I still remember the two most academic moments I had in Kindergarten. The first was a pre-Sham Wowesque exercise during which we’d use a sponge to transfer the water from one bowl to another - that skill would later inform my internet investment strategy, although I accidentally used a toilet in place of the second bowl. The second experience of academic merit was when my girlfriend at the time - with whom I shared daily expressions of mutual love (I started and peaked early) - arrived at school one morning to matter-of-factly inform me that she no longer loved me. She gave me no reason. I didn’t score for decades.
Aside from those two deeply memorable learning experiences (and listening to the details of my friend Mordy’s first self-described “stirrings” that he felt for our assistant teacher), the only other thing I really remember doing in Kindergarten was playing.
And that’s the way it was supposed to be. Here’s the surprise. That’s the way it’s still supposed to be. You’d never know that from watching many modern Kindergartens that are complete with hours of homework, surprisingly heavy academics, and taking - I kid you not - standardized tests.
And it doesn’t seem to matter that all this is at the expense of play time, the one thing we actually know helps kids at this age develop.
According to “Crisis in the Kindergarten,” a report recently released by the Alliance for Childhood, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, all that testing is wasted: it neither predicts nor improves young children’s educational outcomes. More disturbing, along with other academic demands, like assigning homework to 5-year-olds, it is crowding out the one thing that truly is vital to their future success: play.
We have lost our minds with all the pressure we put on our kids at younger and younger ages. It would be only disturbing if this pressure actually resulted in smarter, higher-achieving kids. The fact that it often has the opposite impact makes the whole trend truly sad.
