16 ms·

Where have all the kindergartners gone?

67 points by jawns 6y ago

nikanj 6y ago
Many families look at the numbers and decide that it makes more sense to have one parent stay home than pay $1400 per kid per month.
- daniel-grigg 6y ago
  Just to put things into perspective, in Sydney Australia a typical, inner city early learning centre costs $160/day, so $3200 per month. There are means tested rebates available but they cap out both in total per year and per day.
- Impossible 6y ago
  $1400 is the cost to put kids in alternative private programs (daycare/preschool). Keeping kids in (public) kindergarten is "free". I put that in quotes because pandemic kindergarten requires significantly more parent involvement. $1400 a month could look like a bargain compared to losing a full-time salary or could look like too high a cost to justify having both parents work. In dual parent hetero relationships, it's usually the mom that drops out of the workplace
- bombcar 6y ago
  Doesn’t a parent have to stay home with the kid anyway since everything’s remote?
  - stevekemp 6y ago
    I suspect that depends where you are - here in Finland schools closed, but daycare stayed upon (1-6 years old). It was strongly encouraged that you keep your child home, but if your parents were doctors/similar there was no qualms about the kids going to daycare. Ours certainly went for the duration. We pay €250/month for that, which is very cheap.
watwut 6y ago
5 years old not knowing all the letters or not knowing how to read does not strikes me as odd or catastrophic. That is what first grade is for. But it gives me some idea about why the amount of parents who think starting school a year later might be good idea for their kids.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  It’s been a few years, but I’m pretty sure both our kids could read multi-syllable words entering first grade and had spent a lot of the summer reading on their own. It seems like that one year difference will get kids tracked with “the smart kids” and that gap will likely widen rather than narrow over the years. It’s not catastrophic, but it does seem like it’s at least relevant, and possibly important.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    We should treat the tracking and gap as a problem and fix it. Not by holding anyone back mind you, but by making sure every kid has the opportunity to make the most of the huge amount of time they spend in school.
    - WalterBright 6y ago
      Some kids are going to learn faster than others. The only way to eliminate the gap is to hold them back.
      - maxerickson 6y ago
        I didn't say we should eliminate it, I said we should treat it as a problem. If it comes down to learning speed, great, not a big problem, if a 9th grader is behind because of how K-6 is structured, fix that.
        WalterBright 6y ago
        > I said we should treat it as a problem. It's better to just accept that kids are different. It's not a problem that some kids run faster than others. It's not a problem that some kids are interested in art and others are interested in cars. I like programming. Others detest it, but like cooking. Viva la difference.
loloquwowndueo 6y ago
I find a lot of private schools are trying to justify their fees by offering “virtual learning” which is just a teacher trying to apply in-person techniques in front of a camera, and then a parent struggling to keep the child interested in the (non-interactive) screen. This is doomed to failure and entirely unnecessary and pointless at the kindergarten level. Also if the parents really want to and help the child, it’s entirely possible for them to be reading, counting and doing basic math by age 4.
- querez 6y ago
  I'd love to see a source / more information about your claim regarding kids of age 4.
  - asymptosis 6y ago
    I started teaching my daughter letters at the age of three (eg "that letter looks like a snake, what does a snake say?") She was able to read basic signage while going around town before she turned four. She could independently read non-trivial books by the age of five. She was learning the Linux command line by the age of six. Young children learning to read isn't usually about their own innate ability. It's about whether they have someone who reliably puts in the hours with them. It probably also helps to model the behaviour, so they see you reading books yourself in your spare time.
    - mlyle 6y ago
      And as someone else who's kids did this: You end up with no books that are an appropriate reading challenge but also developmentally appropriate, and a kid who is really bored in school and not using the time to build good study and homework habits. I think it's a neat party trick to have a kid who is 4 and a fluent reader, and that it has some utility... but I might emphasize different things if I had it to do over again. At the same time, calling out math problems to the back seat was a way that I kept kids busy during road trips, and I wouldn't change that at all :D
      - 6y ago
gh-throw 6y ago
Remote’s a disaster for little kids, and about as much work for one or both parents as just teaching their kid some stuff themselves. If you don’t need special reading or speech intervention then well-chosen apps and a workbook can replace most of the useful actual instruction in kindergarten. Maybe just YouTube how to teach the alphabet correctly for phonics and you’re golden.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
627467 6y ago
Not a specialist, but I'd bet that not knowing letters and numbers is the least problematic part of the pandemic-led arrested development.
chrisseaton 6y ago
> Ninety minutes later, kindergarten was over for Annika. For good ... Today Annika attends the Little Mud Puddles Learning Center, a private preschool, with her 3-year-old brother. I don't understand - isn't her private preschool just another form of kindergarten? What's the difference?
- mlyle 6y ago
  The difference is, given the choice between a daycare center with a little academics / "private preschool"... or having your kids watch distanced public Kindergarten offerings... the former may be academically better.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    I got that, but I mean I don't understand the terminology 'done with kindergarten' and 'where are all the kindergarteners' - isn't the pre-school also a kindergarten? They aren't done with it and they haven't gone anywhere - they're just at a different kind of kindergarten.
    - mlyle 6y ago
      I think the idea is, that when the only public offerings are remote... there won't be any public kindergartners anymore. They'll end up in other offerings-- learning from their parents, in daycare centers, private preschools, or... just plopped in front of a TV or iPad. Because expecting your kid to be in an educational videoconference at age 5 is a nonstarter.
- SamBam 6y ago
  It's worded confusingly, but I think the point was "public kindergarten" = "focus on meeting standards via remote school" while "private preschool" = "social time." In the US, kindergartens are typically much more academic than elsewhere (while preschools generally have no academic curriculum).
samatman 6y ago
I went to a Waldorf school for the equivalent of elementary and middle school, which gives me a different perspective on this. Waldorf kindergartens don't have anything which resembles standard Prussian pedagogy. No desks, no assignments, none of that, and you aren't expected to read or write. It's mostly freeform play, we also learned to bake bread. Everyone turned out fine. Rudolph Steiner has some, let's say idiosyncratic, theories of child development, but I think his basic thesis that children don't need to learn reading, writing, and maths, before their brains are ready for that information, is sound. Kindergarten won't be to early for some children, but it will be too early for many. The ones it isn't too early for are just going to learn those things. These kids are going to be fine, or more accurately, the damage will be from living through the global trauma, not from ordinary kindergarten being interrupted. I feel real compassion for the kids whose parents are forcing them to sit through Zoom school, though. To me it's clear this is the worst of the available options.
- watwut 6y ago
  Desks dont imply Prussian pedagogy. No contemporary school system is Prussian, it evolved a lot. If I want to be snarky, it apparently does not give feel for how social history happens either.
- cptskippy 6y ago
  > Waldorf kindergartens don't have anything which resembles standard Prussian pedagogy. No desks, no assignments, none of that, and you aren't expected to read or write. It's mostly freeform play, we also learned to bake bread. Your Waldorf experience was my Kindergarten experience in a US public school in the 80s. I still have the cookbook we made and remember fondly making all the recipes in class. Marigolds are still one of my favorite flowers because we planted them in milk cartons to bring home on Mother's day. I also remember looking up the teacher's skirt because we all sat on a rug in the middle of class rather than desks.
  - donw 6y ago
    I recall a lot of coloring, playing outside on a dedicated playground for kindergarteners, and frozen green grapes at snacktime during the summer. Also scheduled naps which I never took. We had tables for coloring and crafts, but not desks, and sat around on the ground whenever the teacher would tell us a story. There was also this hippy-ish woman who literally drove up in a VW microbus -- crazy that I remember that -- and who taught us a bit about music. Singing and clapping along to syllables are the bits that come to mind. One other thing is that there were no fences around the school. It was a good way to grow up, and I'm going to do my best to ensure my kids get at least some of this.
asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
Kindergarten doesn't need to be a thing. It's convenient for parents and probably not bad for children in ordinary times, but COVID kindergarten is pretty pointless.
- mlyle 6y ago
  Normal Kindergarten is correlated with better academic achievement later. COVID Kindergarten is worthless. My youngest is in first grade now, and is about the most eager-to-please and attentive child you'll ever find (haha, not the older two). But when he's been remote it's been only barely viable...
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
    > correlated with better academic achievement later Correlation usually doesn't indicate causation.
    - msla 6y ago
      > Correlation usually doesn't indicate causation. I think this is taking "correlation doesn't always prove causation" a few steps too far, right off a cliff. There are difficulties with reasoning from correlation, but saying it "usually doesn't" indicate correlation is too bold, especially in experiments where confounders have been controlled for. [1] [1] (And don't get me started with the semi-clever types who ask if this or that variable has been controlled for when the study or the article about the study explicitly says it has. Save us all from halfwits trying to teach experienced researchers their business.)
      - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
        https://www.gwern.net/Causality https://www.gwern.net/Causality provides more empirical background on my view.
        mlyle 6y ago
skybrian 6y ago
A question is whether this sort of thing is cumulative or even compounding, or whether later environmental effects can balance it out. If I recall correctly, studies of head start programs have shown that the effects are significant at first but tend to fade over time?
- watwut 6y ago
  Those studies were on disadvantaged kids. Which already makes them possibly irrelevant to HN crowd kids. If you take disadvataged kid and give him good kidergarten, first years in school are easier. 8 years later, those kids are basically product of their elementary school. You can't conclude anything else. You cant conclude what will happen if all the kids are less prepared, or what would happen with kids who have great support whole time.
- mlyle 6y ago
  They fade, but there's still a few percent difference in high school graduation rates, measures of emotional control in early adulthood, and college attendance. (Larger than this in some cohorts, e.g. when the mother's education level is very low).
Tildey 6y ago
Anecdotally, I went to kindergarten and I don’t think it really had much of an impact on me, and I definitely don’t think it would work remotely. Most of what I did there were hands on activities (arts and crafts, stuff with play dough, explorations into non Newtonian fluids) and socialising. Oh I talked to a police officer for the first, and so far only time. I wasn’t doing much academic learning, which is a the part of school that translates to online the best. Not to mention I simply wouldn’t have been able to focus on a teacher on a screen, although I suppose that part is changing as children’s relationships with technology advance.
- spoonjim 6y ago
  I doubt any person can say with any credibility whether kindergarten had an impact on them. It’s like asking if breastfeeding had an impact on a person — they simply wouldn’t know.
spoonjim 6y ago
“Remote learning” is completely fucking useless for kids under a certain age. That age varies by child but covers almost nobody at age 5. If I had a 5-year-old during a pandemic and no school to send them to I’d get them some art supplies and a stick and some musical instruments and tell them to play in the backyard.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ojame 6y ago
  This is generally (in my circles at least) what parents do regardless. As in, provide equipment and an environment to have fun and learn. My anecdotal experience is once kids get to around 5, they start really wanting to form consistent social relationships. Also, if the child has younger siblings, generally they crave some “alone time” but not to be by themselves, to be with other kids their own age without their siblings. Basically what I’m trying to say is parents do what you’re talking about, but the older kids get, the more they need and it’s not as simple as you’d expect.
  - spoonjim 6y ago
    Yes... then form a pod with another kid or kids and let them play. A 5 year old shouldn’t be trying to do anything over videoconferencing. Hell my toddler won’t even talk to his grandfather on videoconference, who is his absolute favorite person in the world.
- adrr 6y ago
  My daughter did remote kindergarten up until March when they let them return to class. She learned to read and do math remotely. Reading was done with small breakout groups of up to 3 kids all taking turns reading a book. Most of class was art projects and we received a packet every month filled with construction paper, coloring materials, and in-class worksheets. I am sure she learning everything a kindergartener is suppose to learn except the social aspect. Though during recess/snack time, the kids just chatted on google meet with each other. She made friends we set up zoom play dates. She also google meet expert now, she pins her friends to see what they are doing. It was quite amusing the first week where the teacher taught a bunch of 4 and 5 years old how to use google meet and the IPad with large print outs of all the icons.
tmaly 6y ago
I pay to send my kid to a montessori school. The class has been in person unlike the local public school. In my opinion, if they really cared about kids that were less well off, they would provide them with credits or vouchers to let parents decide what is best for their kids.
- jdkee 6y ago
  Or simply re-open the public schools.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - fwip 6y ago
    Private schools have more money, and so are more able to use that money to comply with safety requirements.
    - mensetmanusman 6y ago
      This is not generally true.
- vinay427 6y ago
  > they would provide them with credits or vouchers to let parents decide what is best for their kids. This sounds like the exact problem I would hope to avoid. Further incentivizing those who can pay out-of-pocket for their children's schooling would presumably create an even more lopsided public schooling system for those who cannot afford any additional expenditure. It may also decrease incentives to improve public schools in those areas. In the US, there are public school districts that can compete in quality with the most desirable private schools, so it's reasonable to assume that there's room for improvement elsewhere. Also, your comment makes an assumption that caring about kids means allowing parents to decide what is best for their kids. I'm sure this can be true, but it seems unfounded in something as abstract as schooling methodology.
- matchbok 6y ago
nevinera 6y ago
> has experts worried about who will be ready for first grade in fall 2021 I.. I just don't understand. Kindergarten is babysitting, you don't need be prepared for 1st grade.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  Sure, but that's just as true of most other years of school. The experts don't want to admit that 6th grade is babysitting and they don't want to admit that kindergarten is babysitting either.
- starpilot 6y ago
  Don't preschool and kindergarten teach vital social skills that can affect how you interact with others for the rest of your life?
  - 1123581321 6y ago
    Only as an intervention—outcomes are similar with or without for healthy families (using income as proxy.)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - jonstewart 6y ago
    Yes, this is referred to as Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) and is a major focus of teaching in PreK and kindergarten.
  - nevinera 6y ago
    In the absence of basic parenting, yes - that's an important function the setting serves. But it's not 'preparation for 1st grade', it's minimal damage-mitigation.
    - whymauri 6y ago
      In the absence of basic parenting? The child is spending like eight hours away from their parents. Of course it's going to have an impact, parenting present or not.
lhorie 6y ago
I have a daughter in kindergarten this year (and a son in 3rd grade), so I think I have a pretty decent experience with remote vs in-person kindergarten. Zoom bores my daughter. She doodles through class. The classes are deliberately short (30 min sessions) because good luck keeping two dozen kids engaged for longer through zoom. As the article mentioned, the social aspect is definitely missing. My 3rd grader gets a bit of it through breakout rooms with a couple classmates, but kindergarteners are too young for that, so most of classes is just sitting waiting for your turn to blurt out 3 words. Academically, I'll be honest, school is a lowest common denominator. School is going over spelling sight words and counting to 100. My daughter has early 2nd grader reading skills and knows multiplication from playing games. The same iPad that sucks so badly for zoom sessions is also a portal to the largest educational resource in the world. At this day and age of data abundance, academic success is what you make of it. The social aspect is still largely missing, but since we're all stuck at home, my kids get to spend a great deal of time together. This means they fight a lot, but I suppose learning to handle conflict is also part of developing social skills, so </shrug>
- hermanradtke 6y ago
  > My 3rd grader gets a bit of it through breakout rooms with a couple classmates, but kindergarteners are too young for that... My daughter’s kindergarten class has multiple break out sessions per day via Zoom. The break out sessions are managed by the teacher. Remote learning for young children is tough, but I see good teachers making it tolerable. Luckily, out kids are going back to in person schooling after Spring Break is over.
- faitswulff 6y ago
  What games taught her multiplication?
  - lhorie 6y ago
    There are several that are provided by school like mathletics, but the one my kids really got into is called Prodigy[0] [0] https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/ https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/
gnicholas 6y ago
I work in edtech, and I have a child who did remote school for the last 1/3 of kindergarten and the first 2/3 (and counting) of first grade. Although the article talks about the issue of first grade readiness, I think the bigger problem schools are going to face is that there will be an enormous range of returning students. Some students will have had very little academic exposure (due to lack of technology/broadband/area for learning) and some students will have had their education supplemented by their parents. The impact of these supplements can be tremendous, since they are personalized to the specific student. Also, students have more spare time out of school, since Zoom school takes up fewer hours than regular school (no bus ride, shorter lunch, no time spent lining up to wash hands or getting backpacks). Schools will have to decide how they want to deal with the great disparities that they will see next fall (across all grade levels). My guess is there will be much less stigma attached to repeating a grade than in normal times. I hope this is the case, because it would not be in the best interest of under-performing students to pass them along to the next grade if they're not ready.
- nullserver 6y ago
  Common tactic is to teach at the level of what the school wants kids to be at. No matter how many or if any kids are at that level.
  - gnicholas 6y ago
    A parent of older kids told me that if you sign your kid up for outside math programs, you shouldn’t tell the school. If the teacher finds out, they’ll figure your kid is taken care of for math and will ignore him/her. Amazingly, this was a parent whose kids attend one of the wealthiest public schools in SV (Woodside Elementary, where even the teachers drive luxury cars...).
dcolkitt 6y ago
Are significant fractions of the country still fully remote? Even after the vaccine has been widely distributed to almost any vulnerable person who wants it? In Florida, we've been in-person for any parent who wants it since the beginning of the school year. By now, 90% of families have opted back in to full-time in-school. I assume that preferences from around the country must be similar. I don't see how voters and taxpayers in full-remote areas aren't in outright revolt. I can't imagine being a state or local politician and trying to run for re-election on that platform.
- NDizzle 6y ago
  As far as I can tell California is slowly coming back on to classroom schooling. I've heard mixed messages depending on the district. My kids play travel ball so my Facebook feed is full of people all over the north part of the state and their experiences. All hearsay of course, in the grand scheme of things. One parent was complaining that the return to school in their district was doing zoom meetings from a classrom instead of at home. Me? I left CA when I saw the writing on the wall back in May. My kids have been doing in person school for the entire 2020-2021 school year.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    We decided our kid (CA) is doing remote school for as long as they are offering it. It’s mostly useless for her age (8) but it’s far better than sending her to a COVID pitri dish and bringing it home. I was stunned at the number of kids opted back in to in person school. All this risk for two more months or so. We are going to see another wave as people once again pretend the pandemic doesn’t exist.
fireeyed 6y ago
What could have happened if they just locked down senior homes instead of locking up the entire world ? The mental impact of these lockdowns have devastated children k-12 in developed countries and the livelihoods in poor countries which cannot afford printing fiat money. https://www.heritage.org/data-visualizations/public-health/covid-19-deaths-by-age/ https://www.heritage.org/data-visualizations/public-health/c...
therufa 6y ago
> Where have all the kindergartners gone? tldr: they moved to Israel, because there's no virus no more
thrower123 6y ago
Kindergarten is, first and foremost, free daycare; a place to warehouse children so their mothers can work, without paying for childcare. When I was five, we still had half-day kindergarten, and that was more than enough for the very modest and realistic scholastic expectations. Those consisted of learning the letters, doing circle time to go over the weather and the days of the week and count how many days of school we'd endured, and a healthy charge of playing with blocks. Public schools have to deal with both precocious children and those who are essentially feral, and this problem seems to be getting worse as the atomization of society progresses.

67 points by jawns 6y ago

Many families look at the numbers and decide that it makes more sense to have one parent stay home than pay $1400 per kid per month.

daniel-grigg 6y ago
Just to put things into perspective, in Sydney Australia a typical, inner city early learning centre costs $160/day, so $3200 per month. There are means tested rebates available but they cap out both in total per year and per day.
Impossible 6y ago
$1400 is the cost to put kids in alternative private programs (daycare/preschool). Keeping kids in (public) kindergarten is "free". I put that in quotes because pandemic kindergarten requires significantly more parent involvement. $1400 a month could look like a bargain compared to losing a full-time salary or could look like too high a cost to justify having both parents work. In dual parent hetero relationships, it's usually the mom that drops out of the workplace
bombcar 6y ago
Doesn’t a parent have to stay home with the kid anyway since everything’s remote?
- stevekemp 6y ago
  I suspect that depends where you are - here in Finland schools closed, but daycare stayed upon (1-6 years old). It was strongly encouraged that you keep your child home, but if your parents were doctors/similar there was no qualms about the kids going to daycare. Ours certainly went for the duration. We pay €250/month for that, which is very cheap.

watwut 6y ago

5 years old not knowing all the letters or not knowing how to read does not strikes me as odd or catastrophic. That is what first grade is for. But it gives me some idea about why the amount of parents who think starting school a year later might be good idea for their kids.

sokoloff 6y ago
It’s been a few years, but I’m pretty sure both our kids could read multi-syllable words entering first grade and had spent a lot of the summer reading on their own. It seems like that one year difference will get kids tracked with “the smart kids” and that gap will likely widen rather than narrow over the years. It’s not catastrophic, but it does seem like it’s at least relevant, and possibly important.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  We should treat the tracking and gap as a problem and fix it. Not by holding anyone back mind you, but by making sure every kid has the opportunity to make the most of the huge amount of time they spend in school.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    Some kids are going to learn faster than others. The only way to eliminate the gap is to hold them back.
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      I didn't say we should eliminate it, I said we should treat it as a problem. If it comes down to learning speed, great, not a big problem, if a 9th grader is behind because of how K-6 is structured, fix that.
      - WalterBright 6y ago
        > I said we should treat it as a problem. It's better to just accept that kids are different. It's not a problem that some kids run faster than others. It's not a problem that some kids are interested in art and others are interested in cars. I like programming. Others detest it, but like cooking. Viva la difference.

loloquwowndueo 6y ago

I find a lot of private schools are trying to justify their fees by offering “virtual learning” which is just a teacher trying to apply in-person techniques in front of a camera, and then a parent struggling to keep the child interested in the (non-interactive) screen. This is doomed to failure and entirely unnecessary and pointless at the kindergarten level. Also if the parents really want to and help the child, it’s entirely possible for them to be reading, counting and doing basic math by age 4.

querez 6y ago
I'd love to see a source / more information about your claim regarding kids of age 4.
- asymptosis 6y ago
  I started teaching my daughter letters at the age of three (eg "that letter looks like a snake, what does a snake say?") She was able to read basic signage while going around town before she turned four. She could independently read non-trivial books by the age of five. She was learning the Linux command line by the age of six. Young children learning to read isn't usually about their own innate ability. It's about whether they have someone who reliably puts in the hours with them. It probably also helps to model the behaviour, so they see you reading books yourself in your spare time.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    And as someone else who's kids did this: You end up with no books that are an appropriate reading challenge but also developmentally appropriate, and a kid who is really bored in school and not using the time to build good study and homework habits. I think it's a neat party trick to have a kid who is 4 and a fluent reader, and that it has some utility... but I might emphasize different things if I had it to do over again. At the same time, calling out math problems to the back seat was a way that I kept kids busy during road trips, and I wouldn't change that at all :D
    - 6y ago

gh-throw 6y ago

Remote’s a disaster for little kids, and about as much work for one or both parents as just teaching their kid some stuff themselves. If you don’t need special reading or speech intervention then well-chosen apps and a workbook can replace most of the useful actual instruction in kindergarten. Maybe just YouTube how to teach the alphabet correctly for phonics and you’re golden.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

627467 6y ago

Not a specialist, but I'd bet that not knowing letters and numbers is the least problematic part of the pandemic-led arrested development.

chrisseaton 6y ago

> Ninety minutes later, kindergarten was over for Annika. For good ... Today Annika attends the Little Mud Puddles Learning Center, a private preschool, with her 3-year-old brother. I don't understand - isn't her private preschool just another form of kindergarten? What's the difference?

mlyle 6y ago
The difference is, given the choice between a daycare center with a little academics / "private preschool"... or having your kids watch distanced public Kindergarten offerings... the former may be academically better.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  I got that, but I mean I don't understand the terminology 'done with kindergarten' and 'where are all the kindergarteners' - isn't the pre-school also a kindergarten? They aren't done with it and they haven't gone anywhere - they're just at a different kind of kindergarten.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    I think the idea is, that when the only public offerings are remote... there won't be any public kindergartners anymore. They'll end up in other offerings-- learning from their parents, in daycare centers, private preschools, or... just plopped in front of a TV or iPad. Because expecting your kid to be in an educational videoconference at age 5 is a nonstarter.
SamBam 6y ago
It's worded confusingly, but I think the point was "public kindergarten" = "focus on meeting standards via remote school" while "private preschool" = "social time." In the US, kindergartens are typically much more academic than elsewhere (while preschools generally have no academic curriculum).

samatman 6y ago

I went to a Waldorf school for the equivalent of elementary and middle school, which gives me a different perspective on this. Waldorf kindergartens don't have anything which resembles standard Prussian pedagogy. No desks, no assignments, none of that, and you aren't expected to read or write. It's mostly freeform play, we also learned to bake bread. Everyone turned out fine. Rudolph Steiner has some, let's say idiosyncratic, theories of child development, but I think his basic thesis that children don't need to learn reading, writing, and maths, before their brains are ready for that information, is sound. Kindergarten won't be to early for some children, but it will be too early for many. The ones it isn't too early for are just going to learn those things. These kids are going to be fine, or more accurately, the damage will be from living through the global trauma, not from ordinary kindergarten being interrupted. I feel real compassion for the kids whose parents are forcing them to sit through Zoom school, though. To me it's clear this is the worst of the available options.

watwut 6y ago
Desks dont imply Prussian pedagogy. No contemporary school system is Prussian, it evolved a lot. If I want to be snarky, it apparently does not give feel for how social history happens either.
cptskippy 6y ago
> Waldorf kindergartens don't have anything which resembles standard Prussian pedagogy. No desks, no assignments, none of that, and you aren't expected to read or write. It's mostly freeform play, we also learned to bake bread. Your Waldorf experience was my Kindergarten experience in a US public school in the 80s. I still have the cookbook we made and remember fondly making all the recipes in class. Marigolds are still one of my favorite flowers because we planted them in milk cartons to bring home on Mother's day. I also remember looking up the teacher's skirt because we all sat on a rug in the middle of class rather than desks.
- donw 6y ago
  I recall a lot of coloring, playing outside on a dedicated playground for kindergarteners, and frozen green grapes at snacktime during the summer. Also scheduled naps which I never took. We had tables for coloring and crafts, but not desks, and sat around on the ground whenever the teacher would tell us a story. There was also this hippy-ish woman who literally drove up in a VW microbus -- crazy that I remember that -- and who taught us a bit about music. Singing and clapping along to syllables are the bits that come to mind. One other thing is that there were no fences around the school. It was a good way to grow up, and I'm going to do my best to ensure my kids get at least some of this.

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago

Kindergarten doesn't need to be a thing. It's convenient for parents and probably not bad for children in ordinary times, but COVID kindergarten is pretty pointless.

mlyle 6y ago
Normal Kindergarten is correlated with better academic achievement later. COVID Kindergarten is worthless. My youngest is in first grade now, and is about the most eager-to-please and attentive child you'll ever find (haha, not the older two). But when he's been remote it's been only barely viable...
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  > correlated with better academic achievement later Correlation usually doesn't indicate causation.
  - msla 6y ago
    > Correlation usually doesn't indicate causation. I think this is taking "correlation doesn't always prove causation" a few steps too far, right off a cliff. There are difficulties with reasoning from correlation, but saying it "usually doesn't" indicate correlation is too bold, especially in experiments where confounders have been controlled for. [1] [1] (And don't get me started with the semi-clever types who ask if this or that variable has been controlled for when the study or the article about the study explicitly says it has. Save us all from halfwits trying to teach experienced researchers their business.)
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
      https://www.gwern.net/Causality https://www.gwern.net/Causality provides more empirical background on my view.
      - mlyle 6y ago

skybrian 6y ago

A question is whether this sort of thing is cumulative or even compounding, or whether later environmental effects can balance it out. If I recall correctly, studies of head start programs have shown that the effects are significant at first but tend to fade over time?

watwut 6y ago
Those studies were on disadvantaged kids. Which already makes them possibly irrelevant to HN crowd kids. If you take disadvataged kid and give him good kidergarten, first years in school are easier. 8 years later, those kids are basically product of their elementary school. You can't conclude anything else. You cant conclude what will happen if all the kids are less prepared, or what would happen with kids who have great support whole time.
mlyle 6y ago
They fade, but there's still a few percent difference in high school graduation rates, measures of emotional control in early adulthood, and college attendance. (Larger than this in some cohorts, e.g. when the mother's education level is very low).

Tildey 6y ago

Anecdotally, I went to kindergarten and I don’t think it really had much of an impact on me, and I definitely don’t think it would work remotely. Most of what I did there were hands on activities (arts and crafts, stuff with play dough, explorations into non Newtonian fluids) and socialising. Oh I talked to a police officer for the first, and so far only time. I wasn’t doing much academic learning, which is a the part of school that translates to online the best. Not to mention I simply wouldn’t have been able to focus on a teacher on a screen, although I suppose that part is changing as children’s relationships with technology advance.

spoonjim 6y ago
I doubt any person can say with any credibility whether kindergarten had an impact on them. It’s like asking if breastfeeding had an impact on a person — they simply wouldn’t know.

spoonjim 6y ago

“Remote learning” is completely fucking useless for kids under a certain age. That age varies by child but covers almost nobody at age 5. If I had a 5-year-old during a pandemic and no school to send them to I’d get them some art supplies and a stick and some musical instruments and tell them to play in the backyard.

deleted 6y ago
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ojame 6y ago
This is generally (in my circles at least) what parents do regardless. As in, provide equipment and an environment to have fun and learn. My anecdotal experience is once kids get to around 5, they start really wanting to form consistent social relationships. Also, if the child has younger siblings, generally they crave some “alone time” but not to be by themselves, to be with other kids their own age without their siblings. Basically what I’m trying to say is parents do what you’re talking about, but the older kids get, the more they need and it’s not as simple as you’d expect.
- spoonjim 6y ago
  Yes... then form a pod with another kid or kids and let them play. A 5 year old shouldn’t be trying to do anything over videoconferencing. Hell my toddler won’t even talk to his grandfather on videoconference, who is his absolute favorite person in the world.
adrr 6y ago
My daughter did remote kindergarten up until March when they let them return to class. She learned to read and do math remotely. Reading was done with small breakout groups of up to 3 kids all taking turns reading a book. Most of class was art projects and we received a packet every month filled with construction paper, coloring materials, and in-class worksheets. I am sure she learning everything a kindergartener is suppose to learn except the social aspect. Though during recess/snack time, the kids just chatted on google meet with each other. She made friends we set up zoom play dates. She also google meet expert now, she pins her friends to see what they are doing. It was quite amusing the first week where the teacher taught a bunch of 4 and 5 years old how to use google meet and the IPad with large print outs of all the icons.

tmaly 6y ago

I pay to send my kid to a montessori school. The class has been in person unlike the local public school. In my opinion, if they really cared about kids that were less well off, they would provide them with credits or vouchers to let parents decide what is best for their kids.

jdkee 6y ago
Or simply re-open the public schools.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- fwip 6y ago
  Private schools have more money, and so are more able to use that money to comply with safety requirements.
  - mensetmanusman 6y ago
    This is not generally true.
vinay427 6y ago
> they would provide them with credits or vouchers to let parents decide what is best for their kids. This sounds like the exact problem I would hope to avoid. Further incentivizing those who can pay out-of-pocket for their children's schooling would presumably create an even more lopsided public schooling system for those who cannot afford any additional expenditure. It may also decrease incentives to improve public schools in those areas. In the US, there are public school districts that can compete in quality with the most desirable private schools, so it's reasonable to assume that there's room for improvement elsewhere. Also, your comment makes an assumption that caring about kids means allowing parents to decide what is best for their kids. I'm sure this can be true, but it seems unfounded in something as abstract as schooling methodology.
matchbok 6y ago

nevinera 6y ago

> has experts worried about who will be ready for first grade in fall 2021 I.. I just don't understand. Kindergarten is babysitting, you don't need be prepared for 1st grade.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
Sure, but that's just as true of most other years of school. The experts don't want to admit that 6th grade is babysitting and they don't want to admit that kindergarten is babysitting either.
starpilot 6y ago
Don't preschool and kindergarten teach vital social skills that can affect how you interact with others for the rest of your life?
- 1123581321 6y ago
  Only as an intervention—outcomes are similar with or without for healthy families (using income as proxy.)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jonstewart 6y ago
  Yes, this is referred to as Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) and is a major focus of teaching in PreK and kindergarten.
- nevinera 6y ago
  In the absence of basic parenting, yes - that's an important function the setting serves. But it's not 'preparation for 1st grade', it's minimal damage-mitigation.
  - whymauri 6y ago
    In the absence of basic parenting? The child is spending like eight hours away from their parents. Of course it's going to have an impact, parenting present or not.

lhorie 6y ago

I have a daughter in kindergarten this year (and a son in 3rd grade), so I think I have a pretty decent experience with remote vs in-person kindergarten. Zoom bores my daughter. She doodles through class. The classes are deliberately short (30 min sessions) because good luck keeping two dozen kids engaged for longer through zoom. As the article mentioned, the social aspect is definitely missing. My 3rd grader gets a bit of it through breakout rooms with a couple classmates, but kindergarteners are too young for that, so most of classes is just sitting waiting for your turn to blurt out 3 words. Academically, I'll be honest, school is a lowest common denominator. School is going over spelling sight words and counting to 100. My daughter has early 2nd grader reading skills and knows multiplication from playing games. The same iPad that sucks so badly for zoom sessions is also a portal to the largest educational resource in the world. At this day and age of data abundance, academic success is what you make of it. The social aspect is still largely missing, but since we're all stuck at home, my kids get to spend a great deal of time together. This means they fight a lot, but I suppose learning to handle conflict is also part of developing social skills, so </shrug>

hermanradtke 6y ago
> My 3rd grader gets a bit of it through breakout rooms with a couple classmates, but kindergarteners are too young for that... My daughter’s kindergarten class has multiple break out sessions per day via Zoom. The break out sessions are managed by the teacher. Remote learning for young children is tough, but I see good teachers making it tolerable. Luckily, out kids are going back to in person schooling after Spring Break is over.
faitswulff 6y ago
What games taught her multiplication?
- lhorie 6y ago
  There are several that are provided by school like mathletics, but the one my kids really got into is called Prodigy[0] [0] https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/ https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/

gnicholas 6y ago

I work in edtech, and I have a child who did remote school for the last 1/3 of kindergarten and the first 2/3 (and counting) of first grade. Although the article talks about the issue of first grade readiness, I think the bigger problem schools are going to face is that there will be an enormous range of returning students. Some students will have had very little academic exposure (due to lack of technology/broadband/area for learning) and some students will have had their education supplemented by their parents. The impact of these supplements can be tremendous, since they are personalized to the specific student. Also, students have more spare time out of school, since Zoom school takes up fewer hours than regular school (no bus ride, shorter lunch, no time spent lining up to wash hands or getting backpacks). Schools will have to decide how they want to deal with the great disparities that they will see next fall (across all grade levels). My guess is there will be much less stigma attached to repeating a grade than in normal times. I hope this is the case, because it would not be in the best interest of under-performing students to pass them along to the next grade if they're not ready.

nullserver 6y ago
Common tactic is to teach at the level of what the school wants kids to be at. No matter how many or if any kids are at that level.
- gnicholas 6y ago
  A parent of older kids told me that if you sign your kid up for outside math programs, you shouldn’t tell the school. If the teacher finds out, they’ll figure your kid is taken care of for math and will ignore him/her. Amazingly, this was a parent whose kids attend one of the wealthiest public schools in SV (Woodside Elementary, where even the teachers drive luxury cars...).

dcolkitt 6y ago

Are significant fractions of the country still fully remote? Even after the vaccine has been widely distributed to almost any vulnerable person who wants it? In Florida, we've been in-person for any parent who wants it since the beginning of the school year. By now, 90% of families have opted back in to full-time in-school. I assume that preferences from around the country must be similar. I don't see how voters and taxpayers in full-remote areas aren't in outright revolt. I can't imagine being a state or local politician and trying to run for re-election on that platform.

NDizzle 6y ago
As far as I can tell California is slowly coming back on to classroom schooling. I've heard mixed messages depending on the district. My kids play travel ball so my Facebook feed is full of people all over the north part of the state and their experiences. All hearsay of course, in the grand scheme of things. One parent was complaining that the return to school in their district was doing zoom meetings from a classrom instead of at home. Me? I left CA when I saw the writing on the wall back in May. My kids have been doing in person school for the entire 2020-2021 school year.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  We decided our kid (CA) is doing remote school for as long as they are offering it. It’s mostly useless for her age (8) but it’s far better than sending her to a COVID pitri dish and bringing it home. I was stunned at the number of kids opted back in to in person school. All this risk for two more months or so. We are going to see another wave as people once again pretend the pandemic doesn’t exist.

fireeyed 6y ago

What could have happened if they just locked down senior homes instead of locking up the entire world ? The mental impact of these lockdowns have devastated children k-12 in developed countries and the livelihoods in poor countries which cannot afford printing fiat money. https://www.heritage.org/data-visualizations/public-health/covid-19-deaths-by-age/ https://www.heritage.org/data-visualizations/public-health/c...

therufa 6y ago

> Where have all the kindergartners gone? tldr: they moved to Israel, because there's no virus no more

thrower123 6y ago

Kindergarten is, first and foremost, free daycare; a place to warehouse children so their mothers can work, without paying for childcare. When I was five, we still had half-day kindergarten, and that was more than enough for the very modest and realistic scholastic expectations. Those consisted of learning the letters, doing circle time to go over the weather and the days of the week and count how many days of school we'd endured, and a healthy charge of playing with blocks. Public schools have to deal with both precocious children and those who are essentially feral, and this problem seems to be getting worse as the atomization of society progresses.