preK drop-outs
Sunday, March 7, 2010 at 08:32AM Developing an enthusiasm for learning is especially important in the primary grades. Even students who have excelled in preK or kindergarten can find first or second grade so trying that they turn off to learning. Such disengagement has become so widespread that Sharon Ritchie, a senior scientist at FPG Child Development Institute, has worked with educators on a dropout-prevention project that focuses on children in preK through third grade.
“You can walk into a classroom and see kids who by third grade are done with school,” she says. “They are angry and feel school is not a fair place or a place that sees them as the individual that they are.” Some of that disengagement, Ritchie says, is rooted in the way students in second or third grade are taught. She found that students in preK classes spent 136 minutes a day involved in hands-on projects. That dropped to 16 minutes by kindergarten and 12 minutes a day by second and third grade.
— Developmentally Appropriate Practice in the Age of Testing, Harvard Education Letter
Go ahead and boo me. I fundamentally think that our school day is too short, our school week is too short and our school year is too short. You’re competing for jobs with kids from India and China. I think schools should be open six, seven days a week, 11, 12 months a year.
— Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, addressing middle- and high-school students in Denver
How long do we need to make the school day to give children meaningful learning experiences?
Reader Comments (27)
I'm going to ruminate this morning, and be back.
Until schools realize the value of learning through experience and exploration in preschool AND beyond, there is no point in lengthening the school day. Those 12 minute a day 3rd graders will be true dropouts at that point!
Thanks for sharing these quotes, Lori - I'm a bit fired up about them!
allie, you and i are singing the same tune. :^)
i read a piece today in which a core-knowledge proponent said projects don't work because teachers aren't capable of doing them and keeping students learning. i'll share it later .. i want to keep your fire hot. ;^)
Now, why can't ALL schools be like that??
Sorta kinda related, a local town's school committee is looking into the possibility of sponsoring a charter school. Know why? So that they get tuition-paying students from other districts. And I had to laugh. (First of all, just because they say it doesn't mean it will happen--the charter process isn't quick or easy.) If that school department can be so creative and innovative, why don't they do it with the schools they already run? Because they're not. Giving a public school department control over a charter school seems wrong on so many levels.
Actually, I remember seeing a post last year on a poplar mom blog about someone proposing more time in school. I was expecting the comments to be full of uproar. Instead, they were full of moms who thought it was a great idea, and they admitted it was not because it was better for the kids. They wanted longer school days because it's easier for parents. It made me sad.
This is the reason why after one semester with my daughter in preschool, I realized traditional education wasn't going to work. There was so little project-based learning and I realized that in kindergarten and so on, she would get even less. Who ever said they stopped learning with hands-on activities once they turned 5?
The sad thing part is thinking of all those kids who will have to continue on with this kind of education feeling like they don't belong in school and the consequences of that following them after they finally "get out".
Have mercy on us - I shudder to think of my kids at school that much! They would wither and die inside for lack of real life . . . and we have a great school!
There's so much more that I want to say, but I'm pretty sure words can't express the deep angst I feel about those two quote sharing space.
I think that says it all... Zonneveld goes on to explain how the Waldorf approach to kindergarten is what it is (too long to write about here as I've already written quite a bit!) - but play based essentially.
From memory the concept of schooling was developed during industrial revolution to occupy the children while both parents worked once child labour was outlawed.
That first quote is a beauty. I went over and read the article and the two accompanying discussions. Excellent and such a very credible source. Harvard's education faculty has an excellent reputation - particularly for brain based learning.
I have noticed that issue here around year one and year three. At both ages there is a dramatic change in how the students are allowed to learn. In Australia there is increasing pressure both from government and a some of the community itself to stop 'wasting' time with a play based curriculum in the early years.
However, having read the Malcolm Gladwell book 'The Outliers' -I am assuming Mr Duncan is referring to KIPP schools when he talks about longer hours and shorter holidays? http://www.kipp.org
"How long do we need to make the school day to give children meaningful learning experiences?" - well the obvious answer is that children can have meaningful learning experiences all day long without even setting foot in a school.
I don't know about the history of education in the US, but universal school education in Britain was created largely to free the adults to work in the fields and factories and 'rescue' the lower classes from the influence of their parents. Sometimes, I think government policy hasn't changed much.
And then we have friends and people around us who talk about what their kids are doing and then we - as parents - start to worry that our own kids not getting the same learning or at the same speed of learning or exposure to learning and we start to ask ourselves - "am I hindering my child's learning by doing this or that or not following this or that approach to learning?". There seems to be so much varied information.
I know not everyone here thinks like this but there are lots of parents (sometimes me!) who start to become anxious and worried that we may be hindering the learning that can be done in the very early years. It is also hard to believe (and sad!) that kids stop doing hands-on project learning once they arrive at primary school.
So what is the answer?! I look forward to reading the ensuing discussion!
amy, why *can't* all schools be like that?! i'll tell you, but it's an ugly truth. to have those kinds of schools for our children, we the people would have to completely change our values. we'd fire bad teachers .. but we can't do that because of unions. what would happen to the teacher unions? we'd change how we assess children's learning. but .. we can't stop standardized testing .. it's a huge industry .. with lobbyists and connections to government. what would happen to the testing industry? we'd change the focus from preparing children to be good workers to preparing them to be good people .. but .. wait .. what would happen to our GNP?!?!
there are those who step off the path and do something different -- schools like mine (only lasted seven years!) and the one your kids are attending, and homeschooling parents. *those* kids get to have a different experience.
i love the charter school thing -- get schools thinking about pleasing students and families! why not?!
arwen, ah, you put it very succinctly. ;^) why indeed?!
i can't believe how accepting parents are of homework. their kids are in school for that huge, long day and they still have to come home and do *more* work?! when they should be playing and spending time with family and friends?! how do schools justify that?! yet parents not only accept the situation, they think homework is a key to learning and success. someone did some excellent propaganda work there.
i remember talking about that same post with you before (about the happy moms). sometimes i think it's about working parents who have a hard time with that time between the end of the school day and the end of the work day. but i've noticed that people seem more and more comfortable with leaching art and music and hands-on projects out of the regular school day, because they think those things can be "covered" in after-school activities. they forget not all children have access to after-school enrichment. and maybe they forget about the value of what after-school time used to offer -- relaxing, playing, socializing, being bored, creating...
sophia, i think you make such an important point -- kids react to this wrong way of teaching and learning by feeling there is something wrong with *them*. they feel like if they were "smarter" , they'd be better at sitting still all day and filling in blanks, spitting back the answer the teacher is probing for, and etc.
jen, lol, see, i thought pushing those two quotes together created something! turns out it was angst! ;^)
i wonder, along the same lines of what i was saying to arwen, if they won't end up making some argument that if we just give them the kids *longer*, they'll have more time to do art, music, etc. .. the "specials". because that's what they say about full-day kindergarten. half-day K is now all about desk work; if you sign up for full-day K, they say, then you get music, art, and PE back!
kort, me too!
cathy, interesting .. i've written before about how i think the push toward some sort of idealized student (good at everything) makes students end up feeling bad about the things in which they don't excel rather than excited and energized about the things in which they do .. it puts a pall on the students and the school when their job isn't to celebrate individuals and help them achieve their own goals, but instead push everyone toward a fake idea of a stepford student who aces the standardized tests then dominates the playing field. how many are going to meet that standard? very few. how many could be happy exploring their talents and passions while working hard to improve themselves? all?
theresa, some educational minds get it .. wouldn't the bigwigs in d.c. be proud to point to harvard as where we keep some of our best thinkers? the question for me is, why aren't the people who really understand how children learn best in charge of how children learn?
kristine, you really do have to question it! you really, really do! :^)
i am starting to think the government is mostly concerned about the middle of the bell curve. they want to train those kids to compete against india and japan and do all those jobs for our important business leaders. they trust that the geniuses will drop out of school and be homeschooled and the businesses leaders will come up through the ranks of pricey private schools. so we'll still get our inventors and our leaders. now let's just train the masses to be quiet, sit still, follow directions, and be satisfied.
kirstie, your first line made me lol. :D
see, what you need to do is stop applying common sense.
also, why would we want to continue to do what has made america a world leader? what, innovate? invent? what we *need* to do is imitate those countries where their kids know all their times tables by age 5. *that* is the key to success, obviously.
"How long do we need to make the school day to give children meaningful learning experiences?" well, they haven't managed to find the time yet .. but maybe if they had them a few more hours per day ..
the factory history is the same here .. times have changed. schools haven't.
nic, well, if you completely changed how schools work and what they did there, i can see my boys possibly wanting to spend hours a day there. :)
re: work .. i've always said that our being self-employed made the leap to homeschooling much more of a slight sideways step. really, it's extremely similar. you work more hours when you are very engaged, very productive, or very motivated. and when the sun shines, you go outside and fly a kite. ;^)
dana, fantastic. we need more teachers who want the system to change. good luck! and thank you.
mags, if you are a parent who is worried about these things, i think you are in a fairly small group. the majority of parents seem to be pretty content letting school take care of their children's education -- and satisfied that even if it's not perfect, at least it's the same experience their neighbors' kids are having.
if you are someone who takes on the responsibility for your children's education -- whether you homeschool or continue to use public/private/charter schools -- it's really just a mindset after all -- then a certain amount of anxiety probably comes along with it.
your children deserve to have someone in charge of their education who tosses and turns at night because they are so concerned about making the right choices. believe me, the majority of teachers and administrators wouldn't be.
aw, i ended on such a crabby note. oh well. :^)
And by the way, the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over expecting different results. Since I attended public school, homework has increased, time devoted to subjects and testing has increased, time spent in afterschool enrichment has increased, and school taxes have increased. If we have more of all of this, why aren't the schools creating little Einsteins?
Oh wait. Einstein didn't do well in school, did he? :-D
Peace and Laughter!
the fact that children need to move their bodies in order to sit down and concentrate is well known, but that doesn't keep schools from reducing or eliminating recess -- or even building schools with no playground.
you mention all the things that have increased .. what has decreased in the last 50 years is the quality of a high-school education!
ha, einstein was my drop-out i was talking about up above. ;^)