dog. Thanks to math, he counts his carrots now before eating them at dinner. Language arts has inspired him to practice writing his name every night and he’s collecting huge cardboard boxes to build a city for social studies.

Through all of this fun, he’s doing something else. He’s mastering skills necessary to start kindergarten next year, such as writing his first and last name, counting numbers, recognizing shapes and reciting the alphabet.

But his teachers say he’ll also be able to read books, write sentences and add and subtract at an appropriate level.

A part of me was thrilled to hear that, but another part worried if it was too much.

One recent study says some of these skills used to be taught at the first-grade level - even the second-grade level.

The Alliance for Childhood says this has resulted in tightly-structured kindergarten classrooms where teachers follow scripts and focus on frequent tests to keep pushing students to achieve more.

Has it worked? These particular researchers say no and they point to standardized test scores that show little or no progress.

In fact, they worry that such ramped-up expectations do more harm.

Kindergarten was designed as a place to introduce children to the pleasures of learning and exploring the wider world, mainly through play and discovery,” says Edward Miller, one of the Alliance’s co-authors of the study, Crisis in Kindergarten: Why Children Need To Play In School. “Now we talk in terms of preparing them for combat - as if school is a war zone, or a prison.’‘

The authors argue that the early-academics push, which sometimes takes away from free time, is based on unproven assumptions. They argue that the overemphasis on high-stakes tests (FCATs anyone?) has contributed to the loss of play in early childhood education.

I hope that won’t be true in my son’s education. Right now, he gets plenty of play time at school and at home. I want him to be ready to start school, but I also want him to love learning. Where’s the balance?