Resisting the Kinder-Race - Christopher P. Brown

Resisting the Kinder-Race

Restoring Joy to Early Learning
Buch | Hardcover
216 Seiten
2021
Teachers' College Press (Verlag)
978-0-8077-6561-6 (ISBN)
129,65 inkl. MwSt
Many believe that kindergarten no longer reflects a nurturing environment but, instead, has become a race for children to learn skills so they are ready for the academic achievement tests. Resisting the Kinder-Race examines how the race came about, why it must change, and how all stakeholders must take part in the reform process.
Kindergarten has changed. Many believe that it no longer reflects a nurturing environment but, instead, has become a race for children to learn skills so they are ready for the academic achievement tests that they will take continuously throughout their time in school. Resisting the Kinder-Race examines how the race came about, why it must change, and how all stakeholders in the early childhood and elementary school communities must take part in the reform process. The author draws on his own research to consider how the Kinder-Race might be reimagined through more democratic principles of schooling. Brown offers both practical and political strategies that can alter the day-to-day practices of the kindergarten classroom and the policies that currently define PreK–12 education in the United States. This resource will help readers see kindergarten as an educational environment that expands the learning of every child.


Book Features:




Provides an in-depth glimpse into a typical day in the Kinder-Race.
Examines how kindergarten devolved from a garden that nurtures children into a race that dashes them from skill to skill.
Brings together what are often siloed conversations among stakeholder groups.
Highlights how kindergarten is now primarily defined through an economic lens and how this framing of learning, earning, and consuming might be rethought. 
Employs varied conceptual frameworks to investigate how stakeholders across different levels of public education make sense of the changed kindergarten.
Illuminates the complexity of what is occurring in today’s kindergarten and puts forward practical and achievable ideas for change.

Christopher P. Brown is a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin.

Contents


Acknowledgments xi


1.  Why Examine the Changed Kindergarten? 1

Origins of My Interest in the Changed Kindergarten 2

Why This Book? 3

How No Child Left Behind Has Failed 4

The Purpose of This Book 5

My Own Sense of Reality 9

Outlining the Rest of the Book 11


2.  How Kindergarten Transitioned From a Garden to a Race 13

Froebel’s Kindergarten 13

The Expansion of Kindergarten in the United States 14

Kindergarten Post-WWII 16

A National Focus on the Academic Performance of Children 17

The Early Childhood Community Responds to the Push for Increased Academics 18

A New Focus on Kindergarten Readiness 18

Improving America’s Schools Act 19

No Child Left Behind 20

Accountability Shovedown Moves Into Prekindergarten Classrooms 21

Readying Children for Kindergarten 22

The Achievement Gap 22

The Construct of School Readiness 23

The Impact of Policy on Kindergarten Teachers’ Curricular Decisionmaking 25

Not Just Standards-Based Accountability Reform 27


3.  Experiencing the Kinder-Race 28

The Significance of the Kindergarten Year for Student Learning 29

The Day-to-Day in Kindergarten 30

Making Sense of Kindergarten 30

Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy 31

Kindergarten in Texas 32

What Do Kindergartners “Do” on a Daily Basis? 36

What Happens in Literacy and Mathematics During a Typical Day? 37

Summing Up a Day in the Kinder-Race 54


4.  Figuring the Kinder-Race Within the Worlds of Schooling 57

Why Texas and West Virginia? 58

The Figured World of the Kindergarten Classroom 58

How the Kindergartners Figured Their Own World 59

How Kindergartners Would Like to Reroute the Kinder-Race 62

How the Adults Within the Worlds of Elementary School Figured the Kinder-Race 64

How Family Members Figured Kindergarten 66

How Families Hoped to Reroute the Kinder-Race 70

How Kindergarten Teachers Figured Kindergarten 73

Teachers Rerouting the Kinder-Race 79

School Principals 83

Principals Rerouting the Kinder-Race 87

The Figuring of Kindergarten by Those Whose Orbits Revolve Around the School 90


5.  The Tension Between Fostering Democratic Students Versus Individualized Performers 92

Countering Neoliberalism 92

Texas and West Virginia Stakeholders 93

Texas Stakeholders 94

West Virginia Stakeholders 108

National Stakeholders 119

National Stakeholders Rerouting the Kinder-Race 123

Struggling to Reroute a Race That Prioritizes Economics Over Democratic Learning 130


6.  Kindergarten Is the Expansion of Learning 131

Rerouting the Kinder-Race 131

The Strict Father and Nurturant Parent Metaphors 133

Defining the Kinder-Race Using Lakoff 134

Rerouting the Kinder-Race: Kindergarten Is the Expansion of Learning 135

How to Engage in the Expansion of Learning 137

Supporting and Engaging Stakeholders in Expanding the Learning of Kindergartners 144

Moving Into the Political 150

Resources to Help Create Schools to Expand Learning for All Children 155

Moving Forward in Expanding the Learning of All Children 156


Appendix: Research Design 159


Notes 165


References 168


Index 191


About the Author 204

Erscheinungsdatum
Reihe/Serie Early Childhood Education Series
Mitarbeit Herausgeber (Serie): Nancy File, Christopher P. Brown
Verlagsort New York
Sprache englisch
Maße 162 x 235 mm
Gewicht 429 g
Themenwelt Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Allgemeines / Lexika
Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Bildungstheorie
Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Vorschulpädagogik
ISBN-10 0-8077-6561-9 / 0807765619
ISBN-13 978-0-8077-6561-6 / 9780807765616
Zustand Neuware
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