But nonetheless, I did not like that scab one little bit and guess what--not only was Scab Girl in my class, but by the time the day was halfway over, she'd picked it till it bled and already been sent to the school nurse. Oh. My. Word. By the following year, I was picking up frequent flyer miles in that same school nurse's office because my classroom was a wee bit louder than my sound-sensitive-anxious ears could tolerate and I got nauseous from the nerves and more nauseous when I thought about how nervous being nauseous made me feel.
Yup, I was a Nervous Nellie. I also had great teachers in those early years. My kindergarten day was only half a day. There was a dramatic play space in the room. I played House with Charlie Sullivan. He said I could be his servant. See that? I learned a new vocabulary word through play. Also, Charlie Sullivan was not very nice once I realized what a servant was...and he smelled like pretzels...and I didn't touch a pretzel again for years. Years.
Fast forward to over a decade of teaching in preschool classrooms and seeing children transition to kindergarten. And seeing kindergarten transition! There is no such thing as half day kindergarten anymore. I've visited a lot of kindergarten classrooms and they are full of rows of desks. They are still colorful rooms, whimsical even, sometimes almost magical. But there is no mistaking it--these are classrooms and not playrooms. And often, as a preschool teacher, I run into former students of mine. I always ask them what their favorite thing about kindergarten is. The three most common answers I've received over the years are: "I don't know." "The playground." and "Lunch." The verdict is still out on "I don't know," but it's clear to me that the children who most enjoy the playground and lunch are enthralled by escapes from the classroom, not activities within it. Why is play an exclusion to learning rather than a manifestation of it?
Walking in the hallway of the S's future school, I looked at the walls covered in beautifully illustrated stories and equally beautifully inventive spelling. I saw a huge fish in a tank and wondered how anyone can keep a goldfish alive so long... I looked around, slightly nervously, for Scab Girl. *shudder* And then it was time to walk into the classroom. What's the first thing I saw? A kitchen set, some baby dolls and a neatly set Shabbat table in the corner of the classroom. And I breathed the sigh of relief I've been holding in since 1989 as I watched that kindergarten line file into the building.
I don't honestly worry that my children will lack for opportunities to play growing up in this house. But I do worry for the message they receive outside of these walls that there is no value in play. That it is what we do when we are done with work or learning rather than a meaningful and relevant part of it. When play is taken out of learning, the joy is lost. And if this is the message we receive as early as kindergarten, how does it affect the remainder of schooling to come? Or our relationships to our work later in life? When children "hate school" by the first grade, it does not leave much hope for their relationship to learning in the many years to follow.
And as we see this crisis as parents and educators, we look for directions in which to point our finger. It's the standards imposed on teachers--the necessity of "teaching to the test." It's that "today's children are different." It's that we need more of an interest in science, technology, engineering and math. It's that our children must be reading by 7. And there's an app that can do that. Or a toy. Or a television show. Whose responsibility is it to teach our children anyway? The government? Their school teachers? The iPad? Conversations in early childhood education centers have shifted from looking for signs that children are ready to learn to implementing "skills" so children are ready for kindergarten. Where they must prepare to be ready for first grade. And there, middle school...high school...college...the "real world."
When you are little, all you want is to be big. In the beginning, that kitchen set and those baby dolls and that neatly set Shabbat table in the corner of a room are a safe and magical space where you can be big right now, without waiting. But then you begin to intuit that these moments of being big, of being a "real person" in the "real world" are just that--moments. And you are not big, so maybe you are not real. In fact, to be big, to be real, you have to know things. You have to do things. You have to learn things and show that you've learned them, sitting still, filling in bubbles, walking in line, following leaders ever focused on the next thing ahead, never in this moment. And time becomes elusive. If this moment is about next year and next year is about the rest of my life, what is the point of this moment at all? And you start to question. Will this be on the final? When will I need this in "real life?" And we aren't the driver behind our learning, someone, something else is.
And there is a huge amount of option overload out there. I am someone who struggles with commitment issues on the toilet paper aisle and now I'm supposed to chose my child's elementary school?! Do we want public or private? Montessori inspired or project based learning? This extracurricular or that one? And the noise of options and opinions both sought and unsolicited is loud enough to send me back to the nurse's office feeling nauseous because maybe I have been picking at a 30 year old scab and just now, it's started bleeding. But there, in that little, slightly musty kindergarten classroom, in the corner, is a kitchen set, some baby dolls and a neatly set Shabbat table. There, in that room where my little guy will feel so big and so real is a space where he will know that play is enough. Play is enough. Play is enough.
There is a man who comforted me greatly through the television screen and in books as a child and still does to this day: Fred Rogers. Say what you will about his sweaters, but Mister Rogers calmed and quelled my childhood concerns and curiosities and now, he does the same for me as an adult. When he would speak to parents of young children about early education, he would site 6 signs that children were ready to learn. In what takes up pages upon pages of literature that states and schools must follow, Fred Rogers was able to sum up in 6 simple sentiments. Children are ready to learn when they display:
- self worth
- trust
- curiosity
- the capacity to listen and look carefully
- the capacity to play
- the ability to be in solitude, to be alone with oneself
That's it. Six simple sentiments. To carry you from the womb into the room. From the home into the school yard. From classroom to classroom, kindergarten desk to office desk. Six qualities to guide you through a lifetime of learning and one of those six is the capacity to play. There will be a lot of teachers in our children's lives from crib to cubicle. Some of them will be amazing. Fred Rogers is one of my amazing teachers and I've had (and G-d willing, will have) many others. However, I'd argue that the greatest guide to a life of success is the motivation to achieve it--the love of learning that fuels and drives the desire to continue that into a lifelong endeavor.
So, Hooked on Phonics or ABC Mouse? BOB Books or Owl Readers? Common CORE or No Child Left Behind? SSR or STEAM? I don't have the answers and honestly, I don't think anyone does. What I do have is a spark of joy left when it comes to learning and a sense of inherent value in that joy that was instilled in me 30 years ago because I sat at a desk for the first time and took my first standardized test and I also played House with Charlie Sullivan. And those were both equally valued parts of my school day. Play was enough. Play is enough. For the love of learning, let the play!
Happy Playing!
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