Let's be clear that I am focusing on the 2-6 years old age group (though much of this can be applied to older kids too with some adjustment) - this is not a time for formal education, it is not a time for coerced 'learning', it is not a time to compete. This is a time where as an adult, you must 'let go' and trust the process. Many pedagogical theorists have demonstrated that play is serious business for young children. It is a crucial part of their psychological, social and physical development. And yet we adults don't seem to take it very seriously.
I hate labels. They are almost always harmful in any situation but particularly so when it comes to our youngest people on the planet. I am so very sad at seeing toddlers and young children labelled and even more so since they are nearly always applied to them when they display NORMAL child behaviour.
Child gets up to explore a corner of the room - child won't sit still. Child begins to play with an object - child won't pay attention. Child is excited and running around - child is hyperactive. Child gets angry and frustrated - child is out of control. Child sometimes has difficulty expressing himself verbally - child's speech development is delayed. Child can't colour in the lines - child is not 'ready'. Child doesn't connect the dots - child is not as advanced as the others.
These are the words that were used to describe my friend's 3 year old son last week. She called me in distress. I said, your son is fine, in fact he is better than fine, he's amazing. The system and the expectations of the preschool are NOT. Don't let them make you lose trust in your son.
This is how I see it:
Child gets up to explore a corner of the room - child is curious and motivated to learn. Child begins to play with an object - child is formulating ideas and testing them. Child is excited and running around - child is happy to be here and wants to engage with life: he's 3. Child gets angry and frustrated - child is feeling normal human emotions and he's 3. Child sometimes has difficulty expressing himself verbally - child is so excited to tell me something his mouth can't keep up! And he's 3. Child can't colour in the lines - child is being creative and exploring colour. And he's 3. Child doesn't connect the dots - child is practicing his fine motor skills, which is great, he's 3!
This all too common incident happened in Morocco, where I live. The educational culture (like in much of the world) is rigid, narrow and results focused. And is therefore competitive - pitting child against child. Yes even in preschool (as you can see from the examples above). In many cases the school's primary concern is the satisfaction of the parents (since they're the fee payers) and not the best interests of the child. I witnessed this first hand when I took my daughter to a well known pre-school in Marrakech for the day.
The children were given a drawing of a foot and were going to paint it. There was ONE colour to paint with: pink (forgetting the children that have brown or black skin in the class). They were only allowed to do it one at a time (the other children had to sit quietly and wait) and the teacher held their hand while they painted to physically direct and control the child's movements. *Maybe I'm overly emotional but I still tear up thinking about this, you can imagine my shock on the day.* Just so the teachers could present perfect artwork to the parents at the end of the day - forget the fact the child had no chance to be creative, to practice their fine motor skills or to even feel in control of their own body! I hope I'm not alone in feeling so passionate about how counter productive and harmful these kind of attitudes are. What makes it even harder to understand is that the teachers were perfectly nice, kind people doing what they thought was best, but they could not see the damage they were doing, they could not see the boredom and confusion in the children's eyes.
That was a hard day for me. There was so much more I experienced that day that will be the subject of another post, I'm sure.
But it is not entirely the fault of the preschools or the system. It is also our expectations as parents. Speaking with another parent about learning options in Marrakech, she complained about her child's preschool since her son 'had learnt nothing' while he was there. Her child is four. Now I will confidently say that it is impossible for a 4 year old to go a whole day, let alone a whole year, and learn nothing. But she wanted visible, reproducible results. I'm not quite sure what she expected - maybe alphabet and number recognition, maybe an early start to reading, maybe some basic addition - but her emphasis was that this was what the preschool should be making her child do. So she was going to find somewhere more rigourous, more serious.
Well for a four year old, nothing could be more serious than play. It's not their fault that we as adults don't get that, but unfortunately they do suffer for it if we don't. As adults we make so many assumptions about the way children learn that research has shown are incorrect: getting an early start to reading and writing: the sooner the better, right? WRONG. Research has shown that children who start formal schooling later do better - look at Sweden, Finland and Denmark. Montessori and others have shown that the 2-6 year old age is a highly sensitive time and needs to be treated with great respect, understanding and flexibility. Forcing letter and number recognition does not do this and is harmful. Children exploring numbers and letters by themselves and asking questions independently is great but it's also great if they don't - trust them, they'll be learning about something else important.
It's time to trust in our children. Really think about that. Do you trust your child to be interested in the world around them? To ask questions, to explore? They don't need to be sitting quietly in a classroom to learn. They don't need to have an adult tell them what they need to know and how to know it. They don't need to have a list of goals or targets to reach. They don't need parents competing with each other about how early their child began to read or write. They just need you to trust them.
Let them play. Trust them, they're learning.
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