A recent New York Times article made my skin crawl as it exposed the ugly reality that is modern American early education.  The innocence and gaiety that once characterized early childhood has been replaced with an Orwellian nightmare of factory-like systems designed to mold little human beings into mindless cogs in the statist machine. 

When I was a child, in the increasingly olden days, kindergarten was a place to play. We danced the hokey­pokey, swooned in suspense over Duck, Duck, Gray Duck (that’s what Minnesotans stubbornly call Duck, Duck, Goose) and napped on our mats until the Wake-Up Fairy set us free.

No more. Instead of digging in sandboxes, today’s kindergartners prepare for a life of multiple-choice boxes by plowing through standardized tests with cuddly names like Dibels (pronounced “dibbles”), a series of early-literacy measures administered to millions of kids; or toiling over reading curricula like Open Court — which features assessments every six weeks.

It is no secret to frequent readers of this blog that I am no fan of government education.  However, this is not just a government education issue.  Even parents in the homeschool movement sometimes buy this lie.  Our children need to be outside running and playing, not stressing over tests.  Reading can wait.  Our children need time to be kids.  Four and five year-olds have plenty of time to become productive citizens.  First, they need to play.  Moreover, how many of us would be who and what we are today if the tests we took as kindergartners had anything to say about it?  I know I wouldn’t. 

There is another issue here, though.  Many of our children (especially boys) are being drugged by their parents and teachers in an effort to make them sit still for all of this teaching and testing when all they want to do (and what God put in their hearts to desire) is to run and play.  Don’t buy the lie.  Our children are behind in math and science because our system is broken, not because we aren’t starting early enough.  Slow down.  They grow up fast enough.  Enjoy the kindergarten years.  You’ll never get them back.

VB