Kindergarten

The other night we had are son, Brandon, and one of his long time friends, Josh, over for dinner. Now that these guys our grown up it is nice to sit around talking to them. I love hearing their perspective on life. I know Brandon had hated school. He struggled academically, got in trouble for silly things and never really fit in socially. What I didn't know was that Josh hated school as well. I always thought he liked school. After all, he got good grades, the school never had to call his parents and him seemed to have a full social life. In fact in high school he and Brandon grow apart and I always thought it was because of their high school experiences. Both boys did admit that they had liked kindergarten. This is not the first time I have heard comments like this from young people or children, so started to think about why kindergarten is so different for the other grade levels. Besides the fact that kindergarten is only half day it seems that the main difference is the attitude of the teaching staff and the forgiveness of the other students.

Kindergarten teachers stand by the door and greet each student as they come in the room. Often, they shake each hand and ask how the student is. This doesn't happen in the later grades, in fact in older classrooms students are expected to come in on their own and start some kind of busy work that is designed to keep them in their seats not interacting with others. Kindergarten teachers encourage students to interact. These teachers feel it is their job to teach students how to interact with each other. Kindergarten teachers encourage play. These classrooms come equipped with play house, block, puppets and other toys designed to get students to interact with each other. The students sit in large groups that promote working together and socializing. Because socializing in encouraged, students work and learn together.

After kindergarten we begin to encourage independence. Students begin to develop skills at different rate which is when some students begin to feel bad about their abilities. Groups of cliques start to form. The students who can't sit still for the six hours of school start to stand out as somehow different or even bad. If you are slow to learn to read you begin to feel left out. If you are not good at athletics you begin to lose social standing. These pressures grow all through elementary school. When student get to middle school, physical appearance becomes important. Kids with eight issues begin to get ostracized or even picked on. Wearing the right clothes becomes almost paramount to survival. Teachers become frustrated with the students who do not fit the mold and the other students know what students are easy marks for trouble. Kids break into more finite social groups. There is no changing your social status in middle school. If your a trouble maker you are always ion the office with the other trouble makers. The kids who get in trouble have to miss socials and field trips. They see each other in Saturday school, leaving together to go to the mall. The lines are drawn. many kids just try to go unnoticed. They stay out of extracurricular actives and hope that the bullies or popular people just leave them alone. if they are lucky the find one or two other students they have common ground with. Even many of the so called successful students I have talked to find that fitting in is painful. many of these students do things they regret just so they can hang with the in crowd.

How do we fix this. First, we need to focus on connecting with each student. It would be nice if every child got a handshake and a nice to see you before they enter the classroom each day. Second we cannot drop social training in kindergarten and we cannot continue to segregate students who need to learn more social skills. All students deserve to be included in the fun activities school has to offer. Last, each child needs to feel valued for who they are regardless of their abilities.

So to Josh and Brandon; Thank you for sharing your stories and feelings with me. I promise to remember how you felt in school and will always try to reach every child.