Michael Swickard
“Five rules of education: First engage their curiosity and then give them the tools to satisfy that curiosity. While doing so students must enjoy the passage of time. All curricular and instructional experiences must be correct for their brain development and students must retain their basic human dignity at all times.” – Michael Swickard
There is a great evil in our schools perpetuated for political rather than educational reasons. Many who embrace this evil are good people not realizing the harm they cause. Namely, we no longer treat young students just entering our schools humanely. Specifically, kindergarten students are treated inappropriately for their age.
We must band together to restore the humanity to kindergarten. It will take our voices and feet. First, it takes seeing the problem. The Swickard Axiom: Never use a political solution for a non-political problem, especially in education.
In the last 25 years political leaders have completely overpowered educational leaders. Politicians contend educators are not rigorous enough. Education must be as tough as Marine basic training. School is not supposed to be fun and it is not. This is counter to my rules of education and counter to all published research.
Politicians demand dramatically more paperwork, which turns teachers into record clerks and takes time from teaching. School administration in the last 25 years is perhaps five times bigger without increasing student success.
But then they decided to destroy kindergarten.
The children’s garden made toxic
In the last 10 years educational leaders have destroyed a cherished institution, kindergarten. Translated, the name kindergarten means the children’s garden, a place where they can grow. Kindergarten was one of the few things that public schools did well. No longer is this true since the garden has been made toxic by people who lack the understanding of children and how they mature.
When kindergarten was introduced into the public schools, the core outcome for students was to transition from home individual learning to group learning. As my quote says, students must enjoy the passage of time. It does not have to be a carnival, but what students do must engage their curiosity and they must enjoy the process. Further, it has to be brain-appropriate, and herein is the problem in the schools today.
Kindergarten was best when it was only half a day. All-day kindergarten is too much for students at that age. Brain research supports this question of how much to teach to young children. Technically, the issue involves data consolidation, the long-term memory of learned skills and data that comes with sleep. The data to be converted is temporarily stored in the emotional area of the brain’s limbic system and then transferred to long-term memories in sleep. Older students can handle more data to be stored and transferred, while at age five it is a small amount.
Also there is the issue of brain development. Young minds are not mature minds. The leader of education in the world, Finland, starts their students at age seven to ensure most students have adequate development of the frontal lobe of the brain, which is where the formal operations of the mind are conducted.
‘I sure do love school’
In short, trying to teach information that requires formal logic is impossible until the student’s brain is ready. Herein is the problem. Kindergarten was a place where children came and worked on gross and fine motor skills, one-step memory data such as colors, numbers and the alphabet, sang songs, danced, played games that stimulated their brains, and went home saying, “I sure do love school.”
It was half of a day, which matched the brain transfer storage ability and formal development ability. Alas, political needs required kindergarten to be changed to all day so more teachers could be hired. Leaders reasoned incorrectly that starting earlier would give the students an advantage. It does not, as Finland understands. “How the Brain Learns,” by David Sousa, focuses on what educators need to know about brain development.
Teachers who see this harm done to young students have been hushed by their political leaders. Therefore, we citizens must band together to rescue kindergarten students from the inappropriate demands made upon them for political reasons. Join me – michael@swickard.com – in forming an organization to restore kindergarten.
Swickard is co-host of the radio talk show News New Mexico, which airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. His e-mail address is michael@swickard.com.