Susan Engel: American Kindergarten, Gebunden

Klappentext

"Kindergarten is a magical year of entry into traditional education. But what can or should we expect that first year of schooling to do for our children? Should five-year-olds learn how to count and write out the alphabet, or is kindergarten mostly about developing the social maturity for future formal schooling? The answer to this question varies greatly from place to place across this country, depending on geography, class, race, culture, and history. Susan Engel visited twenty-nine classrooms in fourteen states, observing kindergarten life. Children running free at recess, rejoicing over a favorite lunch or snack, struggling to follow new rules; also, learning subtraction, mastering new shapes, and sounding out words as beginning readers. The students and their classrooms were remarkably similar despite the wide variety: public and private, traditional and Montessori, urban and rural, to name a few. Amidst these similarities, five promises that schools make to their students emerged: love, reading, order, identity, and thinking. These promises capture a set of values and goals, which drive everything that goes on in a kindergarten classroom. But while kindergartens everywhere seemed pretty alike on the surface, Engel also discovered powerful differences. The differences lie in how well schools fulfilled these promises, which are more personal than curricula, mission statements, or benchmarks. While some teachers might maintain stricter order and leave less time for students to explore their identities, others saw managing frustration as a prerequisite for confident reading and emphasized love. Some teachers fulfill all five promises, juggling priorities throughout the day, week, or year. Other teachers focus on fulfilling one or two. This book is the story of how these promises shape what children experience, day in and day out. They also determine what children get out of their first year of formal education. This unprecedented portrait of the kindergarten classroom gives us a desperately longed for look into a transformative space that remains a black box: our children's classrooms"--