Sunlight is a Powerful Disinfectant

The Play is Now Under Threat at Playschool

Primary school teachers are starting to get uneasy. The government has announced that it is going to test children according to national standards for achievement in reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Anyone with even a modicum of experience in business will tell you that delegation only works if the delegator inspects what he expects. The government is finally going to test what is going in schools, so that the Ministry of Education and parents can inspect what they expect to be happening when they send little Johnny to school.

As a result a chill wind is starting to blow down the valley. Primary school teachers are already looking for cover--and they think they have found some. They are commencing to build up a collage of excuses as to why Johnny will show up as falling short when the testing begins. (It will be some time before the national tests are introduced and operating--but that hasn't deterred teachers getting in early in an attempt to set low expectations.)

And the explanation for expected failure? Early childhood education. Yes, folks. The reason Johnny will show up failing the reading, writing, and arithmetic tests is due to a failure in pre-schools. They are not preparing children for school adequately, so the children will never be able to catch up. According to the NZ Herald:

Rosemary Vivien, head of Edendale School in Sandringham, Auckland, said the Ministry of Education had outlined general expectations of what children should know when they started school. These included being able to count to20, knowing the alphabet, recognising colours and being able to write their own name.

More than half the children who started at Edendale, a decile 5 school, could not do that.

"The majority can't count to 20," said associate principal Jackie Procter. "A considerable number can count to five or 10 but some can't count at all."

About a quarter could not tell the difference between a number and a letter.

Ms Vivien and Ms Procter both said the problem was not the result of poverty or families who spoke English only as a second language.

"It's across the board," said Ms Procter. She noticed the same trend at her previous high-decile state school, where over eight years fewer and fewer new entrants were ready to start learning to read. An increasing number did not know their letters or numbers.

Auckland Primary Principals Association president Marilyn Gwilliam said she saw the same trend at Papatoetoe Central School in South Auckland. "We've noticed increasingly over the last few years fewer of them coming in with really good alphabet knowledge and number knowledge to start their learning."

What! Millions and millions spent on early childhood education--and kids are turning up at school educationally worse off than they were prior to all that money being spent.

Apparently, there is a not unreasonable expectation that with all the millions and millions and millions of dollars confiscated off citizens being poured into pre-school education that children will turn up at school being able to count to 20, knowing the alphabet, recognising colours and being able to write their own name.

But this is not happening! So, principals are warning that these under-educated and under-prepared new entrant children will not achieve the national standards. They start school too far behind! They will not catch up--at least for the initial years. Blame it on the pre-schools.

Early Childhood Council chief executive officer Dr Sarah Farquhar said she was not aware of any complaints from schools about the issue. But it probably highlighted a need to rethink the early childhood curriculum, which was based on child development through play and social interaction.

Yes. A rethink might be a good idea, Dr Farquhar. Learning by play and social interaction might do it when there is no specific content to learn. But standards? Testing? That will set the cat among the pigeons. We have personal knowledge of a Christian preschool being battered about the ears by the ERO office for attempting to teach content, such as letters and numbers. It was told in no uncertain terms that it either had to cease this ante-diluvian behaviour, or else. It was damaging to children. It was primitive. It was damaging to children. Sophisticated learning was all about play and self-discovery. Mmmm. It will be interesting to see what the next ERO review will be like.

There is a a double irony here. The gummint has stipulated that all early childhood education staff must be properly qualified. So, off they trot to educational institutions to be indoctrinated in the latest pedagogical idiocy--so that they can come out perfectly equipped to teach nothing. The gummint stipulated qualifications have turned these hapless people into incompetents. But, don't worry, the kids have a wonderful time playing and discovering themselves.

But, wait. Don't primary schools also believe that learning should be a matter of play, discovery and social interaction? Is not this an accurate reflection of the latest, greatest, and dominant pedagogical theory of the educational bureaucrats, the educational academics, and the teachers unions pretty much right through the gummint education system?

Well, here's a conundrum. What happens when a child fails to learn how to count to 20 through play, discovery, and social interaction? Maybe, just maybe the teachers will actually have to teach some defined content using a structured, definitive, indicative, declarative, pedagogical method. Now that would be radical.

Maybe Anne Tolley's national testing policy will do some good. Better get it operational quickly, though. If it is not quickly and thoroughly institutionalised and embedded through the educational bureaucracy, the unions, and the schools themselves it will be tossed out quicker than a rotten potato when the teachers unions and principal's associations regain power through their political wing, aka the Labour Party.

When Unbelief is given free rein, it cannot help gravitating to the monumentally stupid, like swine to the trough. It is the Fool, after all, who says in his heart that God is not.