Technical Report: Kindergarten Early Learning Scale | nieer.org

Technical Report: Kindergarten Early Learning Scale | nieer.org

Development........

I feel the need to discuss development.  Development is thrown around a lot when discussing children and education, however I do not think everyone that throws the word around truly has an understanding of what development is.  As an educator I feel the need to educate more than just my students.  

Definition of development:

: the act or process of growing or causing something to grow or become larger or more advanced

: the act or process of creating something over a period of time

: the state of being created or made more advanced

Development is something that happens when sperm meets egg.  That fast it starts. The final outcome is not always the same.  Depending on the specific situation and make up of those early cells, the outcome can be different.  As a woman who struggled with infertility and had many friends who had an even harder time than I did, I know how precious and fragile that biology is, how fragile that development is.  Even in cases where the situation is perfect and the environment is ideal and the health of all involved are at its best, sometimes the development is shifted or changed and the outcome is not a happy healthy baby.  Would anyone dare tell that mother she was a failure and should not have any more children and do not try again? I certainly hope not. 

A typical pregnancy should last 40 weeks.  As a mother who had all 3 of my children before 40 weeks, should I be considered gifted?  No.  Those mothers who go past 40 weeks, should they be considered slow, or failures? Certainly not.  Sometimes medical professions intervene and help support and provide the necessary interventions to provide the best possible outcome.  Are those interventions always the most successful? Do they work the first time without every having to do them again? No. Should the medical professionals be fired or told they are failures when the outcome is not positive? This would depend on the case, however the majority of the time the answer is usually no.  

Now there is an infant to care for and raise and support and provide for.  Do they all sleep through the night at the same time? Should we create standards that tell parents by week 8 your child should be sleeping through the night in their own crib without any assistance from you? Anyone who is a parent or has experience with infants knows how absurd that is.  I recently read an article about creating standards for children to learn to walk and there should be centers created for those toddlers who are not walking by a certain age.  Its a great read!  The idea is completely absurd and for the most part people who read it know that.  I can not just state that ALL children should be walking by age 1.  Some children are just not biologically ready for that.  It does not make them failures, or slow, or behind.  

Development is a sliding scale and different for all cases.  Children are not all potty trained at the same week of their life.  Not all children cut a tooth the same time of their lives.  Every child is different.  Every child in the same family is different. 

Why does that not apply once a child walks through the school doors?  Why is the teacher considered a failure or worse at their job when a child does not meet the same milestone as the rest of their peers as the same time? Why is pressure put on these children to perform above and beyond their comfort zone in order to prove to someone who does not know them, does not personally have any invested time in their life, that they are meeting the standards created without them in mind?

Here is another absurd example of development.  Let's pretend I was given 25 different seeds to plant and was told I had 30 days to grow a flower, and then I would be evaluated on the success of the task.  I was not given all the same kind of seeds.  I was not given the same dirt to put those seeds in.  I was given 25 of the same exact cup though.  I can't help but wonder, do all these seeds yield a flower?  How old are all these seeds?  Have they been protected before being given to me or are some burned a little, or have any of them been frozen? I can try and make sure I care for and provide the right amount of water and sun and try to give those seeds extra nutrients if I see its struggling to grow.  However every night they would be taken away to go to someone else's house for the night.  I had no control over the conditions when they were away from me.  At the end of 30 days Im sure you can only imagine the differences in plants I would have.  Some may have a flower... some may just have some leaves and show promise for future flowering.... some may be barely peeking out of the dirt and I'm sure (knowing my green thumb) some would have nothing. However I will be judged on each seed. 

As a teacher I am judged on each student, and how much they grow.  I am made to feel like a failure when a student does not meet the same goal as the rest, however I know that child and I know the successes they have, but its just not good enough. 

I get 20 some new students every year, coming to me with different backgrounds.  Some have great supportive and loving homes and have been protected and are ready to be in school and learn.  Some have had to deal with things in their short 4 or 5 years that I could not even imagine in my 37 years, therefore they are not ready, their development has been stunted.  However because some group of people sitting in some town far away who know NOTHING of the struggles of my students sitting in front of me have decided what they should know in the 180 days that I have them.  And if they do not meet those standards it is my fault, and I am a failure, and I am held responsible.  I can not affect biology.  I can not push, force, or shove information into these children's minds.  I have my interventions and I have my tricks and my hopes that I can get them where they need to be.  It doesn't always work.  Sometimes they just aren't ready.  It makes no difference how hard I say "You must know this!", if they are not ready, they are not ready.  

WHY???  WHY?? is it ok for those who know NOTHING of my students or their lives or my interventions to come in and tell me how horrible I am because they have not met some silly standard.  

How many kids play make-believe now?  Not many.  How many kids know how to cooperate with others?  Not many.  How many kids know how to problem solve? Not many.  How many kids know how to play appropriately?  Not many. How many kids know how to talk and interact with adults and even their peers appropriately?  Not many. 

How many kids know zombies?  A lot!  How many kids stay up later than their parents?  A lot!  How many kids watch rated R movies at the age of 5?  A lot!  How many kids use profanity, correctly at the age of 5? A lot!  How many children know or see sex acts at the age of 5?  A lot!!  How many children do not know where they are going at the end of the school day? who will be home? will they eat dinner? A LOT!!!  How many kids are capable of meeting the standards set in front of them to meet?  A lot!  However not all students are ready at the same time. Some students need more time, some need less, and all should be given that time.  

After 20 minutes on 1 question.... a 5 year old begins to cry!!!

I feel the need to help explain why the reading test for my students today causes such a struggle in me.  This is only one example but I think it’s a good one.  I teach kindergarten (most of you know this I'm sure) and that means the majority of my students have never been to school.  They are only 5 years old for usually the first half of the school year, some starting at 4 still and turning 5 within the first month or so.  5 YEARS OLD!!!  That’s it!!!  Ok so today was our 85^th day in school.  So after 85 days of school (for their entire 5 years of life) we are giving them a 57 question test on reading in the computer lab for the 2^nd time this school year.  Yes I said 2^nd!  We were so nice to welcome these sometimes 4 and 5 year old children to school the first few weeks of their school career and tested them on the computer… 57 questions for reading and I'm sure its close to that for math (I don’t remember right now).

So 85 days of school total, their entire lives, and we are going to test them and tell them this is important and your parents, teacher, the principal and future teachers are going to look at this number and know what you learned in kindergarten.  (BTW- I DON’T TELL MY STUDENTS THIS!!!  I tell them to try their best and I already know how smart they are!)  So no pressure!  YEAH RIGHT!!??!!  They do as they are told because really what other choice do they have.  They sit and listen to the question and all the answers and try to pick the best answer and move on. 

After answering 9 questions this student (who is a very bright student) is asked to fix the highlighted word in the sentence because it is spelled incorrectly.  So the highlighted word was ‘frum’.  I could tell she was having a hard time.  She moved the ‘f’ to the first space and the ‘m’ to the last space.  And she sat there…. She asked me and I told her she has to take her best guess….. she struggled.  I could see it in her face she didn’t understand why ‘frum’ was wrong and she knew she had to change the spelling.  She couldn’t move on until she had 4 letters up on the lines.  She tried asking another teacher who gave the same response.  At this point some students are getting close to finishing and she continues to sit staring at the computer screen and playing with the mouse.  She did not want to get this wrong.  She wanted to get the highest score she possibly could.  I know she was telling herself she should be able to spell this but was really having a hard time.  Why?  Why was she struggling so hard with ‘frum’.  Why?  Because she’s 5, she has had 85 days of school and has been taught to use her sounds to spell words she didn’t know!!  /F/ /R/ /U/ /M/ are the sounds!!!!!!!!  She could not wrap her head around why that was wrong.  From is not a kindergarten word!!  We have not used that word much if at all!!  She didn’t want to do bad on her test….. after 20 minutes I finally went back over to her and said pick any two letters and put them in there and move on…. It’s one question, it’s ok!!!  And she started crying, which just about made me start crying!!  SHE IS 5 YEARS OLD!!!!  She should NOT be this stressed out to the point of crying because a word that SHE WOULD spell 'frum', is spelled wrong. 

We paused her test… I told her to take a deep breath which only made her cry more.  Then I told her to go out in the hall and get a drink of water……. She came back in and another teacher sat with her and helped her just move on….. She calmed and at the end of our 45 min time period (I think she stayed a few minutes later)…. She still has 11 more questions to go. 

I told my entire class that I was SUPER impressed with how well they did (and I was!!!) and that I was beyond proud of them!!  But I am still… 7 hours after this incident…. Troubled that this student was crying over that question……  Nothing that I do for my students should EVER make them cry like that!!  NEVER! 

The Value of Children

Politicians all over the world are plagued with the issue of children, their health and education, and have to respond to questions about what is best for our children because those children are our future.  The health and well-being of children has become a family, community, state, national, and global problem proving that people of the world recognize the importance of children but do not always have the resources to find answers to solve problems.  By increasing the availability of life saving vaccines to children to 90 percent in disadvantaged countries could possibly save 6.4 million children between 2011 – 2020 (Ozawa, et al., 2011).  The healthier the child is the better learner they can be (Morrison, 2007).  The more children who grow up to be a happy and healthy adult will create a stronger future because of those healthy, educated adults. 

            Our children are the only assurance of a future and yet there is more generosity and willingness to send aid for a population affected by a natural disaster than to help take care of the children of the world and give those children a chance at life.  Twice as many children die every year from preventable causes than people with HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined (Stoltenburg, 2006).  Many people agree that children are more important than most anything however excuses flow freely for why support and donations are not given to the children of the world however money is sent in droves to help the families affected by a hurricane, or tornados, or earthquakes. The United Nations came together in 2001 and agreed on the importance of the children of the world by developing eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) to help every country strive to have healthy, educated children within their countries (Stoltenburg, 2006).  MDG-4 focused on neo-natal health and child mortality and it was agreed to reduce child-mortality by two-thirds by 2015 however despite the available resources and solutions to the problems, enough progress has not been made to achieve this goal (Stoltenburg, 2006).  Children’s health is a political issue for politicians and society as a whole.  While politicians and the media focus on the health problems of the world’s youth, many causes for those problems are essentially entwined with societal values, social norms and myths (Emerson, 2010).  As the problem was realized, addressed, and solutions offered, possible answers continue to be ignored and pushed away because it is too difficult to manage and facilitate.  Excuses are created to explain why the recommendations are not being followed through, however it only hurts the children and the trend continues on, and to help solve some of these issues and create a child better ready to learning and be productive in school, there can be no excuse good enough to not follow research recommendations and support the young minds of today. 

            Understanding the world is just as vital as a child’s health.  If children do not understand their place, their impact, or their involvement on the world around them, the future world may not exist as it does today.  Children not only need to be healthy, ready to learn in school, and successful in their educations, but also an integral part of the political and decision making processes involved in a country.  There is an international consensus for the need to increase citizenship education in schools and make the subject more participatory, collaborative, and issue based; however there has been little action on changing the current standards (Howe & Covell, 2009).  Some writers have expressed the importance of citizenship education and the need to emphasize the subject within schools across the world and signify the legacy to be able to move forward (Howe & Covell, 2009).  Children need to be taught about the greater good and what citizenship means because if the pursuit of individual wants and needs over comes the greater good, democratic society will deteriorate and fall apart creating a void within people being filled with more anxiety and in turn creating more health problems for adults (Howe & Covell, 2009).  Although new initiatives have been introduced they have not yet yielded any progress in creating a greater sense of citizenship within the youth of the United States (Howe & Covell, 2009). 

Education administrators at the school district level and higher are always concerned about curriculum and how and what children are learning within the schools along with how to access proof of children’s learning through assessment.  The United States board of education had finally gotten together and expressed the absolute need to have standards that are the same across the board, and state. Over the next few years all states will be adjusting their standards for k-12 language arts and math, and moving to the National Common Core standards, ensuring every school district in every county, in every state, across the United States are working for the same goals for each grade level.  The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 was intended to help improve and reform elementary through high school education (Morrison, 2007).  The act has changed teaching for many years to come and has also affected pre-K education because of the large importance being put on getting children ready to learn and ready to be in school (Morrison, 2007).  While there is an understanding within political and educator circles that every child needs to be given every chance to succeed to their highest potential and be given every opportunity to become a meaningful part of society, how to reach that goal causes friction.  Not every child can be taught in the same manner or with the same tools; not every child comes to school equipped with the skills to learn, and not every child has a stable home life that satisfies their basic needs;  all of these factors affect how a child learns and absorbs information. 

With the increase in the necessity of helping children become ready to learn before they begin school, the United States federal government has created programs, such as, Head Start and Early Head Start, to help disadvantaged children become more prepared to learn and succeed in school.  While the idea of the head start program offers solutions to help at-risk children become ready to learn as they begin school, not every program is effective at helping children become less at-risk.  Head start primarily aims for children from low income, single parent, disadvantaged homes, on the other hand there is unfortunately still a group of children who are not disadvantaged enough to openly qualify for services though still need the chance at extra support or opportunities given by the Head Start program.  Not all families are poor enough or struggle enough to be obviously pinpointed as needing help, and yet these groups of lower middle class families still lack the resources to pay for a preschool program to assist their child in getting the helping hand offered by a preschool program and many of those children can fall through the cracks and end up further behind than they would have been with the support form a preschool.

            As much as early childhood education has become a priority for the education system, some effort has been made to support children even earlier than that.  Early head start is a program to help pregnant women stay healthy and provide healthy family functioning (Morrison, 2007).  While these programs look like the problem solver on paper there are always children who are not reached that should be and need to be.  A Head Start program that feeds in the elementary school I have been teaching kindergarten in for five years has not yielded many results in helping these children enter school ready to learn or even understand their role in the school itself and the classroom.  Many administrators, politicians, and policy makers make decisions by thinking to throw a little extra money at helping the at-risk children catch up and that will fix all the problems, except to gain that extra money funding gets cut in other areas, such as class size, or support help, or basic supply money, affecting more children’s learning and possibly causing more children to fall behind.  Class size has been studied and has shown to affect children’s learning; it’s not just the teacher but the environment those children are being exposed to.  A classroom with 15-20 students can function much better than a classroom with 25-30 students.  With a classroom of 15-20 students the teacher is not stalled by as many children trying to gain attention and while working with small groups of children.  With a smaller class size the teacher can spend more quality time with each child and not feel the pressures to move on because the next student needs help also; while at the same time making sure every child is on task and handling any children who are not.

As a school teacher for almost twelve years, I have experienced decisions made by administrators and politicians with regards to the choices being made for children, however from the classroom point of view many of the positive choices, changes or suggestions are lost before actually entering the classroom.  Outcomes for children, their education and futures are lost on business decisions and the bottom line; money.  Education is not a business, in the respect that there are good and services.  Children cannot be treated like a box of cereal on the shelf, or a can of beans or corn, just waiting for someone to come and buy, human emotions and life situations play too much of a factor in the product being put out by the education system therefore the decisions being made about children cannot forget the human factor.  If children are not a foremost priority for any country, the country will have little hope for a future.  No one lives forever, so naturally children are the future for everything, and without them there will be no one to continue on and to pass on the heirloom of experience from a countries’ history.  Investing in children ensures the legacy for future politicians (Stoltenburg, 2006).  Knowing that children are the most important form of insurance for a future, children should be held with the utmost importance and respect above all else.  “Protecting our children is a moral and political imperative (Stoltenburg, 2006).” 

References

Emerson, L. (2010). The good life for children: Do we really care about the trends? Australian Journal of Social Issues, 101-115.

Howe, R. B., & Covell, K. (2009). Engaging children in citizenship education: A children's rights perspective. The Journal of Educational Thought, 21-44.

Morrison, G. S. (2007). Early childhood education today. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.

Ozawa, S., Stack, M. L., Bishai, D. M., Mirelman, A., Friberg, I. K., Niessen, L., et al. (2011). During the 'decade of vaccines,' the lives of 6.4 million children valued at $231 billion counld be saved. Health Affairs, 1010 - 1020.

Stoltenburg, J. (2006, September 18). Our children: The key to our common future. Retrieved December 3, 2011, from The Lancet: www.thelancet.com

What would they say now?

Jean Piaget, Howard Gardner, and Maria Montessori would be interesting dinner guests and could create an enlightening evening full of ideas and differing opinions with possible new solutions to current problems plaguing early childhood education.  Maria Montessori and Jean Piaget are very similar in their ideas that children develop in a sequential way, however they disagree on the timing of those stages.  Howard Gardner believes all children learn in their own ways and use seven different learning intelligences to increase their knowledge.  There are many issues plaguing early childhood education today, and it would be great to get the input from foundation experts on those issues and maybe develop solutions to help the children, parents, and educators of the United States. 

Three questions came to mind immediately when thinking about these experts and some of the problems plaguing our early childhood education system, and they are:

Do you believe a child’s development is changed because of the disintegration of the family unit and lack of family stability? 

Jean:    Learning and development are two different things.  Development is a physiological process that biology controls and learning is something that is provoked by external situations (Gauvin & Cole, 1997).  A child will continue to progress through developmental stages regardless of the adults in their life; however a child’s schemas and deferred imitation will be different (Morrison, 2007) from those children who come from a supportive, intact, loving home creating differing experiences to grow up with and influence future decisions.  A child’s idea of a father may be the man in their mothers’ life, not always knowing if that person will change and another child may view a father as the man who helps to raise them, love them, and stay with them no matter what.  The same could be said about a child’s ideas on education, maybe it only means graduating high school and maybe it means going on to college and getting a degree.  Some children’s’ deferred imitation will imitate poor choices that parents make, and other children imitate parents who make good choices; however gains can be made to make up for any lack of support from the home when the child enters the school setting.  A school/teacher/educator can help children who lack experience by exposing them to those experiences they have not come across in their home life.  By exposing children to the ‘missing’ experiences needed to create a better understanding of the world around them, gaps can be bridged that may have been created by the lack of family support.

Maria:  A child that is not exposed to as many experiences as a young child because of the lack of support from home or any other reason can make up those differences when they begin school as long as the teacher creates an environment to allow that child to experience and explore things they have not come across within their own home lives.  In a school setting, educators can give children the opportunity to explore things they would not normally be privy to at home which in turn helps the child broaden their knowledge base by becoming more aware of the world and how things may work outside of their home and family experiences.  Classrooms should be filled with children of multiple ages and learning abilities to provide the widest range of tools and hands on activities available for all children instead of only addressing the average need of most children (Morrison, 2007). 

Howard:  A child will not encounter the same kind of learning experiences as their peers causing distress for children trying to fit into just one learning style; as their life itself is ever changing, their learning styles can change.  As long as a child’s teacher offers a variety of ways for the child to attain and absorb knowledge being introduced to them, no matter their home life, the child will be given the opportunity to compensate for any voids in their knowledge base by being exposed to new experiences around other children and adults from differing backgrounds.   

Do you think the current increases in educational standards are developmentally appropriate?

Jean:    If children have not progressed far enough through their developmental stages, the outside influences will have little effect on the child until they are ready to absorb that information.  Children should not be pushed to reach learning goals before they are ready.  As young children they are only capable of learning to a certain level, until they have assimilated enough time and knowledge to move to the next level.  By increasing the amount of information a child is responsible for learning at earlier and earlier ages, children are becoming too stressed because of their inability to attain the level of knowledge being put in front of them, creating children who can possibly fall further and further behind in their learning and become distressed and dislike learning all together due to the frustration is causes.

Maria: Children should be exposed to all subjects and experiences as early in their lives as possible.  The more experiences and tools children are given to explore their world with the faster and better understanding they will have of the world around them and how things work.  The child will express their need for further education when they are ready, and the teacher needs to be waiting to be ready to introduce more information when the child is ready.  As children learn and grow, they should be allowed to move at their own pace and be given the time to thoroughly explore the information in front of them before being forced to move forward (Morrison, 2007).  A child should achieve deep understanding of what they are working with before being encouraged to move forward.  Young children should be given concrete tasks allowing them to manipulate their own discovery (Morrison, 2007), and not be expected to think outside of the box until they have mastered the box and its contents.  Children should be exposed to new experiences and concrete activities to further their education when they express the need for it and not just because of the chronological age (Morrison, 2007).  

Howard:  Developmentally appropriate is different for every child.  Young children learn in many ways which can change from day to day or task to task; the job of the teacher is to assure the availability for children to have multiple opportunities to foster and encourage their learning styles to develop while continuing to explore other learning styles (Morrison, 2007).  When the emphasis is on the amount of information a child should acquire or master by a specific time, children are not being allowed the freedom to use their own intelligence to increase their knowledge, but expected to learn as the rest of the students using one or two ways.  Children also need to be allowed to learn how to interact with other children and adults they will come into contact with by helping children to develop and strengthen their personal intelligences (Morrison, 2007), which may not be able to or encouraged to be developed in the home.  Children must be allowed to understand that just because they learn something a different way that their friend does not make it wrong, just different. 

Do you think the amount of standardized testing given to children provides educators with the best picture of their students’ learning?

Jean:    My whole theory is based on children’s observations of children and not forcing children to do things they do not naturally want to or know how to do.  The problem with standardized testing is the fact that it does not allow for explanation and reasoning behind the given answer.  Many times children come to a conclusion on an answer because of their experiences and knowledge base and with their justification the answer makes sense.  If a child is asked a question that is answered with an unconventional response, standardized testing would consider the answer wrong no matter if the child can defend their answer.  Children do not learn in black and white, they learn in all different methods and spaces of time.  Children cannot be expected to perform as their peers in all subjects and in the same amount of time (Fox & Roconscente, 2008).

Maria:  Children are best monitored by observing and analyzing their behavior for signs of understanding and further exploration (Morrison, 2007).  A standardized test will not allow children to be actively involved in their learning process but force them to learn something just for the test without making a connection or real meaning to their world around them.  Educators today will get more information from observing children’s experiences, and behaviors than sitting them down and asking questions expecting to hear one answer.  No two children are alike and no two children will learn and absorb their world in the same way, therefore a standardized test is not a fair judgment of their learning.  Children learning using their senses (Saracho & Spodek, 2009) and no two children’s senses work the same, so how can we expect children to be able to learn and be assessed in the same way and have reliable evidence of their learning progress?

Howard:  “Standardized tests that require only short answers present a situation that does not exist outside Of school; life does not present itself in multiple-choice formats (Gardner, 1994).”  Portfolio assessment gives an educator a much better picture of the learning achievements over time of a specific student.  Being able to show specific examples of how a child is learning or the pace a child is learning is more valuable than if the child can chose the correct letter to correspond to the answer they think the teacher is looking for.  Children should be able to demonstrate their use of knowledge in multiple ways (Gardner, 1994) and not just be able to recite back information they have been given.    Teachers need to give feedback to their students to allow them to better understand and more opportunities to learn and expand their knowledge (Gardner, 1994).

When thinking of three early childhood foundation experts to invite to a dinner party I thought of three people from differing time periods, thinking there would be more disagreements about education today; however in the end all three of these experts agree overall on the same topics.  Each theorist has their own differences in the small parts of early childhood development, but the overall feelings seem to make the same points.  Being able to explore and spend time with these experts and many more in the same party would be very exciting and I would not want the evening to end wanting to continue to pick their brains and work together to come up with possible solutions for the education crisis we are in here in the United Sates alone.  The policy makers in this country need to go back to the beginning and explore the knowledge of these experts and apply these theories in whole or part to help the children of this country and in turn the world.  The children of the United States are increasingly falling behind their peers in other countries and if the problems are not addressed and fixed the United States will no longer be able to compete in the global market putting our country at risk.

 
References

Fox, E., & Roconscente, M. (2008). Metacognitions, and self-regulation in James, Piaget, and Vygotsky. Education Psychology Review, 373-389.

Gardner, H. (1994, March). Interview with Howard Gardner: Educating for understanding. (J. Siegel, & M. F. Shaughnessy, Interviewers)

Gauvin, M., & Cole, M. (1997). Readings on the development of children. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.

Morrison, G. S. (2007). Early childhood education today. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.

Saracho, O. N., & Spodek, B. (2009). Educating the young mathematician: The twentieth century and beyond. Early Childhood Edcuation, 305-312.