Academic Pressure on Young Children: One Teacher’s Concern
This column argues that academic pressure on young children now outruns what they are developmentally ready for. That is the author's concern from 27 years in schools rather than a settled research finding, and the evidence on early academic pressure remains contested. He raises questions instead of offering answers.
I wrote a column recently about teaching our kids resilience and how to prepare them for the competitive world they have been born into. Those things are important, but where, I now ask, is that reality leading us? Read on.
Where the Bell Curve Fits Into Child Development
Isn't it interesting how the world views the development of the child, and how the phrase "all men and women are created equally" has taken on such a literal meaning? The line comes from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, and it is a claim about moral and legal standing rather than a claim about measured ability. What I keep circling back to is the bell curve. It is a statistical model, one that can describe how some measured traits are distributed across a large population. It proves nothing about equality or anyone's worth. What it does illustrate is how much variation sits inside any group of people you care to measure.
Look at the children I have taught, and the range is enormous. Some may carry the potential of an Einstein or a Hawking. Some have intellectual disabilities. Some are autistic. Abilities and support needs vary widely within each of those groups, and the stereotypes do not survive contact with actual students: autistic children are not a single profile, and a student with an intellectual disability is not a fixed ceiling. Isn't it grand that there is as much wonderful variation in humans as there is in all the flora and fauna species of the earth combined? Is variation not what makes this world wonderful? And are we trying to drag the whole distribution toward one end of it too early?
What Children Can Do Versus What We Demand
There are many theories about the stages of child development. What I have observed across 27 years, and I offer it as one teacher's observation rather than as evidence of a national trend, is a blurring of the boundary between what a child is developmentally capable of at a given stage and what society now demands at that stage.
RELATED - Child Development Degree
When Play Was Something Kids Organized Themselves
I remember more of childhood running on games kids invented themselves: rules they argued out, hierarchies of respect they built between them, and firsthand lessons about hard work, honesty, sacrifice, and honor on the playground, in the back yard, or the vacant lot. Plenty of kids still play that way, and an organized activity can teach those same things well. What I notice is the balance shifting, with more of it now happening under the watchful eye of an adult, in a sport or program where the rules, procedures and practices have already been thought up for them. Why? Is it because that well-intentioned adult wants their and only their view of the way things should be to exist? What is the objective? Is it that more is better sooner? Or, is it more to the point of let's get them BIGGER, FASTER and STRONGER, in kindergarten!!!
Are We Trading Social Intellect for Academic Intellect?
More to my point, intellectually: how much of what we now ask of a six-year-old is set by what six-year-olds are ready for, and how much by what we wish they were ready for?
Wonder why there is so much unrest in the world and why we cannot see our neighbor's point of view? Are we too busy getting bigger, faster, and stronger to care what our neighbor is doing, what they care about, how they are feeling? Are we too busy building the wall? Are we forgetting to develop our social intellect while we are developing our academic intellect?
Is the Pressure Itself the Problem?
Lastly, the questions that worry me most, and I want to be plain that these are worries rather than findings. Is the pressure hurting our kids? Do the social, economic, and monetary demands we place on them make quick money, easy pleasure, and the escape of a substance look more appealing than they otherwise would? Is it pushing kids out of participation altogether, because "participation" now means give me 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year? I don't have the answers, but the questions are worthy of discussion.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does "developmentally appropriate" mean?
The National Association for the Education of Young Children uses the term for practice that takes three things into account together: commonality in how children develop and learn, the individuality of each child, and the social and cultural contexts in which that development and learning happen. All three matter at once, which is why the phrase describes a framework for decisions rather than a fixed set of benchmarks.
Is there research behind the concern about early academic pressure?
Some research suggests it. The developmental psychologist David Elkind made the best-known version of this argument in The Hurried Child and Miseducation, holding that formal academic instruction pushed into the early years works against how young children learn. Other researchers have questioned how far the effects reach. Treat it as one influential line of argument that's still contested rather than a settled finding.
Does the bell curve describe child development?
Only loosely. Some measured traits may approximate a normal distribution across a population, but development is multidimensional, and individual children should not be interpreted from a population distribution. It doesn't follow that a given classroom's readiness falls on a bell curve, and the model establishes nothing about a child's worth or what any one student is capable of.
What can a teacher do when expectations outrun development?
It depends heavily on where you teach. Standards, curriculum, assessment, daily schedules, instructional requirements and the amount of discretion a teacher holds all vary by state, district, school and assignment. Depending on those, the room to move might be pacing inside a unit, how much unstructured or social time the schedule allows, or communicating with families about a student's development and progress relative to applicable benchmarks. Worth checking what your own school and district actually leave to your judgment.
- The gap is the author's argument - his concern, offered as a practitioner's observation rather than as a research finding, is that what society demands of children has moved faster than what children are ready to deliver.
- Variation is normal - a single-age classroom tends to hold a wide spread of readiness, and that spread is a feature of human development rather than a problem to be corrected.
- Peer-directed play is practice - unstructured and peer-directed play can provide opportunities to practice negotiation, cooperation, problem-solving and other social skills.
- The research is contested, not settled - Elkind's case against early academic pressure is influential and still argued over, so read it as a position rather than a verdict.
- No tidy answer offered - the piece closes on open questions on purpose, and the author says so directly.
If this argument lands with you, the formal study of how children actually develop is where it gets rigorous: stage theory, the research on play, and what the evidence does and doesn't support. The sponsored child development and early childhood programs listed on this page include online and part-time options for teachers already working in a classroom.
- Academic Pressure on Young Children: One Teacher’s Concern - September 28, 2016
