School hasn't always looked how it looks now in modern day America. The basic structure of public school as we know it had its beginnings right around the time of the Industrial Revolution and details have been changing almost constantly ever since. Generations and generations were educated in various other ways. And although there are many interesting tidbits to be gleaned by looking at education throughout history, age is my focus today.

The ancient Orthodox Jews did not begin formal schooling until age 12 or 13. This age happens to coincide with Piaget's findings (centuries later) on cognitive maturity. My parents started public school at age five, so did I, so do today's kindergartners, but things sure have changed. It wasn't that long ago that kindergarten was not viewed as an academic year. It was much more about play and arts and time with other kids, and I'm pretty sure the "Kindergarten Curriculum Contents" guide was not 81 pages long. In my own life time I have watched the formal teaching of reading, writing, and math skills get pushed down earlier and earlier in the public school classrooms. In my observations and research I do not see that the students are any better off for such an early push (and if anything worse off).

One of my college papers was on Vygotsky and the the importance of play to the overall brain development of a young child. In college education courses I had to research and articulate my thoughts on education. Recently I went out to our shed in hopes of finding some of the papers I wrote back then. I know that many of my beliefs haven't changed over the years and I could really use some of that studied, researched thought I put into those papers right about now. Sadly, the attrition rate, due mostly to rats and goats, has been pretty high in the shed. I couldn't find any of my old papers. I'm really mourning the loss because there was some good stuff there . . . . some jump-through-the-hoops-and-get-the-assignment-done stuff also but there were a couple of papers I remember vividly and very much wanted to re-read. I wish I had the paper in front of me right now, but I know that Vygotsky showed very powerfully how children need play, specifically imaginative play and interaction with people at different stages of development for optimal learning. When young children miss out on play time, their future cognitive development is affected. The things I researched and wrote about in college ring true to what I want for my own children. My goals of where I expected to see these things play out are what have changed. At that time I naively pictured myself spending the better part of my life teaching in a public school classroom. Today, I'm trying to come up with a picture of how it will all look in my own home.

Gatto says that if taught at the right time, basic reading, writing, and arithmetic can be learned in less than 100 hours. A leader at a seminar I attended said, "we expect our six-year-olds to sit in their seats for eight hours and tell our teenagers to go play." Now this is exaggerated, but the point struck me. I will expect my kids to be serious studiers but I do not see starting out that way. We will, and are, starting out with some academics but our kindergarten year will probably look much more like my parents' kindergarten year and much less like that of my son's peers. There is some fear in me here because I have a feeling that if you compare my son to other five, six, and seven-year-olds he will seem to be behind. However, I hope and believe that at age 12, 18, and beyond he will shine.

“I am struck by the fact that the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think that the same is true of human beings. We do not wish to see children precocious, making great strides in their early years like sprouts, producing a soft and perishable timber, but better if they expand slowly at first, as if contending with difficulties, and so are solidified and perfected. Such trees continue to expand with nearly equal rapidity to extreme old age.”
Henry David Thoreau