Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

naptime over

In recent years I’ve often jokingly chided myself for not fully appreciating naptime when I had it in pre-school and kindergarten.

Young schoolkids in some Maryland school districts may not be able to appreciate it for much longer. The Washington Post reports that administrators want to drop (or have already dropped) naptime from the school schedule in an effort to make their early education programs more acadmically rigorous. (“Time May Be Up for Naps in Pre-K Class” - 03/15/04)

“Nap time needs to go away,” Prince George’s County schools chief André J. Hornsby said during a recent meeting with Maryland legislators. “We need to get rid of all the baby school stuff they used to do.”

Hornsby wants to convert his pre-kindergarten classes into a full-day program. If he secures the funding to begin that next fall, there will be no mats or cots allowed, he said. In Anne Arundel County, where full-day pre-kindergarten is in place, Superintendent Eric J. Smith also has opted not to build nap time into the schedule.

Educators including Hornsby and Smith find themselves under growing pressure to make school more rigorous — even in the earliest grades — in the belief that children who are behind academically by age 6 or 7 have a difficult time catching up. “The time is very precious,” Smith said. “When they come into first grade or kindergarten for the first time, they learn within a few weeks of the school experience that they’re not as capable, and that’s a burden that is extremely damaging.”

Critics of eliminating school naps say the reality is that many 4-year-olds don’t get enough sleep at home. There are piano lessons, soccer practices and other scheduled activities during the day, and many kids stay up past their bedtime because their parents come home late from work and want to talk or play.

I understand the counterargument that the schools shouldn’t have to compensate for shortcomings in the kids’ home life by offering sleep time that the kids don’t ordinarily get at home (although the schools already compensate, to some degree, for other areas of home life deficiency).

But I also worry about the effect that jumping into a full-blown rigorous school routine so early might have on children. I’m likely overthinking it, but I wonder if all this forces them to “grow up” that much faster. And the talk of making early education more rigorous — take this quote from a Maryland principal: “‘They can’t be babied,’ she said. ‘These are young minds. We have to take advantage of this early stage when they grasp everything.’” — has me thinking more about the educational system, and the likelihood that the sooner the institutionalization begins, the more entrenched those teachings will be (a la Bourdieu and Althusser).

A friend of mine once told me that she loved artwork by kindergarteners because it’s created at a time before the children have learned to color within the lines. I know that kids have to go through “The System” in order to be successful, functioning members of society … It just seems a shame to hasten that transition.