Reflection: How Cultural Influences Have Impacted Early Childhood Education

By: Caitlyn Pagnottaro, ECSEAT Scholar

So much has changed since I was a young child starting school. Looking back I can see what we valued then compared to what we value today. I remember that I played a lot. If we had circle time and other structured parts of the day I don’t remember it. I remember playing. I remember playing with my friends at the time inside and outside of the classroom. The preschool/kindergarten that I attended was private and the play area that we had behind our building was amazing. At least from what I recall as a small child it was because everything around me seemed so much bigger. There was a huge climbing structure that I used to hang off of, or climb to the highest point as if I were on the top of the world. We had this playhouse that you could climb up to which my girlfriends and I would all go up to together and hangout and giggle. I can’t remember anything academic that we ever did in preschool unless it involved a book and that was always in fun. Thinking back on all of this, I know that we valued play as it’s so crucial in the development of children. Of course I played at home, but when I played at school I was exposed to many different things that I wasn’t exposed to at home, and a big part of that is being around other people. Sure I had done play groups prior to being in school, but this is different because now I was with children I never knew before school and we were going to be together every day, so we needed to learn how to get along. My patience, the way I empathize with others, my ability to problem solve can most likely be accredited to the fact that I spent a lot of my early education playing with peers and learning those crucial skills. I learned to be with children who were very much like me, and also those who were not like me at all, but how I can overcome that because it’s very possible.

We used to value play greatly just as all of our predecessors and theorists before us did. They knew the importance of play for a child and understood how beneficial it was to their development. I know that I for one not only carried so many wonderful memories of my childhood and school from play, but I also learned crucial skills that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Now I’m 24 and have been nothing but successful in my schooling, decided what I want to do for my career, completed my undergrad in preparation, and am now working on completing my masters to get what I want. I was never taught to hate school by having it forced on me at a young age. My teachers taught me how to love learning because they loved what they taught me and how they taught me.

The current cultural influences on early childhood education today are something I’m very passionate and opinionated about. I really do believe that we’re putting way to much pressure on our smallest learners and that it’s doing more harm than good. As I substitute teach a lot, it breaks my heart to walk past kindergarten classes and seeing them be skilled and drilled in their seats, not to mention for hours at a time now that there’s been a huge transition to full day kindergarten in America. Did we suddenly decide that 5-year-old children weren’t learning as much as we think that they’re supposed to so now we have to hold their attention span for even longer than it’s capable? How did we come to this conclusion when the same exact 5-year-olds that we’re skilling and drilling are constantly telling us that this work is too difficult for them and it’s frustrating for them and that’s why they’re having abnormal behaviors. Young children are spending more time with academics in school than they are learning crucial social-emotional developmental skills that they need to continue on in the rest of their schooling and even the rest of their lives. In kindergarten I’m seeing that they’re typically scheduled for a recess break, sometimes a second recess towards the end of the day at the teachers discretion, and one period of free play in the classroom. The rest is all learning whether they’re at tables, on iPads, doing center rotations, or being pulled from the classroom for other services.

Today I believe that we value numbers more than what children truly need to develop. We care about having the highest test scores from our children, we want the highest percentage of children entering 1st grade reading at a certain leveled book. We want the numbers that prove the children at our school are the best of the best. That’s what our society values. Parents want to have the smartest kids, and schools want “proof” to show that their students are excelling so far so they have proper bragging rights. Unfortunately, this means that teachers are now crumbling under that pressure and now have to push more and more academics in kindergarten, and slightly more in preschool as well. I’m noticing that preschool programs can be more structured where there are times when they expect students to sit down to do a tabletop activity until they’re finished. It’s in preparation for the prolonged sitting that they’re going to do once they’re in kindergarten where they’ll be doing much more academics. It’s more common for preschool to have more playtime than kindergarten, but they’re definitely getting them ready to sit and learn.

I want my future students to play. My heart lies with preschool and kindergarten aged children, and I especially love three year olds. These children need to play and I want them to get as much playtime as is possible to give them. I want to expose them to nature and I want them to have the opportunity to play outside, because I know that a lot of children today aren’t getting those opportunities. I want them to develop those gross motor skills that they won’t get staying inside the house hooked up to the iPad. I want them to appreciate nature and see the beauty around them and how important it all is to the life that we live. If I can get them excited about nature and excited about being outside, maybe I can influence them to continue that excitement and to want to play outside as soon as they get home. I feel as though a lot of children have grown up hooked on electronics, and I want to break that and show them that they don’t need electronics in order to have fun. There’s so much outside that they’re missing and so much that they can explore and discover that they won’t see being cooped up inside the house. Children will get where they need to be, but we need to allow them to be children and allow them to play. That’s how they’re going to build on the most crucial skills they need to be prepared for school.