Instead of focusing primarily on academic success, children at Wings are inspired to learn about their social-emotional development and how to regulate their emotions through a play-based, nature approach…
That’s a brief quote from an article we’re sharing here in the Daily Post this morning, “Wings in the Wild Fundraiser Scheduled for April 1”. The Wings Early Childhood Center has embarked on an ambitious project, to add two additional preschool classrooms, three new playgrounds and a commercial kitchen.
You can purchase tickets to the fundraiser here.
The sentence about a “play-based approach” caught my eye, because I had asked a couple of questions in this editorial series, yesterday, at the end of Part Two. The questions referred to a statement by Colorado Governor Jared Polis, talking about the new Universal Preschool program, which apparently aims to prepare four-year-olds to “succeed” in kindergarten, and in school in general.
And in life, in general.
“We are bringing high-quality preschool to Colorado kids, saving families thousands of dollars, and making sure Colorado students get a strong start in school,” said Governor Polis last month. “With so many qualified providers registered for UPK, we are excited to open the family enrollment process on January 17, giving families the chance to select the best provider fit for their preschooler…”
So… what’s the ‘best fit’? And what does the Governor mean by ‘high-quality’?
Does ‘high-quality’ relate directly to ‘children meeting expectations on government-administered standardized tests’? Because it could possibly be understood that way.
As we note in the story about the Wings Early Childhood Center fundraiser, the child care professionals at Wings are not focusing primarily on “academic success” but rather on “how to regulate emotions through a play-based, nature approach.” Meanwhile, there are other preschools and child care programs that do, in fact, focus more on “academic success.”
In a certain sense, the world that today’s four-year-olds will grow up in, and the world in which they will someday raise their own children, will likely be quite different from the world most of our Daily Post readers grew up in. But although the world might be different in some ways, our basic human nature and our basic human needs have not changed.
For 100,000 years of human history, children — and in this case, four-year-olds especially — have blossomed physically, emotionally, and intellectually, following certain developmental patterns. The way adults have viewed that blossoming has changed, however.
The casual research I’ve done over the past 50 years, into child development, suggests that in European traditions, children were typically viewed as small-sized adults who ought to be pulling their own weight… working in factories, perhaps.
My casual research has also suggested that, among certain indigenous tribes here in North America, young children were expected to be young children, and were basically allowed to run and play and learn whatever they happened to learn… as they formed a relationship with the world.
If we are to take the Wings child care staff at their word, their program might sound closer to that Native American style of child-rearing.
At Wings, children are encouraged to openly explore, discover and create using their natural environment. Children and teachers can spend anywhere from 50-70 percent of their day learning outside either in their playgrounds, the nearby lake or on nature walks…
Governor Polis, meanwhile, would like to see four-year-olds get “a strong start in school”. Perhaps, so that they can grow up to be useful clogs in the capitalist economy?
But maybe I’m being too harsh with the Governor. Maybe the Colorado government needs to ‘sell’ its Universal Preschool concept to business and education industry leaders, by suggesting that the program will help deliver better-trained young citizens.
Last week, the board of directors at Pagosa Peak Open School voted to begin the process of adding a preschool program within its school building in Aspen Village.
Disclosure: I currently serve on the Pagosa Peak Open School Board of Directors as the Board secretary. This editorial reflects only my own opinions, and not necessarily the opinions of the Pagosa Peak Open School board as a whole.
The Universal Preschool Colorado program is promising to subsidize up to 15 hours of child care per week, for children who will be entering kindergarten the following year, and up to 30 hours per week for children with certain ‘qualifying factors’. (Along those same lines… a few years ago, Colorado established a new policy of funding all-day kindergarten for all five-year-olds, an increase from a half-day program.)
These government subsidies will presumably make it more feasible for young parents to afford child care programs, which typically run from 7:30am until 5:30pm to accommodate working parents. That’s 50 hours per week. Most of a child’s waking hours, during the week.
Right now, many working parents find themselves financially stressed by child care fees. The Universal Preschool program will lessen the burden for parents of four-year-olds.
The subsidies will also make the child care programs more economically feasible. Here in Pagosa Springs, we currently have four child care centers:
- Wings Early Childhood Center
- Seeds of Learning Early Childhood Center
- Pagosa Springs Headstart
- Our Savior Lutheran School
We also have a half-dozen licensed child care homes. According to reports, none of the existing centers have enough room to accommodate the dozens of families on their waiting lists. Pagosa Peak may be able to serve some of those unserved families… eventually…
The Pagosa Peak board will hold a public meeting tonight at 5pm at the school, to discuss board business. One of the items on the agenda is approval of the school’s “Core Values”. These are the staff-endorsed values that will guide the school going forward, and presumably would also apply to a future preschool program.
Here’s the first of four paragraphs:
Lifelong Learners
We construct knowledge by taking responsibility for our learning with a growth mindset. Learners seek answers, take risks, reflect, and approach learning with action…
We’ll take a look at all the proposed ‘Core Values’ tomorrow, in Part Four.
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.