Children Are Growing Now: Rethinking What Preschool Is For

Most people think early childhood education is for getting children ready for elementary school. 

Here is what I think based on 20 years of experience and ongoing education in this field... Thinking early education is for preparing children for school reduces what children are actually capable of learning and accomplishing. 

How often does your instruction offer support beyond learning how to perform well on worksheets and tests and being able to quickly recall information? How are you cultivating children’s ability to think rather than merely produce answers?

Do classroom experiences foster children’s choice and agency, or do they tend to demand compliance because that is what elementary school will expect?

The lessons children learn about school may not be the ones we are trying to teach. We model our values in everything we do. Are we showing children we truly value process over product or are we actually teaching children that learning is about racing to the right answer?

Children’s creativity can diminish when early education practices leave little room for experimentation, innovation, and play. This innate human gift needs strengthening when AI and machines are obliterating jobs that require no human judgment and creative problem solving. Young children are highly curious and creative… until they get shut down time and time again by well-meaning adults, for example, when we insist on uniformity and correctness. This shows up in cookie cutter crafts, a low tolerance for mess- and mistake-making, and the general sense of ‘because we have always done it this way.’

Are we teaching children for the world they are growing up in, or are we teaching them for the world we grew up in?

Are we punishing children for having their own approaches to learning and for being interested in things that we have not captured in our teacher plans?

Where in the school day are there opportunities to go off the beaten track?

Learning isn’t always tidy, linear, or compartmentalized.

Those of us who have moved through the traditional school system have been conditioned to think of subjects as distinct and separate when they often overlap in early learning. Children don’t think, “Right now, I am doing math and later I will do science.” For them, experiences are naturally connected and offer opportunities to develop across different subjects and learning domains like cognitive, physical, and social-emotional. Just observe a child planting seeds in the garden, or watch them draw a picture that they later turn into a story—they are learning and developing skills simultaneously.

Frameworks like the Ages and Stages Questionnaire can help teachers to identify developmental milestones and be able to notice developmental differences to provide additional supports to children. However, there can be the temptation to see children as deficient or delayed when they are not following the typical trajectory. Human development is complex—how we interpret and support development is shaped by our own beliefs and assumptions about children and growth. How would working within a framework allow you to notice children’s strengths before we label their development as problematic?

Standards are important as they offer a shared perspective on learning and achievement, but a rigid adherence to standards can get in the way of professional judgment and being able to adapt how we teach based on individual children’s needs. Teachers must be empowered to exercise their judgement not only based on standards but also on what they know about early development and the different conditions that contribute to positive learning outcomes.

Behavior management begins with self-management.

Across the many years I have worked with early childhood educators, the most common question I get is around how to support early childhood challenging behavior. For teachers in a group setting, challenging behavior can exhaust their ability to teach with warmth and intention. This can impact how we are able to build positive relationships with children so that we can be more effective in teaching and offering guidance. One thing I want all educators to know is that this is not your fault. Many early educators work in conditions that contribute to chronic stress—limited wages and benefits, inconsistent support, and a lack of professional development and resources to support teachers in gaining the knowledge and disposition to enhance classroom practice. We must advocate for our personal health and well-being knowing that how we feel day-to-day shapes how present we are with children, our capacity to respond with care and intention, and ultimately, how we are able to sustain this work.

Teachers would also benefit from targeted coaching, mentorship, and belonging to a community of practice so that staff development is ongoing, coherent, and directly linked to improving classroom practice. Though limited time is a challenge, bolstering teacher competencies is a worthwhile endeavor since teacher-child interactions are strongly linked to positive learning outcomes. For example, teachers can work to develop their own social-emotional learning (SEL) before they are expected to teach children SEL. 

"School readiness" can be defined too narrowly. Ask the average adult what preschool is for and you are likely to hear about children learning academics and how to follow directions. I want to challenge the notion that being ready for school means knowing the alphabet and being a rule follower. On its face, there isn’t anything wrong with learning ABCs and 123s or being able to follow directions, but we must consider whether prioritizing these come at a cost. A child can be very advanced academically but have less developed motor skills, emotional awareness, social skills, and executive functioning skills. This is a reminder to look at the whole child and nurture development across many domains rather than an isolated few.

In preschool, teachers may start preparing their children for elementary school by focusing on norms that conflict with child development. The way we ask children to line up and wait, sit quietly during circle time, and produce uniform work must be reconsidered against what we know about early development and what children need to thrive. Preschool teachers feel a responsibility to send their children off prepared, but what if we paused to consider whether schools are structured with developmentally appropriate practice in mind? What if—instead of pressuring children to conform to rigid standards—we ask schools to rethink their expectations and teachers to resist mandates that force them to set aside their expertise and knowledge of individual children?

Ultimately, it is short-sighted to think that the goal of preschool is merely preparation for the next grade level. I chose to work in early childhood because it is a critical time to set foundations and attitudes about learning, and I fear what some children are learning instead is that school is boring, restrictive, and stressful. Not only that, some children, based on their experiences, may be learning that being an adult means being stressed, rushed, and disconnected from the small pleasures of life. That life is all work and no play. That to be worthy means being constantly productive and racing to the next achievement. 

Let us return to a simpler vision of what early learning can be, and for me, that begins with returning the gift of childhood to children. They may not know what it was like to play until the street lights came on, or that kindergarten used to be about playing and making friends, but we can share our stories of growing up and learning to balance what they may experience and aspire to do and be one day. Because it is not about forcing children into established systems, but updating the systems that seek to view children and learning through a narrow lens. It is up to us to resist going down a path that may harm children’s self-esteem and self-efficacy and speak up for change that will benefit children, learning, and our profession itself. While change is hard, so is following norms that impact our love of teaching and children’s love of learning. So let us take the longer view—early education has the power to be influential in ways that reverberate for years to come, so the question becomes what do we want children to learn about education and how are we contributing to or detracting from this message?

I always advocate for making one change at a time. This can reduce overwhelm and help us evaluate how one change can positively impact learning before we decide to make another change. Maybe you will rethink your expectations around circle time. Or maybe you will create a newsletter to show families how whole child development supports school readiness. Or maybe you will decide to remove one transition from the day that doesn’t support developmentally appropriate practice (like lining children up for five minutes before going outside). Whatever you decide to do, be sure to continue to self-reflect and reflect with your team for collaboration and accountability. 

Adults often think of children growing up, but we have the opportunity to see children growing now and be witness to the wonder, awe, and joy that spring forth so naturally in young children. It is a gift to work with children and be invited into their world of possibility and imagination. We needn’t worry that they won’t learn unless we make them learn, because children are born curious and ready to investigate the world. Our role, then, isn’t to reduce learning to being ready to meet standards and pass tests, because learning is a lifelong pursuit that isn’t valuable only when it’s quantified or graded, nor is there a finish line where we can finally rest and enjoy the fruits of our labor. Let us protect children, childhood, and our profession to show up for children the way they need so we don’t shortchange their human potential and give up our right to live meaningful lives beyond mandates and metrics.  Thoughts? Let me know how you are balancing the tension between appreciating and enjoying the now against time pressure, school accountability measures, and hustle culture. SPECIAL NOTE: If you want to bring this conversation to your community or event, please reach out! I speak about slow pedagogy in early education to educators and families because I believe this learning benefits everyone. Together, we can rethink preschool and protect this time for deeper learning and healthier development, for both children and ourselves.