The Outdated Kindergarten

Why are so many kindergarten kids bored by kindergarten? Because that boring "play school" is woefully behind the times, says Kindergarten Teacher Virginia C. Simmons in the current Harper's.

The curriculum ("learning through play") has not changed in 100 years. But "today's fives are tired of play; they are eager and ready to begin serious work." They have been exposed to travel, nursery schools and working mothers. They visit the public library and fly in airplanes. They dial the telephone, operate hi-fi sets and read words on TV. Yet teachers persist in mindless "fun"--and leave the kids sucking their thumbs.

A former public high-school teacher, Author Simmons*began teaching in Cincinnati Country Day School's kindergarten eight years ago. "Contrary to the opinion of experts," she writes, "I find that fives can reason; their ears can hear phonics; their eyes can read, their muscular coordination does permit them to learn to write . . . They are enthusiastic, curious, keenly observant, open-minded, ager to learn, receptive and imaginative. As sheer pupil stuff, they are a teacher's dream come true."

The proof? "My five-year-olds learn to write, count, add, subtract, divide; they learn basic geometric forms and elementary algebra; they use rulers and compasses; they learn to spell and to read 50 to 75 words. They understand the concept of zero, that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, that all radii of the same circle are equal, that 3/6 and 4/8 are also 1/2, that 4/3 is 1 1/3|, and that if 3 is divided by 2 it becomes 1 1/2." Moreover, next year's class will begin conversational French ("Fives love to imitate new sounds and easily execute intricacies that adolescents find difficult").

"Why waste our five-year-olds?" asks Teacher Simmons. "The most important part of an education is the beginning . . . There is no such thing as an unimportant or expendable year in any child's life. In kindergarten, the five-year-old is just starting. The direction he is pointed and the momentum he gets may well determine his intellectual growth."

*Who succumbed to cancer last week at 64.

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