Dress Up Like a Subway Train. Go "Beep Beep"
Wherein I decode some of the pedagogic mumbo-jumbo pertaining to a TDSB "all-day" kindergarten and some of the cutting-edge "play-based learning" that goes on there. Here's a taste of what I mean:
From the simplest of observations, a teacher can, lead students into a world of learning as they explore and take their curiosity, their interests and their “play” and have it molded into rich learning experience in a structured environment. By encouraging active learning and creating experiences for children that involve high cognitive demand, teachers and early childhood educators can enable students to deepen their understanding of the content in a manner appropriate to their needs and developmental stages.
In other words and to re-iterate: dress up like a subway train. Go "beep beep."
OISE-sponsored gobbledegook.
ReplyDeleteFor sure. Alas, we have to pay for it--big time (since it's Dalton McWindy's "legacy," after all).
ReplyDeleteWay back when, I attended a parent - teacher - education 'expert' meeting talking about kindergarten and what would be 'taught' there. The 'expert' from - as memory serves - the Department of Education (or whatever it was called) explained patiently that kindergarten was for 'pre-reading', 'pre-math', etc., and not for the actual teaching of skills. Since eldest offspring could already read, I wasn't thrilled; neither, judging from comments, were other parents. However, the best comment of the day was from a brave pre-school teacher who proclaimed: "If they ask, I will show them how to print their names". Fortunately, this was a private school.
ReplyDeleteIn later years, this school came under fire from 'experts' several times because the kindergarten class contained too many resources for real learning and too few for all this 'pre'stuff.