Where’s the Kitchen?

I have completed the full cycle of informal observations and have finished ⅓ of my formal observations for the 14 interns I coach.  It’s been eye-opening to work as a field supervisor for many reasons.  However, the biggest learning is my now better grasp of how instruction looks at the early elementary level in the year 2025. I taught all my years at the middle school level as an English teacher.  In fact, the last time I worked with such young students was during my brief stint as a substitute teacher right after graduating in December of 1991.  Boy, have things changed.

All the classrooms I visited had a reading rug on which students congregated for whole group instruction and desks or tables for independent work.  That’s very similar to what I remember even from my own experience as a young learner.  However, these kindergartners go to school all day not just for mornings or afternoons.  Many times during my observations, mostly done in the afternoons, kindergartners were lying on the reading rug and had to be reminded to sit up.  It would seem they were tired.  Sometimes a student would begin crying during a lesson.  Not the quiet cry of a middle schooler, trying not to be noticed.  No, the crying would be loud wailing that could be heard in the hallways and beyond.  Oftentimes a teaching aide would swoop in and take the student away to calm down.  Sometimes instruction just continued on amidst the howling and sobbing.  Every once in a while a fellow kindergartner would step over and pat the crying child on the back. That was very sweet and kind, but did nothing to quiet the howl.

In one kindergarten classroom, the students were gathering as they do on the classroom rug, and a little girl was, instead, sitting in a comfy reading chair and her thumb was in her mouth.  The teacher asked her why she wasn’t taking her spot on the rug, and she whimpered, “I miss my Mommy.”  It was me who almost started crying then.  These children are only 5 years old, they are just starting the routine of school and they are exhausted, yet gone is rest time of any sort.  

Fifty years ago when I was five years old, we went to school for half of the day, had rest time on our nap rugs, and snack time with graham crackers and milk.  Not to mention, part of our kindergarten classroom was designed for cooperative play with a pretend kitchen, blocks, tinker toys and dolls.  The kindergarten classrooms I visit now have no designated place for play.  They are lucky to get a minute to doodle on their whiteboards before using them to write out words for the teacher. Play is the work of children and a necessary way for them to learn to cooperate and imagine.  I think I know why so many kids are crying in kindergarten classrooms, and I’m also beginning to see the possible repercussions of this type of rigor at such an early age.

When I was still a full-time teacher, we had started to notice at the middle school level a decline in student empathy, cooperation, and general attention span.  We rushed to blame technology and screen time, but I wonder if there is another contributing factor–the loss of playtime in community with their classmates. Playing together gives kids an opportunity to work out differences and think about fairness.  The act of pretending allows them to imagine the world from a different point of view, perhaps promoting empathy.  And, finally, the world of pretend is free of right and wrong answers, allowing for open-ended, critical thinking.  

We need the children to play in kindergarten, so they can solve bigger problems together as they get older. It might be the most important change we can make in education–the return to play.