It’s been a while since we looked at education here at The Sojournal. As mentioned in the past, I am involved in the education system and have a real interest in improving educational outcomes. I’ve commented previously on the train wreck that is the New Zealand education system. Years of intervention seem to have done nothing to stop the slide. Now we have new entrant teachers voicing concern that an increasing number of children are unprepared for school when they arrive. They struggle to ‘concentrate or manage basic tasks like getting ready for lessons’. One teacher lamented that when she began her career she would have all her new entrants reading by the end of the year whereas now she’s trying to get them ‘into the mode of how to behave in a school.’
Attention spans are shorter and new entrant children cannot follow simple sets of instructions. Some schools have moved to cater for these children by becoming more like kindergartens – catering to children who just want to play. No doubt this will just pass the buck on to the poor upper primary, intermediate and eventually high school teachers.
What is causing this is debated in the article. But what I find particularly interesting is a fact that is quoted from the 2018 census data. Nine out of ten children attend an early childhood education centre before school. That’s a pretty high percentage compared to life when I was growing up when educational standards were much higher.
For years now, there have been calls to get more children into ECE centres because this is apparently crucial if we want to raise educational achievement. In 2007 Labour introduced the 20 hours ‘free’ ECE policy. Prime Minister Helen Clark outlined her rationale. “We firmly believe that cost should not stand in the way of providing access to quality early childhood education.” Children who didn’t have access to Early Childhood Education were supposedly at risk of failing educationally. Clark said, “A child who attends ECE has a much better chance of succeeding in school and later in life.” But it would seem, at least from the anecdotal evidence from experienced new entrant teachers that things are getting worse, not better. No surprise that we’ve no doubt spent millions on this policy without any evidence that it is having a significant positive impact on education.
It’s almost as if (and if you are easily offended or a feminist – but I repeat myself – you should stop reading at this point) young children thrive when their Mum is spending daily time with them rather than chasing a career and trying to ‘have it all’. It’s almost as if the body God has given women matches their normal intended vocational calling. It’s almost as if there is an order to the creation and we can’t create our own reality.
As a family, we sent our first children to preschool, but as things moved to a less structured and more play-based approach, we saw less and less value in it. Our younger children have never attended and I don’t see that they are any worse off in terms of readiness for learning than other children.
Here are my suggestions for helping your preschool child prepare for learning.
- If at all possible, Mum needs to be at home with the children, playing with them, baking with them, taking them to the park, doing art activities and doing the things mums used to do. No one can replace a mum. Quality time is quantity time. The first five years of life are really important.
- Read to your children every day. Just before bed is a great time to do this.
- Discipline your children. Be stern and expect good behaviour. To learn at school, a child has to have a certain amount of self-discipline. This is the product of training. One way that we have found helpful is taking our children to church. In many churches, children are sent out, but we like to keep our children with us because we worship the Lord as a family. This has the added benefit of being a training opportunity which helps our children learn to sit still and quietly.
- Give your children responsibilities. From age 2, we make our children sweep the floor around the dining table, and all children who can walk must help in the daily tidy up. Four-year-olds can make their beds – maybe not to the most exacting standards, but allow them the opportunity to experience success in doing things for themselves. Don’t do everything for your children. Teach them how to do things on their own.
- Spend time teaching your children to count, identify and write their ABCs, write their own name, know basic shapes and colour, pack their bags, use scissors, sharpen pencils, do their shoelaces, make sandwiches and be able to recite their home address and phone number. Don’t have time? Then perhaps your priorities are wrong.
- Talk to your children. Have dinner together every night and instead of looking at the TV or your phone, engage them in conversation. Children with greater vocabulary flourish at school.
- Avoid too much screen time. For our family, our children are not allowed to use a device before they start school. Once a week they get to watch a bit of a nature documentary or sometimes we let them watch a movie, but rarely. Our school-age children have a short amount of time to practice maths on Sum Dog, or typing and my eldest uses Microsoft Word to take notes from a history textbook. However, we rarely use screens for leisure time. We expect them to make their own fun with toys or play outside which I think is far better for them.