Thoughts About Kindergarten

 

Thoughts About Kindergarten

I read parts of an article this week about the problems being experienced with online Kindergarten and how to help teachers deal with that particular age group.  As you can see from the picture above, Kindergarten is all about active learning.  It is all about helping the young people explore their environment and learn how to function in a classroom of others like them.  In one of the books I've read over the years, an expression used to describe teachers engaged in teaching in their closed classrooms was that they were like kindergarteners engaged in parallel play.  When kids enter school, they are very much centred on playing with themselves and kindergarten is all about getting them to learn to engage with each other and become ready for the years of schooling to come.  So how does that translate into online learning when schools are forced to stay close because of the pandemic?  It occurred to me that what ought to be taking place is not interacting with the students but interacting with their parents and giving them tips on how to help begin the important school journey confronting their young ones.  I thought that the teacher could have a blog where he or she posts ideas on how to keep the kindergartener engaged and what a typical kindergartener should be able to do and how to engage them in rudimentary math and language learning.  It might also mean a lot of emails back and forth and sharing of resources.  One has to assume that if they are that young, the parents or a parent is at home with the student or maybe even a grandparent and dealing with that age group as students rather than offspring is very complicated but so crucial to future development.  As I am writing this, school boards ought to have professionals online all day who are there to consult with parents not with students.  So many questions arise that require professional knowledge, no matter what the age.  We have, forever, taught teachers-in-training that the parents are our partners in the educational process. But when you read articles about online learning, it is all about the kids. Of course it is hard, very hard, but that is because making the leap from parent to teacher is not easy and parents need coaching really no matter what the age of the child. Communicating with parents on a regular basis would also send a signal to ther parents that they are not alone, that a professional educator is available to consult with when a parent is not sure how to proceed. Having been a consultant myself, I don't see that that would be so difficult to transition to.  It is not that much different from helping teachers know what to do than helping parents know what to do and sharing that information with teachers.  I sometimes get there feeling that not enough educators are thinking outside the box.  Since it looks like we are going to have our ups and downs, lockdowns and opening ups, for a least another six months, school boards need to think out of the box lest we lose a whole year of schooling for our kids. We are already seeing the strains on that now.