Second Draft

When a child enters their first day of school, a whole world of opportunities is created. They are not only exposed to education for the first time, but so many other new experiences. Every day is a new experiment in a classroom, and for preschoolers it might also be chaos sometimes. The early childhood mind is developing more and more every moment with all of these new experiences, making their preschool days even more crucial. As a Family and Child Science major, and an afterschool preschool counselor, I am heavily immersed in the early childhood community. As I watch children grow physically and mentally every day, I wonder what it is like to be so young again. I see some kids thrive off of playground play, and some attach at my hip in fear of socialization. These observations make me curious about how children’s development is impacted by preschool specifically, as I never experienced going to pre-k. So, I ask the question, does playground politics in a preschool setting better prepare small children socially for kindergarten?

The preschool community is fairly new in the United States. Head Start was the first publicly funded preschool program, founded in 1965 by the Johnson Administration. (k12academics) Originally geared towards low-income families, it blossomed in multiple states in the 1980s and by 2005, over 800,000 four-year-old children were in some type of preschool program. This community continues to grow today in all directions, from academics to social outreach and accommodations for lower-income families. Preschool is now a strongly encouraged precedent before kindergarten. The goal is to readily prepare future students for the public-school system and all its entities, while providing child care for working parents.

On a wide spectrum, preschool has many true benefits to children. They get a variety of opportunities to engage in social experiences with their peers, learn basic skills of self-assurance and decision making, and of course gain knowledge in simple academic areas. Another positive aspect of the preschool system is the small class sizes. Children of the preschool I work at have a cap of 12 children per classroom that includes two teachers. That 6 to 1 ratio helps give these kids individualized attention, while when they enter the public-school system, they may experience larger classroom settings giving them less attention. Attention is especially important to these children because their minds are rapidly developing, and an engaging environment is needed for success.

Some might even say it is more important for preschoolers to be experiencing social activities over academic activities. Children are able to pick up on new concepts, for later use in academics, through organized and unorganized social play. But is this exposure beneficial to the children’s cognitive development? Is there a point these interactions can be negative? Research indicates that “entering child care early may hold negative social-developmental outcomes, including disruptive and aggressive behaviors in centers and later schools.” While it is universally accepted that starting a child early may give them a head start or advantage to other children, it can also be so detrimental to their path of development. Some parents send their child to daycare as soon as they’re old enough, so they can go back to work and leave the parenting to teachers. In my classroom, some children are at preschool from 7:30 am to 6:00 pm every day. A few are even picked up by babysitters at this time. This is them spending most of their early life, away from their own family, exposed to the outside world.

On February 5, 2018, I interview Mrs. Thornton, a preschool teacher of 40 years. She currently runs the afterschool pre-k program at Maclay School, where I am also currently employed.