Kindergarten teacher: Don’t blame us if your kids are overworked. It isn’t our fault.
I published a post the other day titled, “Parent: No, my kindergartner won’t be doing that homework assignment,” by a mother of three, Cara Paiuk, who wrote:
I just can’t imagine prioritizing homework with my 5-year-old son when I feel it’s more important we spend time together as a family, nurture our children, or let the kids play together.
That followed a number of other Answer Sheet posts in the last few years about how kindergarten has changed from a year in which young children learn largely through play to one that is focused on academics and tests.
In many places, kindergartners now go with very little — or no — physical education, recess, art and music. Parents have complained, and so have kindergarten teachers, who say they feel as if they are being forced to present curriculum and lessons to kids before they are ready in this era of standardized test-based reform. In this 2014 post, for example, a kindergarten teacher in Massachusetts named Susan Sluyter explained that her job had become all about “tests and data — not children” and that is why she had decided to quit.
Paiuk’s post prompted a response from teachers, including a 24-year educator named Valerie E. Hardy who has taught children in kindergarten through grade 4 — 16 years for Garden Grove Unified School District in California, and the rest for Cherry Creek Schools in Colorado. She has been a master teacher for countless student teachers, as well as a new-teacher mentor, and has been Kindergarten teacher: Don’t blame us if your kids are overworked. It isn’t our fault. - The Washington Post:
