Two great questions this month: How to use positive guidance without being permissive, and how to talk with administrators about standardized testing in KINDERGARTEN. (You can also view this video here.)
Positive Guidance: Punishment or Consequences?
Roots and Wings: Giving Choices and Setting Boundaries
Time as a Natural and Logical Consequence
Panel Discussion: Rewards, Positive Reinforcement, or Just Plain Bribery?
Standardized Assessment in Kindergarten? (5:45)
Developmentally Appropriate Practice in the Age of Testing{Harvard Education Letter}
Where We Stand on Curriculum, Assessment, and Program Evaluation {NAEYC}
Joint Position Statement, NAEYC & NAECS/SDE
Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School {Alliance for Childhood}
Kindergarten Testing is Out of Control{EmaxHealth} (This contains some great quotes from Alliance for Childhood and NAEYC.)
Standardized Testing and Its Victims {Education Week} (Alfie Kohn can be a polarizing source, but I think he makes great points here and you could use them as some of your talking points, particularly numbers 5 and 7 in your specific situation.)
If you have a question you’d like me to answer, send it to questions@notjustcute.com
Thanks for talking about standardized testing in Kindergarten. I have a two-year old, but have already looked into her future (public) elementary school and was flabbergasted to see Standardized Testing on the Kindergarten schedule. Now that I know it shouldn’t be normal, I may need to have this conversation in three-four years as well.
Thank you for sharing your insight on the natural, logical, and positive consequences. I agree whole heartedly with your ideas. I also believe that consistency and time plays a major role as well. Children but see us firm in our discipline and teaching of consequences and allowed time to understand the concepts. That is where I get frustrated. I feel I explain the same consequences over and over EVERY DAY. 🙂 I want immediate results and those don’t come with children, or even adults, for that matter. We all need time to figure this out and apply and accept. Do you ever lose your patience? I am sure it helps immensely to understand the thinking behind a child’s behavior. I lose my patience too often with disciplining and teaching my children. I see you as a very calm, “thinking it out”, type mother. Keep up the great work!
I often want immediate results too – and yes I’ve been known to lose my patience! It helps to remind myself that my kids didn’t learn to walk the first time I “asked” them to, and they didn’t learn to read the first time I showed them how it worked. So, just like you said, I have to allow them the time to understand the concepts that come with social competency and work for progress over perfection. Having the right perspective is more helpful to me that relying on my inherent patience (which is in short supply some days!).