Early Academic Training Produces Long-Term Harm
Research reveals negative effects of academic preschools and kindergartens.
Many preschool and kindergarten teachers have told me that they are extremely upset — some to the point of being ready to resign — by the increased pressure on them to teach academic skills to little children and regularly test them on such skills. They can see firsthand the unhappiness generated, and they suspect that the children would be learning much more useful lessons through playing, exploring, and socializing, as they did in traditional nursery schools and kindergartens. Their suspicions are well validated by research studies.
A number of well-controlled studies have compared the effects of academically oriented early education classrooms with those of play-based classrooms. The results are quite consistent from study to study: Early academic training somewhat increases children’s immediate scores on the specific tests that the training is aimed at (no surprise), but these initial gains wash out within 1 to 3 years and, at least in some studies, are eventually reversed. Perhaps more tragic than the lack of long-term academic advantage of early academic instruction is evidence that such instruction can produce long-term harm, especially in the realms of social and emotional development.
All news in this category
Declaration of the Asian Waldorf Youths
From all participants of the First Asian Waldorf Youths Conference at Panyotai Waldorf School, Bangkok, Thailand. [more]
Whither Waldorf?
Special issue about the future of Waldorf education. Translated for our english readers. [more]
Every cloud has a silver lining – the future of Steiner Schools in England
Many Steiner schools in England have come in for serious criticism of their practices in recent inspections by the schools inspectorate Ofsted.... [more]
Teheran: First International Congress on Education and Health
The University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences in Tehran organized a congress from 19 to 21 June 2018 with many contributions from... [more]
Hyderabad/India: Waldorf is booming
Waldorf Education is very popular in India – applications to the seven schools and more than 25 kindergartens are constantly increasing. No wonder. [more]
São Paolo: teacher training center becomes a university
The teacher training center in São Paolo has been around for 40 years. Many Brazilian Waldorf teachers are trained here (sometimes also teachers from... [more]
Domestic report: The Netherlands
The first Waldorf school was founded in 1923 in The Hague. Amsterdam and Zeist followed in 1933. In the 1970s there was a strong growth in the number... [more]
Domestic report: Italy
While the number and distribution of Waldorf Steiner schools and kindergartens in Italy has not changed noticeably in the last years, there has been... [more]
Transforming Ownership to Create a Better Economy
Private ownership of companies drives our economic system but it has also created corporations that put profit above everything else, a divided... [more]
Why write? Penmanship for the 21st Century
What is the future of writing in the digital age, and why does it matter? In this surprising talk, Master Penman Jake Weidmann explores the... [more]
Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen e.V.