The rise of religiously mixed couples; a case for "redshirting" the girls; the varieties of single parenthood; America's big, complex families (and the feminization of Western families?)
Regarding "redshirting everyone", I think one simple, positive way to frame such a move would be that it's effectively reversing the rigorization of Kindergarten, by which I mean the transformation from play-based to "achievement-focused" kindergarten that has mostly played out in my lifetime (sometime between 1992 and the present day).
My own eldest has had a very rough time making the transition from a play-based co-op preschool to the very rigid, "sit silently at a desk with 22 classmates completing worksheets all day, in between silently lining up by student ID number to proceed to/from 20 minutes of recess/lunch/gym" public kindergarten model in our neighborhood school.
The one (extremely important) difference between redshirting everyone and reverting to play-based kindergarten, is whether spending Age 5 in a playful, low-demand environment, is done on the public's dime in an elementary school, or on parents' dimes at home or in pre-K.
Great roundup. I've been following the "redshirting" discourse for a bit now, and so am really interested on the proposal that there are reasons to start school later for girls as well as boys. You've hit on the crux of the question I think in asking whether it's about the child's "readiness" for school in relation to their peers or in relation to the demands of school that makes the difference for them.
It seems notable and relevant to these debates that a society that is considered to be a model in childhood education, Finland, doesn't start students in school until they are 7!
I’m curious to see how redshirting/kindergarten readiness/play-based early education will work out in places with expanded free pre-K and 3K. I think if early care and education for 3 and 4 year olds shifts to elementary schools from home or private childcare, it may start to look more like school for K-2 and less like daycare/preschool (which I think of as almost entirely “play based”).
Oh that's an interesting point! I could definitely see that happening. Though I'm not sure it has to necessarily. It's hard to make broad international comparisons but from a European standpoint, America's daycare looks excessively academic haha. And then while full-time school starts a year earlier in the UK than American Kindergarten, it's very play-based (or at least it was at my kids' school).
The daycare at my husband’s office shut down during the pandemic and somewhat recently reopened under new management (a large chain). It surprised me how much they were pitching their care, even down to infants, as incorporating STEAM (like STEM, but with art). I’d be curious to do a time-study-like comparison of that sort of care for both infants and preschoolers vs formal child care in other countries vs public preK in the United States. A downside of the time study method they used in the PSID-CDS is that it tracked what the child did with parents (reading, playing, etc) but when in non-parental care they just coded the kids as “in childcare” (I’d have to check how they handled family, friend, and neighbor care).
Regarding "redshirting everyone", I think one simple, positive way to frame such a move would be that it's effectively reversing the rigorization of Kindergarten, by which I mean the transformation from play-based to "achievement-focused" kindergarten that has mostly played out in my lifetime (sometime between 1992 and the present day).
My own eldest has had a very rough time making the transition from a play-based co-op preschool to the very rigid, "sit silently at a desk with 22 classmates completing worksheets all day, in between silently lining up by student ID number to proceed to/from 20 minutes of recess/lunch/gym" public kindergarten model in our neighborhood school.
The one (extremely important) difference between redshirting everyone and reverting to play-based kindergarten, is whether spending Age 5 in a playful, low-demand environment, is done on the public's dime in an elementary school, or on parents' dimes at home or in pre-K.
Great roundup. I've been following the "redshirting" discourse for a bit now, and so am really interested on the proposal that there are reasons to start school later for girls as well as boys. You've hit on the crux of the question I think in asking whether it's about the child's "readiness" for school in relation to their peers or in relation to the demands of school that makes the difference for them.
It seems notable and relevant to these debates that a society that is considered to be a model in childhood education, Finland, doesn't start students in school until they are 7!
I’m curious to see how redshirting/kindergarten readiness/play-based early education will work out in places with expanded free pre-K and 3K. I think if early care and education for 3 and 4 year olds shifts to elementary schools from home or private childcare, it may start to look more like school for K-2 and less like daycare/preschool (which I think of as almost entirely “play based”).
Oh that's an interesting point! I could definitely see that happening. Though I'm not sure it has to necessarily. It's hard to make broad international comparisons but from a European standpoint, America's daycare looks excessively academic haha. And then while full-time school starts a year earlier in the UK than American Kindergarten, it's very play-based (or at least it was at my kids' school).
The daycare at my husband’s office shut down during the pandemic and somewhat recently reopened under new management (a large chain). It surprised me how much they were pitching their care, even down to infants, as incorporating STEAM (like STEM, but with art). I’d be curious to do a time-study-like comparison of that sort of care for both infants and preschoolers vs formal child care in other countries vs public preK in the United States. A downside of the time study method they used in the PSID-CDS is that it tracked what the child did with parents (reading, playing, etc) but when in non-parental care they just coded the kids as “in childcare” (I’d have to check how they handled family, friend, and neighbor care).