Monthly Public Radio commentary to air 6/3

This month's commentary will air on WVPE Tuesday June 3, at 7:35 AM and 12:30 PM

Our daughter will start Kindergarten next August, so my wife and I spent a good deal of time researching the choices available. We looked into private schools (mostly as a backup), but we are pretty firm in our belief that taking students who are likely to do well out of the public school system is bad for that system. So we focused on choices within the South Bend School Corporation.

One option seems to be very popular in our circle of acquaintances – John F. Kennedy Academy. We investigated it, but there were some aspects of it that, in the end, made us think it wasn’t such a great fit for Sarah. So we made a different choice - our local Primary Center.

The Kennedy Principal mentioned at several points in her presentation that their program was designed for students “ready to learn”. That sounded fine for us – Sarah’s been enrolled in a top-notch preschool program for two years now and has many dozens of her own books. But I began to wonder about the kids who aren’t ready to learn.

We, as a society, have become a bit enamored with certain benchmarks. There are certain measurable achievements in terms of reading, writing and math that are the goal by the end of the Kindergarten year.

That has value, but maybe our emphasis should be on making sure all kids leaving Kindergarten are ready to learn. What would that mean?

I’d argue that nearly all humans are born learners and explorers. But some of us have that discouraged at an early age by persons or circumstances. Since this would be our first chance to restore those innate qualities – we should take it.

Our emphasis should be on building self-esteem, collaborative skills, early critical thinking, a joy of discovery… things like these. At this age, kids soak this sort of stuff up and this skill set could put them on a path of success. People accustomed to success seem to keep finding it throughout their lives.

Some students may need to be in smaller classes. We should spend the money to make that happen. If older children are ready to learn, they could function well in slightly larger classes. It might be a matter of shifting resources a bit.

When I was a Mentor in the Dream Team for Unity program, I saw what happens to children in the fourth and fifth grades who aren’t ready to learn. Their teacher valiantly held after school sessions for them – though she was clearly exhausted by that time of day. They seemed to try very hard. But it seemed clear to me that eventually some of them would be so discouraged by their lack of progress, or embarrassed by their skills as compared to their classmates, that they would give up. And we tend to give up on them.

That’s not good for them and it’s not good for us.

One obvious first step is Universal Full Day Kindergarten. I chose that phrase deliberately, because in Indiana – Kindergarten is an option. It shouldn’t be.

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Zimmerman recently proposed a system implementing full day Kindergarten which only required a modest additional investment. And just imagine the potential return.

But the Board of Trustees was unmoved and rejected his plan. Explanations of their reasoning were hard to find in the media, and since I didn’t attend the meeting – I won’t speculate. But decisions like these and the lack of discussions about them bother me a lot. So I may be at some meetings in the future.

I’m a Unitarian, and the first principle of Unitarian-Universalism is “To respect the inherent worth and dignity of every person”.

And that certainly should include our children.

Don Wheeler
Progressives, South Bend