We're either serious about keeping kids in school and raising graduation rates -- esp. for low-income minority kids -- or we're not serious.
If we're serious about wanting to keep kids in school, it's vital that school be fun, interesting, and relevant from the very beginning of the school experience. It matters not a whit if there is rigor, rigor, rigor starting in pre-K. When this rigor turns to rigor mortis, kids will drop out of school in even larger numbers than they currently are. I think people either get this or not.
I got this after watching my daughter in her pre-K class during the academic/rigor portion of the class. She, along with most of the other 4 and 5 year olds, were very quiet, very still, and behaving very well. They also looked catatonic, a rather shocking site when observing groups of very young children.
If people don't get the rigor mortis/catatonia thing, then they're clearly not serious about keeping kids in school and raising graduation rates -- esp. for low-income minority kids.
I think it would be helpful to make this argument as clear as possible as part of our strategic communication on this issue.
4 comments:
Academic rigor and kindergarten hardly seem to belong in the same sentence, do they? But that's the new reality of our test-obsessed culture.
Rigor is the new buzz word for those concerned with closing the so-called achievement gap and, somewhat incredibly, for reforming "failing schools".
Well, I have serious issues with imposing a more rigorous curriculum on schools, especially those with a preponderance of low-income and disadvantaged students. I've written about it on my blog here and here.
I agree that with you that making school more difficult will likely drive up the drop-out rate. I don't think that's what we want.
Just adding to your thoughts, Terry. I think we both agree that we can make school more interesting, more relevant, and more fun -- and ultimately more valuable for everyone concerned. We can also make it more rigorous if we rethink what we mean by "rigor." But the thought of a rigorous pre-K or K classroom is both nauseating and comical.
I'm not familiar with the term "Academic Rigor". One definition from a dictionary for "rigor" is "strict precision", maybe it's related to that?
Samuli - schools in the US are routinely criticized for not being "rigorous." This is especially true of the grades prior to 3rd grade, when students in the US begin to take federally-mandated tests to determine if they are "at grade level." As I said in my post, the problem with such "rigorous" approaches with very young children is they overlook the huge difference between children's development from age 4 to 7 and demand that all kids learn the same thing in the same way at the same time. This leads to "rigor mortis," i.e., what Jonathan Kozol refers to as "intellectual decapitation."
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