"stress and our young children

The educational model that we follow in this country, puts our children on a
timed trajectory full of check points, deadlines, testing and evaluation. This
may be acceptable for the older children, but for the first and second grade,
this is the wrong approach.

This is a time when the world is unfolding for them and they are unfolding
themselves.

We are so busy trying to impart skills and information that  this crucial natural
activity is being  ignored completely. Teachers are compelled to stay on schedule.

When a child is not learning  on time, oh oh, quick,!,  teacher will be blamed;
report to the parent, the student is  falling behind, fix this problem!

The parent worries,  fears for the child’s future,” maybe my child isn’t smart! Maybe
they won’t “succeed!””

Now the child already knows he is falling behind, because he cannot do all the
work the other children are doing -he is already worried, begins to think less of
himself, and is afraid of disappointing his parents.
This is already a very powerful experience for the child; with all these people his
age around him; he is deciding who he is by comparison; he is smart or he is
dumb, he is fast, or slow, he is impressive, or he is lack luster. This is not the way
we want them to be thinking right now !

Now on top of this;  in come the parents, their tone affected by their fears ,to tell the
child he must shape up and work harder. All this burden we are putting on a 6 and
7 year old! And in the midst of all this we expect them to be interested in being
creative, imaginative? With their sinking self image?


In general, we must realize our life is easier than the child’s at this point; we don’t
have this volume of new things to learn and this kind of emotion pressure
attached to it! Now we are putting all this pressure on these small children!, and
where will the  mechanisms to handle this level of stress, frustration and
emotional turmoil have come from in such small children. Remember, it has
taken all of us years to learn how to handle stress and frustration.
The emotional weight of this situation can be crippling for many children; and a
lack of “readiness” which may make them mentally unable to acquire the skills at
this point in time, can actually cause a sort of shut down.
The rest of their education will be uphill from here.
WE LOST THEM; their enthusiasm, their thirst for knowledge… and why? Because
we were in a hurry!

WHY??!! Why exactly? Why do they need to learn these things on our time table?!
For expediency; because they are part of a large institution and
society requires the institution  to PRODUCE RESULTS.
Well it is exactly this push for results in the younger grades that is thwarting many
of our children in a devastating way.

Our society should be rearing children to be whole, emotionally sound,
psychologically strong, citizens, not just good potential cogs in our economic
machinery.

So much is known by our academic community about the development of
children, the crucial time periods for developing different abilities, how does it not
filter into our policies towards children?
Because , it seems , Fear is driving our educational policy.
And Fear is paralyzing,
Fear is paralyzing  to our ability to understand our children and what they need.
How Fear is effecting
how we educate our
children...