Hay peores cosas que no aprender a leer en preescolar

27 de octubre de 2017

Escrito por Gaye Groover Christmus. Traducido por Trinus

El año que Sam comenzó preescolar, cumplió 6 el mes de octubre. Él era uno de los niños más grandes de su salón de clases y aún no sabía leer. Cuando comenzó primer grado, tenía casi 7 y aún no sabía leer. Afortunadamente para Sam, él entró a primer grado en 1999. Sus maestras, Miss Grant y Miss Floyd no se preocupaban si sus alumnos sabían leer en preescolar. Es más, esperaban que la mayoría de niños comenzaran a leer en primer grado. (Claro, motivando a quienes aprendían a leer fácilmente en preescolar).

Si Sam hubiera comenzado primer grado este año, probablemente lo hubieran etiquetado de estarse quedando atrás. El nuevo estándar es que los niños deben aprender a leer en preescolar. A pesar que la mayoría de educadores están conscientes que esto no debería de suceder hasta primer grado. Sam se convirtió en un buen lector a finales de primer grado. En el momento que llego a la secundaria, era un estudiante de cuadro de honor y se graduó de la universidad con un GPA de 3.93/4.

¿Entonces, qué pasa cuando los estándares de la educación requieren que niños como Sam aprendan a leer en preescolar y que las maestras hubieran forzado que esto sucediera? Muchos educadores dicen que esto resulta en tiempo de clase ineficiente y contraproducente. Esto quiere decir que muchos niños realmente aprenden y retienen menos información de lo que harían en una clase adecuada para su edad.
Entonces, les doy mi consejo (lo pueden tomar si quieren, porque no soy una maestra, pero si soy la madre de Sam). Si tu hijo no aprende a leer en preescolar, no te estreses. Porque hay muchísimas cosas peor que no aprender a leer. A continuación, te mencionaré 4 de ellas:

• Tiempo limitado para juego creativo. Los niños pequeños aprenden por medio del juego. Aprenden al moverse, al construir, al botar cosas, pero no llenando varias hojas de trabajo. También aprenden al interactuar con otros niños, al solucionar problemas, al compartir y cooperar, no aprendiendo fonética a los 6 años. Mrs. Grat y Mrs. Floyd creaban centros maravillosos y rincones que permitían a los alumnos a aprender cualquier cosa desde casas a camiones, de perros a océanos… También incluían actividades que requerían habilidades de lectura y matemáticas, y lo mejor de todo es que los alumnos no se dan cuenta que están trabajando porque están muy concentrados creando y jugando. Los maestros hoy en día, tienden a limitar o incluso eliminar juego porque los requerimientos académicos son tan fuertes que se han visto forzado a eliminar este tiempo donde aprenden de una manera creativa.

• Tiempo limitado para actividad física. Pocas cosas son tan contraproducentes como limitar el tiempo de recreo y otros tipos de juego físico para los niños. Los niños aprenden mejor cuando se mueven. Ambos papas y maestros saben esto de pura intuición, y hay muchos estudios que lo confirman. Los niños que tienen más oportunidades de correr por allí y jugar, tienden a tener mejores destrezas de pensamiento y su actividad cerebral es mayor. Y no asumas que los niños son naturalmente activos y que hacen la cantidad de ejercicio que necesitan a diario, estudios han encontrado que los niños de tres y cuatro años son sorprendentemente inactivos. Y, aun así, varios colegios están limitando y eliminando el tiempo de recreo, hasta para los más pequeños.

• Aprendizaje enfocado en estándares y exámenes. Las maestras están constantemente bajo presión para preparar a sus alumnos para poder salir bien en estas pruebas estandarizadas. Esto quiere decir que el enfoque principal de los maestros, ya no es enseñarles a los niños de la mejor manera para ellos, pero les están enseñado para que sean exitosos en las pruebas. Una maestra dijo, “he notado como los requisitos de mi trabajo se han alejado del enfoque del niño, de su forma de aprendizaje, de sus necesidades emocionales, y sus familias; ahora todo el interés está centralizado en exámenes, pruebas y calificar a los alumnos…” Este cambio resulta en que los maestros tengan menos tiempo para inculcar en sus alumnos las disciplinas para que sean aprendices de por vida.

• Frustración y sentido de fracaso. Los niños saben que no están cumpliendo con las expectativas de sus maestros y de otros adultos. Lo que no saben, es que todas estas expectativas no hacen ningún sentido, y por no saber esto, ellos sienten frustración y sentido de fracaso cuando no dan la “talla”. Para dar un ejemplo, el niño que le fue muy bien en su preescolar experimental pero luego tiene problema en su colegio enfocado en lo académico, se podrá sentir frustrado a tal punto de sentir que “odia el colegio”. Y la niña que no se puede quedar quieta por más de 30 minutos y llenar todas las hojas de trabajo, sabe que está decepcionando a su maestra, pero lo que ella no sabe es que esa tarea no es adecuada para niños de su edad. Lo cual quiere decir que muchos niños normales se frustran cada vez más y están siendo etiquetados por un sistema completamente irreal. Un artículo dice: la mayoría de niños ansían sobrepasar todas las expectativas que tienen, pero las herramientas y destrezas como aprendiz así como su entusiasmo para aprender sufren cuando las demandas son inapropiadas para su edad.

Si tu hijo está en preescolar o primer grado y aún no sabe leer, no te preocupes. Habla con su doctor si tienes alguna preocupación, pero reconoce que él/ella se está desarrollando como debe de ser. Si el colegio de tu hijo(a), empuja mucho en el área académica en vez de incentivar el juego, habla con la maestra. Te aseguro que él/ella está bajo muchísima presión para que sus alumnos salgan bien en sus exámenes. Si estas estancado con un currículo de preescolar que se ve irreal y no encaja con tu hijo(a), hazle saber a tu hijo(a) que tú no estás preocupado porque aprenda a leer. Habla de gente que no ha comenzado a leer hasta después (como Sam), y están bien. Luego, haz cosas que promuevan aprender de distintas maneras, como leerle un cuento que disfrute, jugar juegos, enseñarle destrezas útiles, y sácalos a divertirse a la naturaleza lo más que puedan, sean activos y aprendan juntos.

Te compartimos el link al artículo original.

The Impact of Technology on the Developing Child

3 de octubre de 2017

Written by Cris Rowan, Pediatric occupational therapist, biologist, speaker, author.

Reminiscing about the good old days when we were growing up is a memory trip well worth taking when trying to understand the issues facing the children of today. A mere 20 years ago, children used to play outside all day, riding bikes, playing sports and building forts. Masters of imaginary games, children of the past created their own form of play that didn’t require costly equipment or parental supervision. Children of the past moved… a lot, and their sensory world was nature based and simple. In the past, family time was often spent doing chores, and children had expectations to meet on a daily basis. The dining room table was a central place where families came together to eat and talk about their day, and after dinner became the center for baking, crafts and homework.

Today’s families are different. Technology’s impact on the 21st century family is fracturing its very foundation, and causing a disintegration of core values that long ago were the fabric that held families together. Juggling school, work, home, and community lives, parents now rely heavily on communication, information, and transportation technology to make their lives faster and more efficient. Entertainment technology (TV, Internet, video games, iPads, cell phones) has advanced so rapidly, that families have scarcely noticed the significant impact and changes to their family structure and lifestyles. A 2010 Kaiser Foundation study showed that elementary aged children use on average 7.5 hours per day of entertainment technology, 75 percent of these children have TV’s in their bedrooms, and 50 percent of North American homes have the TV on all day. Gone is dining room table conversation, replaced by the “big screen” and take out.

Children now rely on technology for the majority of their play, grossly limiting challenges to their creativity and imaginations, as well as limiting necessary challenges to their bodies to achieve optimal sensory and motor development. Sedentary bodies bombarded with chaotic sensory stimulation are resulting in delays in attaining child developmental milestones, with subsequent negative impact on basic foundation skills for achieving literacy. Hard-wired for high speed, today’s young are entering school struggling with self regulation and attention skills necessary for learning, eventually becoming significant behavior management problems for teachers in the classroom.

So what is the impact of technology on the developing child? Children’s developing sensory, motor, and attachment systems have biologically not evolved to accommodate this sedentary, yet frenzied and chaotic nature of today’s technology. The impact of rapidly advancing technology on the developing child has seen an increase of physical, psychological and behavior disorders that the health and education systems are just beginning to detect, much less understand. Child obesity and diabetes are now national epidemics in both Canada and the U.S., causally related to technology overuse. Diagnoses of ADHD, autism, coordination disorder, developmental delays, unintelligible speech, learning difficulties, sensory processing disorder, anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders are associated with technology overuse, and are increasing at an alarming rate. An urgent closer look at the critical factors for meeting developmental milestones, and the subsequent impact of technology on those factors, would assist parents, teachers and health professionals to better understand the complexities of this issue, and help create effective strategies to reduce technology use.

Four critical factors necessary to achieve healthy child development are movement, touch, human connection, and exposure to nature. These types of sensory inputs ensure normal development of posture, bilateral coordination, optimal arousal states and self-regulation necessary for achieving foundation skills for eventual school entry. Young children require 2-3 hours per day of active rough and tumble play to achieve adequate sensory stimulation to their vestibular, proprioceptive and tactile systems. Tactile stimulation received through touching, hugging and play is critical for the development of praxis, or planned movement patterns. Touch also activates the parasympathetic system lowering cortisol, adrenalin and anxiety. Nature and “green space” has not only a calming influence on children, but also is attention restorative and promotes learning.

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Further analysis of the impact of technology on the developing child indicates that while the vestibular, proprioceptive, tactile and attachment systems are under stimulated, the visual and auditory sensory systems are in “overload.” This sensory imbalance creates huge problems in overall neurological development, as the brain’s anatomy, chemistry and pathways become permanently altered and impaired. Young children who are exposed to violence through TV and video games are in a high state of adrenalin and stress, as the body does not know that what they are watching is not real. Children who overuse technology report persistent body sensations of overall “shaking”, increased breathing and heart rate, and a general state of “unease.” This can best be described as a persistent hypervigalent sensory system, still “on alert” for the oncoming assault. While the long term effects of this chronic state of stress in the developing child are unknown, we do know that chronic stress in adults results in a weakened immune system and a variety of serious diseases and disorders.

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It’s important to come together as parents, teachers and therapists to help society “wake up” and see the devastating effects technology is having not only on our child’s physical, psychological and behavioral health, but also on their ability to learn and sustain personal and family relationships. While technology is a train that will continually move forward, knowledge regarding its detrimental effects, and action taken toward balancing the use of technology with critical factors for development, will work toward sustaining our children. While no one can argue the benefits of advanced technology in today’s world, connection to these devices may have resulted in a disconnection from what society should value most, children. Rather than hugging, playing, rough housing, and conversing with children, parents are increasingly resorting to providing their children with more TV, video games, and the latest iPads and cell phone devices, creating a deep and irreversible chasm between parent and child.

This article originally appeared in the Huffington Post.

There is structure within the rhythm

11 de julio de 2017

Written by Rene Petersen, Trinus teacher

In Waldorf Schools rhythm plays an essential part in daily, weekly and yearly planning.

Rhythm holds the children; it makes them feel safe and secure. It gives them clear boundaries by which they can mark the passage of time throughout the day or the year. The repetition rhythm allows, strengthens the will of the children so that they come to love and trust all that happens at their school.

Picture from Waldorf Chicago

In the primary school the day starts with the children being greeted and individually welcomed into the classroom by their teacher. In this way the teacher gets to make direct contact with each child so that they know they are seen and acknowledged.

Every day begins with the 2 hour Main Lesson block and each main lesson lasts for 3-4weeks. During this time the children become immersed in the particular subject they are learning for the 3-4 week period. Besides learning the content they enjoy stories, art, songs, drama, modelling- all centred around the current Main Lesson block. The Main Lesson starts with rhythmic time where the children sing class songs, recite verses and participate in games to wake them up, unite them as a class and prepare them for the day ahead.

After break time the children move on to their subject lessons and lessons where regular repetition is required e.g. Spanish, Math, English, Music etc

After lunch children are engaged in the art subjects e.g painting, drama or Waldorf Games. These subjects are done at the end of the day so that children are not required to strain themselves when they have already had a long day. The lively arts and games lessons are a great way to keep children engaged and stimulated right up until the end of the day.

Much care, attention and thought goes into planning the rhythm of the day as well as the weekly and yearly rhythm. A misconception exists that Waldorf schools do not have any structure or routine.

However the reality is the complete opposite of this.

The main difference is that the structure is not noticeable because children are smiling and happy throughout the day. The rhythm of a Waldorf school allows children ample space for breathing in and out; space for quiet and chaos; space for inner reflection and space for group work and class activities. In this way children move healthily through the day, week and year trusting that they are safe. This is one reason why Waldorf students enjoy being at school!

Myth Busting: How Reading Is Taught in a Waldorf School

6 de julio de 2017

Written by Sara Baldwin, Waldorf teacher

The Evolution of Language

In the evolution of humanity, spoken language developed first. Then came written language, originally through symbols (think hieroglyphics). Finally, once there was a written language, people learned to read.

This is exactly the sequence in which children master language, and so is the sequence in which reading is taught in Waldorf education. From birth to age seven, the focus is on the spoken word.

The children hear stories – nursery rhymes, nature stories, folktales and fairy tales. Teachers are careful to use the original language of fairy tales without “dumbing them down” or simplifying the language. The teacher is careful to use clear speech and to enunciate. This will help children later when it comes time to learn to write and spell.

In early childhood, language is taught through story time and circle time: songs, verses, rhymes and poems are all incorporated. It may look like play, but language skills are being developed daily.

Repetition

Because the same circle time sequence is repeated daily for 2-3 weeks at a time, children learn the songs and verses “by heart,” and will retain them for life.

Rudolf Steiner, founder of Waldorf education, stressed the importance of repetition when he developed the first Waldorf school in Germany in the 1920’s. Current brain research confirms that repetition aids a child’s brain development. The connections of billions of neural pathways in the brain are strengthened through repeated experiences.

Speaking

A visitor to a Waldorf kindergarten might notice the children are not being taught the ABC’s. They are not given worksheets, nor do they practice reading from books. But we Waldorf teachers know that language skills are being built through the repetition of stories, songs and verses. We are preparing children to read and write through the spoken word.

On the other hand, that same observer is likely to be impressed by the children’s precocious verbal abilities; their impressive vocabulary, and the number of poems and stories that they can recite by heart.

In addition to our work with speech, we work on building a child’s fine motor skills—through activities such drawing, finger knitting and sewing—to prepare children for the next stage of language development: writing.

Writing

It is during first grade in a Waldorf School when the alphabet is formally introduced, but in an imaginative, pictorial way. Think again of hieroglypics. Each letter of the alphabet is introduced as a symbol, representing an element from a story the children are told. For example, they might hear the story of a knight on a quest who had to cross mountains and a valley. The children will then draw a picture with the letter “M” forming the Mountains on either side of the “V” for Valley.

Blackboard Drawing by Allen Stovall

In this way, the child develops a living relationship with each letter and the written word. It is not dry and abstract. Writing is taught in a way that engages the child’s imagination.

After learning all the letters, the next step is to copy the teacher’s writing. Typically the children will recite a poem together until it is learned by heart.

Then the teacher will write the poem on the board, and the children will copy it into their “main lesson books,” the books that children in a Waldorf school create themselves.

Because the children already know the poem and they have learned the alphabet, they will begin to make connections. “Oh, this must spell “brown bear” because both these words start with “B” and those are the first two words of the poem!”

Reading

The final step is learning to read, which generally starts in second grade and continues into third grade.

It is important to know that reading requires decoding skills that develop in children at varying ages. In Waldorf education we understand that learning to read will unfold naturally in its own time when a child is given the proper support.

Just as a normal, healthy child will learn to walk without our teaching her, and just as a child miraculously learns to speak her native language by the age of three without lessons, worksheets or a dictionary, so will a child naturally learn to read when she has a positive relationship with the spoken and written word.

Books

Yes, it is true that early readers and textbooks are generally not used in Waldorf education. Instead, the children are fed real literature starting in the earliest years.

Once students are fully reading, they turn to original source texts such as classic literature and biographies, and students will read many great books throughout their grade school years.

What they avoid are early readers of the “See Spot run” variety, and dry, lifeless textbooks.

¿Jugamos? ¡Es como mejor aprendemos!

22 de junio de 2017

Escrito por Katia Saravia Marroquín, Co-fundadora y Directora Trinus.

Conforme han pasado los años, les hemos quitado a los pequeños el tiempo de jugar, explorar, de ser creativos y de permitirles disfrutar y desarrollar las habilidades de cada etapa de su desarrollo. Ahora esperamos que infantes de cuatro años se queden sentados en una silla por más de veinte minutos, haciendo una hoja de trabajo, sin hablar, prestando atención, y encima de todo, comprendiendo y almacenando la información. Pero, ¿estaremos tomando en cuenta cuál es la mejor manera en que aprende cada niño? Considerando que cada ser humano es distinto y lo que funciona para unos, no funciona para otros.

El juego es mucho más que simplemente algo divertido, y tiene un verdadero trasfondo: enseñar de una forma entretenida, creativa y diferente. Cuando jugamos estamos integrando nuestros cinco sentidos lo cual crea una experiencia vivencial, por lo tanto, absorbemos la lección con mayor facilidad y la interiorizamos. Cuando logramos ver todos los beneficios del juego, comprendemos lo valioso y significativo que es involucrarlo en la rutina diaria de nuestros niños. Algunos de sus beneficios incluyen: fomentar y extender nuevas ideas, socializar y aprender a relacionarse con chiquillos de su misma edad o de distintas edades. El juego los enfrenta con el reto de solucionar problemas y les enseña a aceptar diferentes puntos de vista, permite que se asuman distintos roles y aprendan de la importancia que hay en cada uno de estos roles. Así mismo desarrollan tanto su motricidad gruesa como la fina, están expuestos a prueba y error, utilizan su imaginación y acceden al uso del lenguaje para poder comunicar sus gustos y necesidades. Se fomenta la disciplina al momento de seguir reglas y esperar turnos. Jugando, los niños manifiestan sus temores, y a la vez logran superarlos y deshacerse de ellos.

Es por medio del juego donde los niños y niñas descubren el mundo y sus intereses; además de desarrollar distintas capacidades físicas, sensoriales,

mentales, afectivas y creativas. Muchos psicólogos altamente reconocidos han elaborado teorías con respecto al juego. Según Jean Piaget “el juego simbólico, ingresa a los niños o niñas en el mundo de las ideas, en el mundo de la verdadera inteligencia humana. Con esto los niños comienzan a aprender reglas que prescriben las actividades y los procesos humanos”.

Dentro del aula, el juego es más efectivo y profundo que una lección de 30 minutos. Se debe empezar con el juego sensorio motor, de 0 a 2 años en el cual los adultos deben ayudar a estimularlos, para que así comiencen a tener conocimiento de su propio cuerpo y del movimiento, esto incluye gatear y esconderse. Luego, viene el juego simbólico de 3 a 5 años, el cual incluye los juegos de representación o imitación como por ejemplo jugar casita, doctor, de restaurante, etc. Por último, está el juego reglado a partir de los 6 años que abarca todos los juegos estructurados como el fútbol, juegos de mesa, chiviricuarta, etc.

No hay una edad específica en la cual hay que dejar de incorporar el juego como manera de aprendizaje. Conforme los niños se van entrando a la pre-adolescencia y adolescencia el juego se va desapareciendo de la rutina diaria. Sin embargo, seguir implementando el juego como parte del aprendizaje a todas edades ha demostrado ser sumamente efectivo, claro siempre manteniendo un balance. Ahora pensémoslo bien, ¿queremos formar niños con múltiples virtudes o pequeños robots destacados en su intelecto, pero sin inteligencia emocional ni social? Es importante desarrollar su máximo potencial en todas las áreas.

In an age of robots, schools are teaching our children to be redundant

19 de marzo de 2017

by George Monbiot

In the future, if you want a job, you must be as unlike a machine as possible: creative, critical and socially skilled. So why are children being taught to behave like machines?

Children learn best when teaching aligns with their natural exuberance, energy and curiosity. So why are they dragooned into rows and made to sit still while they are stuffed with facts?

We succeed in adulthood through collaboration. So why is collaboration in tests and exams called cheating?

Governments claim to want to reduce the number of children being excluded from school. So why are their curriculums and tests so narrow that they alienate any child whose mind does not work in a particular way?

The best teachers use their character, creativity and inspiration to trigger children’s instinct to learn. So why are character, creativity and inspiration suppressed by a stifling regime of micromanagement?

There is, as Graham Brown-Martin explains in his book Learning {Re}imagined, a common reason for these perversities. Our schools were designed to produce the workforce required by 19th-century factories. The desired product was workers who would sit silently at their benches all day, behaving identically, to produce identical products, submitting to punishment if they failed to achieve the requisite standards. Collaboration and critical thinking were just what the factory owners wished to discourage.

As far as relevance and utility are concerned, we might as well train children to operate a spinning jenny. Our schools teach skills that are not only redundant but counter-productive. Our children suffer this life-defying, dehumanising system for nothing.

At present we are stuck with the social engineering of an industrial workforce in a post-industrial era.

The less relevant the system becomes, the harder the rules must be enforced, and the greater the stress they inflict. One school’s current advertisement in the Times Educational Supplement asks: “Do you like order and discipline? Do you believe in children being obedient every time? … If you do, then the role of detention director could be for you.” Yes, many schools have discipline problems. But is it surprising when children, bursting with energy and excitement, are confined to the spot like battery chickens?

Teachers are now leaving the profession in droves, their training wasted and their careers destroyed by overwork and a spirit-crushing regime of standardisation, testing and top-down control. The less autonomy they are granted, the more they are blamed for the failures of the system. A major recruitment crisis beckons, especially in crucial subjects such as physics and design and technology. This is what governments call efficiency.

Any attempt to change the system, to equip children for the likely demands of the 21st century, rather than those of the 19th, is demonised by governments and newspapers as “social engineering”. Well, of course it is. All teaching is social engineering. At present we are stuck with the social engineering of an industrial workforce in a post-industrial era. Under Donald Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, and a nostalgic government in Britain, it’s likely only to become worse.

When they are allowed to apply their natural creativity and curiosity, children love learning. They learn to walk, to talk, to eat and to play spontaneously, by watching and experimenting. Then they get to school, and we suppress this instinct by sitting them down, force-feeding them with inert facts and testing the life out of them.

There is no single system for teaching children well, but the best ones have this in common: they open up rich worlds that children can explore in their own ways, developing their interests with help rather than indoctrination. For example, the Essa academy in Bolton gives every pupil an iPad, on which they create projects, share material with their teachers and each other, and can contact their teachers with questions about their homework. By reducing their routine tasks, this system enables teachers to give the children individual help.

Other schools have gone in the opposite direction, taking children outdoors and using the natural world to engage their interests and develop their mental and physical capacities (the Forest School movement promotes this method). But it’s not a matter of high-tech or low-tech; the point is that the world a child enters is rich and diverse enough to ignite their curiosity, and allow them to discover a way of learning that best reflects their character and skills.

There are plenty of teaching programmes designed to work with children, not against them. For example, the Mantle of the Expert encourages them to form teams of inquiry, solving an imaginary task – such as running a container port, excavating a tomb or rescuing people from a disaster – that cuts across traditional subject boundaries. A similar approach, called Quest to Learn, is based on the way children teach themselves to play games. To solve the complex tasks they’re given, they need to acquire plenty of information and skills. They do it with the excitement and tenacity of gamers.

The first multi-racial school in South Africa, Woodmead, developed a fully democratic method of teaching, whose rules and discipline were overseen by a student council. Its integrated studies programme, like the new system in Finland, junked traditional subjects in favour of the students’ explorations of themes, such as gold, or relationships, or the ocean. Among its alumni are some of South Africa’s foremost thinkers, politicians and businesspeople.

In countries such as Britain and the United States, such programmes succeed despite the system, not because of it. Had these governments set out to ensure that children find learning difficult and painful, they could not have done a better job. Yes, let’s have some social engineering. Let’s engineer our children out of the factory and into the real world.

You can find the original post at theguardian.com

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The Evolution of Language

Repetition

Speaking

Writing

Reading

Books

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A unique Waldorf Education in Guatemala.