Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 12, 1990 TAG: 9006120379
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Call it what you want; a philosophy of teaching that makes learning fun, creative and a confidence-booster beats the heck out of today's prevailing pushiness. In Virginia public schools, 5-year-olds are somberly subjected to workbooks, flashcards and memorization drills, and kindergarteners who can't make the grade are failed.
State education officials are promoting developmental kindergarten as the desired curricular focus beginning next year, and that's none too soon. The schools for too long have ignored evidence that kindergarteners learn best through play, hands-on activities and direct experience.
Even worse is the schools' rush to flunk kindergarteners, whatever euphemism they employ to obscure the fact. ("Retention" is the preferred term nowadays.) Five-year-olds aren't dumb. They know if they're being held back. The retention policy permanently separates them from their peers and fosters a sense of failure that will follow them always. It's a dumb policy.
In Roanoke County, 8.7 percent of kindergarteners failed the 1988-89 school year - more students than failed grades first through fifth. That says nothing so much about failing kindergarteners as it does about a failing school system. Roanoke City's retention rate is lower, but still far too high at 6.7 percent.
Kindergarten sets the stage for the rest of schooling. Whatever arithmetic or letters are imparted then, children must be taught above all that they can be successful learners. Holding back a child teaches precisely the opposite lesson, with potentially devastating effect. In a recent Virginia study, children interviewed said the only thing more stressful than retention would be going blind or losing a parent.
It's all done with the best of intentions, of course. Kindergarteners are retained to avoid hurrying them, to protect them from failure in first grade if they're not ready. This is a misguided and perverse beneficence, discredited by mounds of research.
If the problem is pushy parents, tell them they'd do better by their kids to push for developmentally appropriate teaching. If kindergarteners are being retained because they're too young, don't admit them until they're older. If they're held back because they are not ready for a heavily academic first grade, then offer remedial help, and adjust the first grade.
Obviously, educational standards shouldn't be relaxed. Children aren't learning enough as it is. There is, however, no neat dichotomy between developmental learning and academics. The question is how best to teach needed skills, and the issue is a matter of emphasis.
A renewed emphasis on learning in kindergarten through direct experience, rather than memorization - and a message from on high to reject failed retention policies - are developments as welcome as they are overdue in Virginia public schools.
by CNB