Are They Ready?

This is the time of the year that most child care directors dread - the week before school.  The children are excited because most of them will be moving to new rooms, prospective parents are calling all day to arrange for tours of the center (doesn't anyone plan ahead?), and the school age children are getting antsy about the return to school  (they really are happier when they are in school).  On top of that there are new attendance lists to make, bus schedules to type out (if the schools let us know the bus numbers and times since there are only two days to go!), and staff vacations to cover.  Of all of the end of summer rituals, the most daunting is the onslaught of child care parents who want to find a preschool for their children so that they can be "ready for kindergarten".

I am sure that what I do is familiar to many directors. I point out the our preschool program is included at no extra cost.  I explain that the children are not doing ditto sheets or gluing together precut pieces of construction paper because our program is based on the latest research about how children learn and how brains grow.  I list the teacher's educational and practical qualifications.  I talk about the children who have graduated from our program and their success in school.  I explain why the things that the parents see in the room are being done.  At the end of this, the parent invariably asks, "Yes, but he needs to be ready for school", and I mentally bang my head on the nearest wall.

I realize that most of this is driven by fear.  Parents who are inundated with advertising and bad news about the future are afraid that their child will be the one to fail because he was not properly prepared.  I realize that directors are driven by fears of declining enrollment if they do not have a program that meets parent expectations, even though these expectations are not necessarily based on fact.  Teachers are worried about parents who question them about the hows and whys of the things that are included in their program.  It is so tempting to fall back into the old ditto sheet and teacher prepared "cookie cutter" projects to avoid all of this. To this I would say, take a deep breath, hold fast to your beliefs, and keep learning.  You cannot defend your program if you cannot back it up with anecdotal and scientific evidence.  Have examples of things that the children have done ready for parents to see.  Have copies of articles by respected authorities in the field for parents to read.  Ensure that your staff knows the reasons why their program runs the way that it does.  Ask some of your current parents who now have children in public school if prospective parents can contact them for a reference.  Most of all remember that this is a big, scary world and parents are genuinely concerned about obtaining the best for their children.  Even if you are giving them a mental eye-roll, their questions are rising out of concern, not out of a desire to make your day long. 

A few weeks ago the four year old class (most of whom will be starting "big school" in the fall) held their annual lemonade stand.  The children sell cookies and lemonade that they have made and give the proceeds to a charity.  This year the proceeds will go towards a memorial to Mrs. Macomber, a beloved teacher who passed away this summer.  The children made the cookies and lemonade (reading, science, math, social skills, and muscle development), made the signs (literacy, art, fine muscle development), greeted customers and took their orders (social skills), and -with a little help form their teacher - took the money and made change.  These children made a large sign with the items that were being sold and the prices and decorated it with drawings of lemons and glasses of lemonade.  The only help that they received from the teacher was some prompting in spelling.  In addition, they gave the adults who had helped them (the cook baked the cookies and I shopped for the ingredients) a ticket for a free treat or lemonade as a thank you.  Are these children ready for kindergarten? 

Of course they are!