Pushing Back on "Pushing Down":
Early Childhood Education and Reform
by Yvette Gimenez
In early childhood educational reform has included standardized and placement testing for children as young as age 5, increased early interventions, and an uptick in "academic" over play based programming.
An unfortunate side effect of these reforms has created a learning environment that has a "push down" effect. "Pushing down" follows a pattern similar to this: high schoolers are studying things that were previously taught in college, elementary students are doing work that used to be reserved for high schoolers, and early childhood students are learning things that used to be found in the elementary school years. The “push down” creates an environment where developmental expectations and requirements have been unfairly forced onto children at younger and younger ages. Children aren't able to fully learn concepts and develop understanding of these concepts because the system has sped up in the name of "progress" and in the pursuit of higher test scores.
The results of the change in curriculum and expectations is loss of play as a learning tool, watering down and short cutting academic basics in favor of moving through curriculum faster, student burnout, and overexposure to themes and materials that were typically reserved for more mature audiences.
Study after study has been conducted to demonstrate that play helps children process the information being taught so that real transfer of learning occurs not just a surface knowledge that's good for a test.
The results of the change in curriculum and expectations is loss of play as a learning tool...
Real reforms in this area would back off of early testing and compulsory age limits in the early years; thus allowing parents more freedom to choose when their child is ready for school with no resulting stigma of being left back or being labeled as "slow." Lastly, better reforms would also allow greater funding to foster more parent choice when choosing the type of school that best fits their child.
Yvette Gimenez is a homeschool mom who used to teach early childhood education. She does some journal writing and is a beginning blogger. Yvette joined the Philadelphia Writing Project as a teacher consultant in 2009.