Too Much Academics Too Soon

Once upon a time, in a land far away and long ago, there was a school. Now in the preschool and kindergarten classrooms of that school, the children’s work was to play. All day long, the children played pretend, and they sang and danced and they listened to the teacher tell stories, and they, too, made up grand stories. The teachers looked at the children and they saw little sprouts which needed lots of time, love and nurturing to grow into maturity. Through their play, the children learned about the world -- they learned how to share and cooperate, they learned how to solve problems and they learned how to use their imaginations to make up new stories. The children loved their teacher and they loved their school. But then one day, the leaders of the land said children were playing too much. They needed to learn to add and read earlier and faster. So the teachers were told to take away classroom play from the kindergartners; children should spend more time sitting in their desks memorizing their ABCs. And what did the teachers discover? There was something wrong with the children! Many of them were unable to learn to add and spell at 5. And the boys were the worst of all! So the leaders of the land decreed that preschoolers were spending too much time playing as well, they needed to learn reading, writing and arithmetic. They needed an earlier start; they needed to get ahead, lest they fall behind. Soon , the children of the land forgot how to play and more and more children were becoming sick and less and less children knew how to read and add. And the leaders of the land wondered what was wrong with the children . . .