Thoughts About Preschool

Lately, I've been wondering why we use the term "pre-school" as if school doesn't start until later. I checked Wikipedia and found that "Preschool education is the provision of education for children before the commencement of statutory education, usually between the ages of three and five, dependent on the jurisdiction." OK, I'll go down the rabbit hole and ask: Why other levels of education is covered under statutory and preschool not? I'll leave that idea there because at the moment I'm not up to the research to get to the bottom of that rabbit hole.

Another thought about preschool I have is that learning and play should not be mutually exclusive. I have the impression that the mistake we make in preschool is that we try to mimic teaching strategies from higher grades within the preschool environment. The result is that the focus on play and experimentation is lost. When I say play, I don't mean spending half the day having children aimlessly finger painting and playing in sand. As an alternative, what if sand play also incorporated showing children how in other cultures colorful sand is used to make art work? My impression is that young children are eager to learn because of a drive by their brains to develop connections for survival.

The more I think about this situation, the more I'm coming to the decision that we have the wrong people in the preschool environment. I believe the right people for the preschool environment have a road map in their mind for what young children need for later learning and how to translate the information for young children to begin that journey. I'm not talking just about general areas as persevarance, cooperation, etc. I would include foundations to critical thinking as well since more and we are learning that very young minds are more dynamic than we thought.

[Diversion: Before I forget again, I challenge anyone reading this blog entry to locate "numbers" as oppose to alphabet letters in a craft store. I present this challenge because in developing activities for young children I use numbers as frequently as the alphabet and have had a difficult time finding numbers, particularly made of of wood. I've been trying to reduce the use of plastic in activities I develop.]

So why do I think we have many of the wrong people in preschool education? Perhaps we devalue the importance of preschool education. Years ago in one of my educational research classes, my professor postulated that teacher pay should be higher at the lower levels of education since more teaching is required that lower levels as oppose to higher levels where teachers function more as guides. With lower pay and less education accepted to teach in early education, the quality of teaching often suffers.

Low pay and limited education of teachers are only part of why the wrong people often end up in the early education environment, however. What else is missing is people with talent to turn learning into play and share a respect for children. Life is play for young children and learning should be on their level. So for those teachers with special skills, why can't we "pay for talent" as Wall Street Banks claim they need to do? Maybe the answer has more to do with gender than rationality.