What is Most Important?
I had a fascinating conversation with two of my kindergarten teachers this afternoon. They spent yesterday in an all-district kindergarten teacher meeting and were updating me on plans for kindergarten students in our district to be formally assessed in writing six times over the course of a year. Students will be demonstrating their abilitiy to write a narrative piece, an opinion piece, and an informational piece. There will be pre and post writing assessments in all three topics.
Think about your kindergarten experience. With all due respect to author Robert Fulghum, all I ever needed to know, I really did learn in kindergarten, but I'm fairly confident I did not learn how to write an informational or an opinion piece in kindergarten.
I understand all of this is developmental. Of course, I don't see any of our kindergarten students submitting a piece for any medical journals any time soon, but our kindergarten (actually all of our) students do regularly amaze me with their sophistication and academic maturity. This should be no surprise to me because I know their teachers and parents. These kids are set-up for success, and I have no doubt that our kindergarten students will become successful with all of these types of writing and more.
Here's the best part. My teachers weren't complaining about the new standards and expectations. They weren't even concerned about being held accountable to higher standards than ever before with seemingly less resources than ever. They were most concerned about us not forgetting that these same young people also need to be kids. These young people need time to explore writing, time to share with their classmates, time to grow and develop in rich, language environments, time to love learning. These teachers were already planning how to make sure we don't lose focus of what's most important. I applaud them and everyone who commits to putting first thing first.
And now...putting first thing first for Novi and other lcoal schools is Spring Break. It's OK to "sharpen our saws." In fact, it's crucial.
Think about your kindergarten experience. With all due respect to author Robert Fulghum, all I ever needed to know, I really did learn in kindergarten, but I'm fairly confident I did not learn how to write an informational or an opinion piece in kindergarten.
I understand all of this is developmental. Of course, I don't see any of our kindergarten students submitting a piece for any medical journals any time soon, but our kindergarten (actually all of our) students do regularly amaze me with their sophistication and academic maturity. This should be no surprise to me because I know their teachers and parents. These kids are set-up for success, and I have no doubt that our kindergarten students will become successful with all of these types of writing and more.
Here's the best part. My teachers weren't complaining about the new standards and expectations. They weren't even concerned about being held accountable to higher standards than ever before with seemingly less resources than ever. They were most concerned about us not forgetting that these same young people also need to be kids. These young people need time to explore writing, time to share with their classmates, time to grow and develop in rich, language environments, time to love learning. These teachers were already planning how to make sure we don't lose focus of what's most important. I applaud them and everyone who commits to putting first thing first.
And now...putting first thing first for Novi and other lcoal schools is Spring Break. It's OK to "sharpen our saws." In fact, it's crucial.
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