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When Work is Play

Visit a developmentally appropriate primary school classroom and you're likely to see children engaged in play as a way of learning. Boys and girls write, read, draw, and manipulate objects at activity stations designed for hands-on learning. Materials such as scissors, glue, Play-Doh, sand, puzzles, crayons, paper, books, and blocks are easily accessible to all children.

STORY AND PHOTOS BY TONY KNEIDEK

You're likely to hear a low hum as children talk and work together. But in this classroom, noise is a good thing, evidence that children are engaged in their work and sharing ideas. The teacher may be in conference with a single child or working with a group of kids on a project. Occasionally, the entire class comes together. They might share a common lesson in reading and writing taught by the teacher. Or they might participate in author's corner, where children share their work with classmates. You'll even hear them singing to ease transitions and build community.

Spelling is taught in the context of reading and writing. And reading and writing are taught by…well, by reading and writing. Gone are the straight-and-narrow rows of desks, color-in-the-lines stencils, dittos, worksheets, and teacher-directed lessons on just about everything.

But even in such a child-centered environment, problems exist. Look into the eyes of the children—in nearly any school, anywhere—and you're likely to see hunger as well as nourishment, poverty as well as wealth, abuse as well as good health. And those problems are intensified in areas of high poverty, in neighborhoods where violence flares nightly, in communities fractured by indifference and neglect, and in classrooms with upwards of 35 or 40 students, many of them at-risk or learning disabled.

These early years, the years in which children shine and show so much promise, are increasingly the years in which children begin a slide into lifelong failure. Consider, for example, these findings as reported in Years of Promise: A Comprehensive Learning Strategy for America's Children by the Carnegie Corporation:

It needn't be this way. "No one has all the answers yet," note the authors of Years of Promise. "But enough is now known about learning and development in children between the ages of three and 10 to begin making significant progress in improving the education of every child. What needs to happen now is to put this knowledge and wisdom to work, within and across the sectors, on a large enough scale to make significant improvement in children's educational achievement nationwide."

A Changing World

Children are naturally curious about their surroundings and anxious to learn about all they see, touch, hear, feel, and smell. Ironically, children today are performing about as well as their parents and teachers who were in classrooms 25 years ago. And some groups of children, notably African Americans, are performing better than ever before, though they still lag behind their European American classmates.

So if kids are on par with their parents, what's the problem? The problem is that too many kids are being prepared for a world that no longer exists. Imagine going to your job with only the tools you used 25 years ago. Sure, you'd be on par with those who preceded you, but you'd be light years away from the technological and workplace advances that have taken place in the last quarter-century.

And so it is with schools. The old skills taught in lecture-listen format no longer serve the purposes of learners, the needs of society, or the goals of the country as a whole. Children today need to develop skills in critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and technology.

"The United States of the 21st century will require a much more highly educated and skilled population than it has now if it is to maintain future prosperity and ensure democratic renewal," the authors of Years of Promise report. "No longer can the American education system allow so many young people to fall short of their academic promise."

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in state Departments of Education have adopted a set of guiding principles on appropriate curriculum for children from three to eight years old. They are:

Issues of Diversity Must Be Addressed

The American education system is a reflection of the larger society. As such, it must address a raft of issues that were in large part ignored or manipulated by previous generations. School boundaries can no longer be drawn to exclude all but White children. Those with learning disabilities or handicapping conditions have been moved into mainstream classrooms. More children are coming to school hungry, abused, and neglected than in previous decades.

Diversity in the classroom brings with it a host of issues and requires that teachers reevaluate their strategies to ensure that the needs of all children are being met.

"The 'practice of freedom' is fundamental to antibias education," writes Louise Derman-Sparks in Anti-Bias Curriculum: Tools for Empowering Young Children. "Curriculum goals are to enable every child to construct knowledgeable, confident self-identity; to develop comfortable, empathetic, and just interaction with diversity; and to develop critical thinking and the skills for standing up for oneself and others in the face of injustice."

All children, notes Derman-Sparks, are affected by the "prevailing bias in U.S. society." As a result, the strategies teachers use must address the different needs of different children. For example, children of color must "develop both a strong self-identity and a proud and knowledgeable group identity to withstand the attacks of racism," Derman-Sparks writes. "In contrast, White children's task is to develop a positive identity without White ethnocentricism and superiority."

And teachers of color, notes researcher, writer, and educator Lisa Delpit, must be included and heard in any discussions regarding educational reform. This has not been the case thus far, she asserts in Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom.

"It is time to look closely at elements of our educational system, particularly those elements we consider progressive; time to see whether there is minority involvement and support, and if not, to ask why; time to reassess what we are doing in public schools and universities to include other voices, other experiences; time to seek the diversity in our educational movements that we talk about seeking in our classrooms. …The key is to understand the variety of meanings available for any human interaction, and not to assume that the voices of the majority speak for all."

Messages about diversity are not always welcome in public school classrooms and may be difficult for teachers to integrate into their classroom strategies. School boards may balk at implementing new curricula that focus on the strengths of different cultures, genders, and ethnicities. Parents may object to new ways of doing things. Administrators may not be supportive. And teachers themselves may be uncomfortable with the social change that is at the heart of anti-bias curriculum.

"Nevertheless, it is worth the hard work," says Derman-Sparks. "Through anti-bias curriculum, teachers enable every child to achieve the ultimate goal of early childhood education: the development of each child to her or his fullest potential."

The Role of DAP

Many involved in educating children from three to eight years old embrace the developmentally appropriate practices detailed by the NAEYC. "Development is a truly fascinating and wonderful phenomenon," the NAEYC notes in Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth Through Age Eight. "It is not something to be accelerated or skipped. One period of childhood or aspect of development is not better or more important than another; each has its own tasks to accomplish."

The NAEYC notes that there are two dimensions of developmental appropriateness: age and individual. "Simply stated," the organization noted recently, "this term means that the teacher's expectations and classroom activities are safe and achievable by children of the age span, and that the learning activities are implemented giving attention to the different needs, interests, and developmental levels of individual children."

It is not a dogmatic approach, but a research-based set of beliefs about how children learn best. What DAP does, the NAEYC says, is:

Of course, education alone cannot meet the growing and varied needs of children and families. Increasingly, schools and other institutions—health organizations, social service agencies, churches, and other community organizations—are looking for ways to work together to benefit children and families. "Children and families benefit from comprehensive strategies on many levels," write the authors of Putting the Pieces Together: Comprehensive School-Linked Strategies for Children and Families. "They get help facing immediate challenges, learn lifelong methods for improving their own circumstances, gain access to an integrated and streamlined system of continuous human development, and become better able to participate in their own learning." The U.S. Department of Education publication notes that comprehensive services:

Keying in on Fun

Look at me, look at me,
Look at me now.
It is fun to have fun,
But you have to know how.
—Dr. Seuss

Visit a primary classroom where developmentally appropriate practices are being employed in effective ways, and you'll most likely see children having fun while they're learning. "A growing body of research has emerged recently affirming that children learn most effectively through a concrete, play-oriented approach to early childhood education," the NAEYC notes. "Children's play is a primary vehicle for and indicator of their mental growth. Play enables children to progress along the developmental sequence from the sensorimotor intelligence of infancy to preparational thought in the preschool years to the concrete operational thinking exhibited by primary children. In addition to its role in cognitive development, play also serves important functions in children's physical, emotional, and social development. Therefore, child-initiated, child-directed, teacher-supported play is an essential component of developmentally appropriate practice."

Resource Notes: Other helpful publications include Other People's Children by Lisa Delpit, The New York Press, Developmentally Appropriate and Culturally Responsive Education: Theory in Practice by Rebecca Novick, NWREL, and Invitations: Changing as Teachers and Learners K-12 by Regie Routman, Heinemann Educational Books.

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