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

By Sharna Olfman

Book 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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0275977684
• ISBN13: 9780275977689
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Praeger
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 9.8"

Customer Reviews

Thank You- Very Pleased

Thank you for your quick and honest service. This book has already proven quite useful for my child psychology class. Thank you very much!

Childhood does have an expiration date...

This book states what teachers have known all along...children learn about their world by seeing, doing, touching & experiencing it. As a society, we need to give children the right and the luxury to their childhood. Academics are important, but before children are ready for academic learning, they must first know how to get along in the real world. It is critical that children have social skills, problem solving skills, and the ability to function in the classroom. Most parents today only focus on "Will Mary learn her ABC's in your classroom?" "Yes, she will be exposed to the alphabet, but first Mary needs to be allowed to be a child and learn how to get along in the world." Thanks to Sharna Olfman for writing about a subject that is so crucial to the success of all children. My hope is that every preschool parent would take time to read this book. America's children are in danger of losing something priceless ~~ their childhood.

compelling

This is an interesting book that makes you stop and think about our culture and the future of our children. If you care about the future of children today, read this book!