Getting Curriculum Back on Track

I do not have a degree in Early Childhood Education, nor do I have any formal training in correct ECE practices. However, I do have compulsive reading disorder (I made up the term myself) and a little streak of perfectionism. (Unfortunately, although this streak applies to parenting - which has caused me no end of grief and anxiety - it does not apply to household management as the state of my house can attest to). So, when I was hired to be a preschool teacher, I read everything I could (the National Association for the Education of Young Children has a great magazine) and learned a lot from my principals and co-teacher (who were ECE trained). To give you a glimpse of how little I knew, my New Zealand co-teacher (who is the best preschool teacher I have ever met) asked me during my first week if I knew "The Wiggles." I had no idea what she was talking about. I'm surprised that she didn't recommend my dismissal right then and there. Luckily, she put up with my ineptitude and actually told me at the end of the year that I was the best co-teacher she had ever had.

I, too, discovered that the best teaching assistants are the ones with no formal training or experience with other preschools. They are the hardest workers and the most willing to learn because they appreciate the fact that you gave them a chance despite their lack of education. I was the same way. I worked at school everyday from 8-6, with a half hour break to eat lunch with my husband, then went home and often worked until 10pm. By my second year, I knew a lot more, and only rarely had to take work home.

As a mother, I have kept up with current ECE practices and so it wasn't too difficult to get back into teaching this past semester. I had heard that many things had changed at the school before coming, and I knew that without a principal, curriculum would be dictated by the parents (ie. memorize as much English vocabulary as possible and learn to read by age four). And that is exactly what was happening. As I knew that I would only be at the school for a few months, I consciously decided not to get involved with what was going on in the other classes. I would do the best I could for my little ones and educate their parents about what was really important for children to learn at this age (ie. social skills, independence, creativity, problem solving skills) and that would be it.

My resolve started weakening after that terrible PD day. I started giving more and more little impromptu lessons to any teachers and staff that seemed interested. Again, it was those with the least formal training who were the most receptive. I finally sat down with the owner and talked about my concerns about the school. She wondered why it had taken me so long. Then, she started going through all the excuses about how parents were more demanding now and there was so much more competition than four years ago. Personally, I think the parents are exactly the same, but we've just started giving into them more because there wasn't a strong principal in place to defend our practices. And yes, there is more competition now, but in such an environment, you find a way to differentiate yourself, and from my point of view, the school was heading in the opposite direction. They were becoming more and more like all the other preschools, but still charging double the amount. No wonder enrollment had fallen. Of course, I couldn't really say those things, so I offered to do what I could in the little time I had left.

The first thing was to prepare a workshop on the value of quality, free, unstructured play. Even in North America this is something that is being pushed out of preschools in favour of more "educational" curriculums (with emphasis on reading and math skills), despite all the research that shows that this is unnecessary and even harmful. All parents want to give their child a head start, and teaching children reading and math skills does give them an advantage when they start school. However, this advantage disappears sometime between grades three and six. Why? Because the older children get, the more mature they get, and they develop skills that help them learn these academic subjects faster. Thus, while it may take hundreds if not thousands of hours to teach a three or four year old to read, a seven year old will take a fraction of that time, and by the time they're both ten, they'll probably be reading at exactly the same level. It's a mistaken belief held by many parents that if their kids start out behind, that they'll always be behind.

Just as I learned in university that research has shown that the best age to learn a second language is at age 13 (unless of course, you're brought up in a bilingual home). The only advantage to learning a language while young is that your pronunciation will be better. Thinking about it, it makes sense. Little kids have little vocabularies. They use the same few hundred words over and over and it takes a lot of exposure (or a high level of interest) for them to learn new ones. The kids in Kindergarten spoke like natives (well, two of them were...), but they probably only knew a couple of hundred English words. Most of them had been in the school for three if not four years for a minimum of six hours a day. Now, if a 13 year old spent the same number of hours learning a second language, he would be able to read, write and converse using thousands of words, because he has much better concentration and study skills.

But, if we're not teaching them reading and math, why should parents pay for them to go to preschool? Simple. For them to learn all the other life skills that were (once upon a time) learned from siblings and other neighbourhood kids while playing. Research has shown that the quality of children's play has decreased dramatically in the past few decades. This can be attributed to TV, fancy toys, smaller families and less free time (not necessarily in that order). And by quality play, I mean imaginative and creative play involving many different skill sets.

Okay. Enough of the ramble. It is now December 2008 and I have still not finished this blog, mostly because I've been too caught up on my high horse with this post. So, to actually get back to what I did in Taiwan...

I prepared my workshop and had about three hours worth of material that I tried to fit into one. After a little over an hour, I asked if they wanted to continue, and everyone agreed. By the end, they were all thoroughly convinced that the children needed to play more and that we needed to do more to promote a higher quality of play at every age level. Too bad I know that everything I taught will have been forgotten within the month, and I won't be there to keep things on track. You can only do so much when you're an ocean apart...