Kindergarten show cancelled so that children can continue working toward college or a career. These are five year olds.

Letter sent to kindergarten parents

Courtesy of the Washington Post:  

An annual year-end kindergarten show has been canceled at a New York school because the kids have to keep working so they will be “college and career” ready. Really. 

That’s what it says in a letter (see above) sent to parents by Ellen Best-Laimit, the interim principal of Harley Avenue Primary School in Elwood, N.Y., and four kindergarten teachers. The play was to be staged over two days, May 14 and 15, according to the school’s calendar. 

One mother who received the letter, Ninette Gonzalez Solis, wrote on Facebook that parents learned recently the play was being canceled and started calling the principal, leading the school officials to send out the new missive. Solis wrote that she was very upset about the cancellation.

Gee no kidding, I would hope that ALL of the parents who received this letter are upset.

Here is a portion of the letter for those having trouble reading it:

"The reason for eliminating the kindergarten show is simple. We are responsible for preparing children for college and career with valuable lifelong skills and know that we can best do that by having them become strong readers, writer, coworkers, and problem solvers. Please do not fault us for making professional decisions that we know will never be able to please everyone. But know that we are making these decisions with the interests of all children in mind."

That is such BS.

Look I worked in a kindergarten room.

These children are struggling to learn to sit still during lessons, take turns during free time, and to zip up their coats and tie their own shoes.

The skills we focused on was teaching them to cut out shapes in order to improve their small motor skills, identify and read letters to improve their memorization skills, and to respect other children's property and feelings to improve their social skills.

One of the first tasks we struggle with is teaching children to stand in line. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a bunch of five year olds to stand in line, without touching each other, wandering around aimlessly, or facing the wrong direction, for the first time?

A lot more challenging than one might imagine.

And what really helps with the teaching process is recognizing that this age group is barely out of the toddler stage, and they need to have lots of time to move, to play, and to distract themselves from the boring classroom work.

This school clearly does not understand what it takes to prepare children of this age for college or a career. One thing I can tell them for sure is that burning children out on school before they even reach the first grade is certainly NOT the way to put them on the path toward success.

We lose yet another teacher.

February 12, 2014 

I am writing today to let you know that I am resigning my position as PreK and Kindergarten teacher in the Cambridge Public Schools. It is with deep sadness that I have reached this decision, as I have loved my job, my school community, and the families and amazing and dedicated faculty I have been connected with throughout the district for the past eighteen years. I have always seen myself as a public school teacher, and fully intended to work until retirement in the public school system. Further, I am the product of public schools, and my son attended Cambridge Public Schools from PreK through Grade 12. I am and always have been a firm believer in quality public education. 

In this disturbing era of testing and data collection in the public schools, I have seen my career transformed into a job that no longer fits my understanding of how children learn and what a teacher ought to do in the classroom to build a healthy, safe, developmentally appropriate environment for learning for each of our children. I have experienced, over the past few years, the same mandates that all teachers in the district have experienced. I have watched as my job requirements swung away from a focus on the children, their individual learning styles, emotional needs, and their individual families, interests and strengths to a focus on testing, assessing, and scoring young children, thereby ramping up the academic demands and pressures on them. Each year, I have been required to spend more time attending classes and workshops to learn about new academic demands that smack of 1st and 2nd grade, instead of Kindergarten and PreK. I have needed to schedule and attend more and more meetings about increasingly extreme behaviors and emotional needs of children in my classroom; I recognize many of these behaviors as children shouting out to the adults in their world, “I can’t do this! Look at me! Know me! Help me! See me!” I have changed my practice over the years to allow the necessary time and focus for all the demands coming down from above. Each year there are more. Each year I have had less and less time to teach the children I love in the way I know best—and in the way child development experts recommend. I reached the place last year where I began to feel I was part of a broken system that was causing damage to those very children I was there to serve. 

I was trying to survive in a community of colleagues who were struggling to do the same: to adapt and survive, to continue to hold onto what we could, and to affirm what we believe to be quality teaching for an early childhood classroom. I began to feel a deep sense of loss of integrity. I felt my spirit, my passion as a teacher, slip away. I felt anger rise inside me. I felt I needed to survive by looking elsewhere and leaving the community I love so dearly. I did not feel I was leaving my job. I felt then and feel now that my job left me. 

It is with deep love and a broken heart that I write this letter. 

Sincerely, Suzi Sluyter

For the reason why this fine, dedicated professional felt the need to walk away from  a 25 year career, click here.

The level of training that was asked her, and the constant requirements to test even kindergarten children, essentially drained her to the point that she could no longer do the job that she loved so very much.

This is happening all over the country.

In other words the conservative goal of destroying public education in this country is succeeding.

And we should be ashamed of ourselves for letting it happen.