From the article:
"She says when kids are in leagues and lessons, they are usually being regulated by adults. That means they are not able to practice regulating themselves.
"As a result," Leong says, "kids aren't developing the self-regulation skills that they used to."
That is why, in a Tools of the Mind program like the one at Geraldyn O. Foster Early Childhood Center, almost every minute of the day is spent building executive functions."
"Building executive functions" means adult-directed play, with a written "contract" from each student before the "building executive functions", oops, I mean "play" begins.
And this:
As she explains it, not even recess is innocent fun: "It's not just 'run out in the yard.' No. We want them to make a plan: What do you want to do, and how do you want to do it?"
I wonder if anyone besides us thinks this all sounds like it's really bizarrely missing the point of free play. Is the world really so crazY? The teachers make it sound like the students are incapable of coming up with play ideas on their own.
I just wonder why they don't just get a bunch of kids together in one spot for a given amount if time each day and then allow the kids to develop play on their own, however they want. But I am guessing the adults would give it about 5 minutes tops, decide the play didn't look like the sort of play that is "acceptable" and step in to show how "it's done".
This blows my mind:
"I was totally blown away. The kids were sitting together working quietly. It was like a second-grade classroom instead of a preschool classroom. I couldn't believe it," Diamond says.
Yeah, things are pretty skewed out there. Obviously the point of directed play is to make kids behave in completely unnatural ways, to turn preschoolers into quiet worker bees who act like second graders.
Further, in another related article from NPR, interviewing one of the teachers from the original article:
"Free time for play is better than no or little play, but it is not enough.
But social pretend play doesn't have much value if children are free to abandon a play scenario after a few moments or are not held accountable for staying within their chosen role. And play needs to be facilitated by adults who are trained in observing children and in understanding how play contributes to children's mastery of concepts and skills. — Adele Diamond"
"Children who were in the [school] district curriculum performed roughly at chance. And the kids in the Tools program were about 85 percent correct," Diamond says. "So those are big differences."
So, really, the main benefit of this type of curriculum involving directed play is to ready the child for the classroom. Point of article.
: Let the poor kids play!
credible!!!
: Incredible. And it does feel like "A Brave New World" or something like it.
