Questions I have for my classmates are:
- How do you feel about trickle-down academics?
- What do you remember about your early childhood experiences when you started school?
- What do you expect from children in your early childhood classes?
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Interview
I am looking at focusing my research paper on the trickle down of academics in early childhood education. I interviewed two individuals that have over 25 years of experience in the field of early childhood. During their duration they have seen many changes in the academic expectations of young children and question the ability of the children's learning - are they learning or are they memorizing. They both agreed that this is a very good topic to focus on since there seems to be a return of DAP questioning. Some of the issues commonly encountered with this topic are questioning whether we are forcing young children to grow up too fast, are these activities really developmentally appropriate, and are we really focusing on their Zone of Proximal Development. Some areas of advocacy related to this topic include the importance of all day kindergarten and refining goals and objectives based on the standards set forth. There is also a focus to make sure that preschool remains child directed more than teacher directed. Some concerns that both individuals expressed are if we are trying to teach children this information too early does it stay with them or do they forget it and have to be re-instructed on the same topics year after year and they also are worried about how this affects the children. By teaching them too much too soon are we stressing them out (or making them become overwhelmed). There are also concerns as to how this affects children if they do not understand the information being presented to them - do they shut down or do they get upset and feel as though they are a failure.
Questions I have for my classmates are:
Questions I have for my classmates are:
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Hi Jennifer
ReplyDeleteWhen you ask about the trickle-down academics, are you speaking of the requirements of things that children must learn before entering kindergarten? If so I feel that many children are not developmentally ready to be in a structured environment where they may be learning by rote. I agree with your perspective that early childhood experiences should be child centered because as you stated we do not want to overwhelm children. We want to provide opportunities for children to construct their own learning from that point on, children will be able to received the academic learning as they progress in their development to the early grades.
I remember waiting for instruction and told what to do in most of my classes. In fact, I do not remeber very much about that time at all.
I expect children to be risk takers as they explore, discover and learn in my intentionally planned classroom environment.
I see the trickle-down academics even in the kindergarten classroom. Children in kindergarten are required to learn so much before they enter first grade and many people do not realize the amount of skills they are taught in kindergarten. One of the people I interviewed is a kindergarten teacher and she often feels the stress of the standardized testing and trickle down academics in her teaching. She is fortunate to have the children all day so there is a little more time for the children to process what is being taught but for the children in the half-day program that is not the case. They are taught the same amount of information in a 3 hour day versus a 7 hour day.
ReplyDeleteDon't you love technology! OK - great topic and I totally agree with the importance of keeping academics in grades 1 - HS. Please make sure there will be enough research based information on this subject.
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