High Expectations, Bad Curricula Criticized : Kindergarten Crowd Needs Help, Panel Told

Preschools and kindergartens have many problems.

That was the message as scores of witnesses testified in Orange County on Tuesday before a state Department of Education task force on school readiness.

The panel, meeting in Costa Mesa, heard parents and teachers testify that too much is expected of toddlers in many cases; that kindergarten curricula are often bad; that gifted children need special help.

The task force was appointed by state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig to study the needs of the state’s kindergartens and pre-schools. “He hopes to get a report from the task force by the end of this year, after all the hearings,” said Susie Lange, spokeswoman for the state Department of Education. She said Honig will use the information to seek needed changes, some possibly through legislation, to improve preschools and kindergartens.

45 Witnesses Appeared

The task force held the all-day hearing in the board room of the Orange County Department of Education. About 45 witnesses spoke, including several teachers and education administrators from Orange County.

Gloria Guzman, head of the Human Development Department at Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana, told the panel that very young children should learn by playing. “Play with purpose is the primary vehicle for curriculum,” she said.

“It (play) is the child’s most valuable learning tool and is the means to self-awareness, interactions, problem-solving, acquired mastery and learning. Our major commitment is to helping children learn, rather than concern for content taught by teachers.”

Guzman also told the panel that very young children shouldn’t be pushed by adults if they are not ready for learning.

“We know that a baby doesn’t walk faster or better by practicing earlier holding on to his parent’s hands,” Guzman said. “Why do we forget that and think that structured lessons on the alphabet or counting will make reading or math come sooner or better? To the young child, these are simply incomprehensible.”

Guzman also said she supports “team teaching” of very young children. This, she said, would involve having teachers work with aides. The aides would be learning to be teachers themselves, she explained, and children would benefit from “greater one-to-one child-adult interaction.”

She added: “It (team teaching) would also provide protection to children from potential child abuse, as well as protection to child-care workers from allegations of abuse. In our increasingly multi-cultural population, it would permit a more diversified staff.”

Janet Warren, a kindergarten teacher in Ocean View Elementary School District in Huntington Beach, told the panel that some kindergartens are using the wrong methods. “Acquiring basic concepts and acquiring academic skills are very important for kindergarten children; however, many of the vehicles used during instruction, such as workbooks, writing on lined paper, isolated skill development of letters and sounds and heavy emphasis on rote memory learning have been inappropriate,” she said.

‘Too Early’ Warning

“Not paying attention to developmental differences may result in placing a child in school too early to handle close visual work. . . .”

Warren continued: “Research strongly suggests that young children, especially those born in the summer and fall, are at risk for failure in school, and young boys--developmentally younger than girls on entrance to kindergarten--have a higher risk (of failure in kindergarten) than young girls.”

Lange, of the state Department of Education, said in a telephone interview from Sacramento that Honig is concerned that some legislators are seeking to increase the minimum age for kindergarten attendance. The minimum age is now 4 years, 9 months at time of entry, but some legislators propose to increase the minimum age to 5, Lange said. “Bill Honig opposes that very strongly because he feels it would hurt minority children very badly,” she added.