Let kids be kids

When my son, Chris, was 2 years old, we were at a birthday party for a friend's child. I sat with several mothers watching our children play. The conversation of the super moms went something like this:
"I'm starting Allison in violin lessons next week. It's a Montessori school. I hear it's the best."
"Oh, no. My little Jeffy has been studying the Suzuki method since he was 14 months old; that's the only way to go if you expect her to get into Julliard."
"Well, my Hannah is not so musically inclined, but I can safely say that she will certainly go into the medical field. I'm not sure what area of medicine she will specialize in, but I'm sure she will be a specialist."
I surveyed the 2 year olds around us as they ate dirt and played with building blocks. I felt my inner smart aleck begin to rise from the depths of my stomach, and by the time it reached my larynx, I knew I was not going to be able to suppress it.
"My Christopher," I said in my snootiest super mom voice, "is most likely going to be a Power Ranger. Or maybe even a Ninja Turtle." I smiled and tipped my glass of chardonnay at the other super moms while they looked at me as if I had just announced that I had VD. The other moms didn't want to play with me anymore. They wanted to take their children away from the little blonde, curly headed slow boy, lest one of their daughters might end up falling in love with him and running off to Gaffney in a 1988 Camaro to get married in front of a Justice of the Peace, then move into their basement so their daughter could work at the A&P ringing up groceries while my son tinkered with that old El Camino that's jacked up on cinderblocks in the back yard. My point was, and I had one, that we need to let little kids be little kids and stop pushing them to be baby Beethovens and toddler Einsteins.
Why are children being pushed at younger and younger ages to be anything more than a child? Finland has often been hailed as having one of the most successful education systems in the world, and children there do not even start school until the age of 7. I didn't go to kindergarten. I lived in a school district in 1970 when I was 5 years old where there was no kindergarten. I, like many generations of Americans before me, did not go to kindergarten and somehow managed to read, write, cipher a few numbers and eventually grow up to become college educated. In first grade, I learned how to read with Dick and Jane, said the blessing before I went to lunch (but I learned not to close my eyes during prayer because "Henry" always tried to kiss me when my eyes were closed), settled down on my little orange mat after lunch and took a nap, and later went outside and hung upside down on the monkey bars, a.k.a the tower of doom. I ran like a gazelle, getting filthy grass stains on my white pair of tights. I'm 43 years old, and this is what I remember most about my first year of school. I don't remember any child left behind. I don't remember if we met our yearly academic progress, if we had bell-to-bell instruction or total time on task. I remember when Becky laughed so hard that milk flew out her nose, though.
There is a movement throughout the United States to do away with play time for kindergartners. Even though numerous studies show that it is not until around the age of 6 or 7 that the brain is developed to the point where abstract thought begins to take hold, some are adamant that play time is wasted time.
The word, "kindergarten" means children's garden. This image should drum up memories of children playing with blocks, splashing at water tables, dressing up in costumes or playing house. Unfortunately, many schools are replacing this childhood memory with worksheets, math drills and fill-in-the-bubble standardized tests. In some schools, there is no show and tell, no nap time, and no recess. There is homework every night that the parents are expected to inspect and sign, and for much of the day, the children are asked to sit quietly with their hands folded as their teachers drill them in phonics, punctuation and arithmetic. In their attempt to "close the achievement gap" and meet the demands of a federal law known as "No Child Left Behind," we are taking away something more precious from them. Their childhood. Robert Fulghum, author of "All I Really Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten," states the point quite eloquently, "Live a balanced life — learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some."
My son, Chris, did just that. Now he's a freshman in college majoring in Ninja Turtlism. (Suppress the smart aleck, Fish) He's majoring in political science and he still takes time to play every single day.