All Work and No Play...: How Educational Reforms Are Harming Our Preschoolers

by Sharna Olfman

Overview

Educators, neurologists, and psychologists explain how the high-stakes testing movement, and the race to wire classrooms, is actually stunting our children's intellects, blocking brain development and sometimes fueling mental illness. These experts, including a Pulitzer-Prize nominee, explain why play is not a luxury, but rather a necessity of learning.

Testing and technology has become a mantra in American schools, reaching down as far as kindergarten and preschool as politicians and policymakers aim to ensure that our country has a competitive edge in today's information-based economy. But top educators and child development experts are battling such reforms. Here, educators, neurologists, and psychologists explain how the high-stakes testing movement, and the race to wire classrooms, is actually stunting our children's intellects, blocking brain development and sometimes fueling mental illness. These experts, including a Pulitzer-Prize nominee, explain why play is not a luxury, but rather a necessity of learning.

This book also spotlights a program at Yale University that, in response to the dearth of play in preschool curricula, emphasized learning through play for youngsters. Children who participated scored significantly higher on tests of school readiness. In addition, an internationally recognized expert explains why—in striking contrast to U.S. policies starting academics in preschool—several European countries are raising the age when they begin formal schooling to 6 or 7.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275977689
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	10/30/2003
Series:	Childhood in America
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

SHARNA OLFMAN is Clinical Psychologist and Associate Professor of Developmental Psychology at Park Point University, where she is also the founding director of the annual Childhood and Society Symposium. Olfman is the editor of the Childhood in America book series for Praeger Publishers. She is a partner in the national Alliance for Childhood, a group of academics, professionals, teachers, and parents who work together to raise and remedy concerns about children's welfare in light of current cultural trends.

Table of Contents

Introduction by Sharna Olfman
The Power of Play in Early Childhood Education
The Vital Role of Play in Early Childhood Education by Joan Almon
A Role for Play in the Preschool Curriculum by Dorothy G. Singer, Jerome Singer, Sharon L. Plaskon, and Amanda E. Schweder
Early Childhood Education: Lessons from Europe by Christopher Clouder
Wired Classrooms/Wired Brains
Cybertots: Technology and the Preschool Child by Jane Healy
Hand-Made Minds in the "Digital" Age by Frank R. Wilson
Building Blocks of Intellectual Development: Emotion and Imagination
Imagination and the Growth of the Human Mind by Jeffrey Kane and Heather Carpenter
The Vital Role of Emotion in Education by Stuart Shanker
A Mental Health Crisis among Our Children: The Rise of Technologies and Demise of Play
Attention/Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder in Children: One Consequence of the Rise of Technologies and Demise of Play? by Thomas Armstrong
Play and the Transformation of Feeling: Niki's Case by Eva-Maria Simms
Pathogenic Trends in Early Childhood Education by Sharna Olfman