Readiness for school is a US concept that is thought to depict the likelihood of school success. A combination of physical, cognitive, and emotional maturity, it provides a foundation for responding to school expectations. When there are readiness concerns, some advocate giving what is called the 'gift of time,' additional time to mature. This article describes the decision-making and reactions of parents and teachers who support the development of children who might be seen as having readiness risks. Children who delay kindergarten entry, those who go to kindergarten on time, and children who repeat kindergarten, their teacher and parents were the focus of a case study that addressed the process of kindergarten entry decisions and the evaluation of their success. Friday Edward's teacher said, 'not everyone is ready for the same things at the same time.' 'Well, we'll just take him home until he is ready,' said Edward's mother and father. (from Edward the Unready [Wells, 1995])Readiness for school is a seemingly simple concept. It should indicate a likelihood of school success -a synchrony of physical and cognitive development, maturity, and skill that allows a child to fit into the expectations of schooling. Surveys of US kindergarten teachers assert that one-third of students were not ready for kindergarten and that half of teachers felt it was getting worse (Boyer, 1991). About a half of kindergarten teachers believe that children with readiness problems should enter school as soon as they are eligible, half suggest that unready children wait a year, and two-thirds of kindergarten teachers hesitate to send unready children on to first grade (Heaviside et al, 1993).Two interventions are often used to enhance readiness of children in the early years. Academic redshirting involves delaying kindergarten for children who are age-eligible to start school. About 8% of children are redshirted each year, mostly boys born in the quartile preceding the kindergarten entrance cut-
In this article, we explore home-school relations as the establishment of a complex relationship between institutions and individuals in specific contexts. Using Bakhtin’s ideas of answerability, which depict a particular kind of responsibility, and addressivity, a conception of the relational nature of being, we explore how parents in one elementary school came to understand and enact relationships with schoolpeople. Answerability and addressivity have located within them ideas of power (What is the ethical response in the development of a child?) and voice (Who gets heard in the discourse of the school?). These concepts provide a framing of relationships that shows us how responsibility is mapped in inquiry on home-school relations. We analyze data from interviews with the parents of kindergarten and first grade children at the beginning and end of an academic year to illustrate enactments of answerability and addressivity through discussions of expectations for their child, themselves, and their child’s teacher.
Some educators experience difficulty documenting young children's work in early childhood settings because of a limited understanding of the importance of documentation, what or how to document, and the effective use of documentation; limited resources (time, tools, and assistance); or predetermined curricular guidelines. Some teachers, especially inexperienced early years teachers, have trouble engaging with children and documenting simultaneously, revealing a crucial misunderstanding about the purpose of documenting. Teachers at Reggio Emilia-inspired schools throughout the United States use many forms of documentation to enhance the qualities of children's experiences in preschool classrooms. This article addresses the dilemmas teachers face in implementing documentation in order to assist them as they move from standards-based teaching and teacher-determined content to a more constructivist approach to teaching. Ideas for using documentation shared by the authors will allow young children to construct their own knowledge and curiosity, making learning more meaningful to them and more visible to others.
This paper features one gay parent activist in the complex social milieu of his child's school and his community, his actions meeting both resistance and concurrence as a larger movement operated locally and nationally to make schooling more accepting of and acceptable to gays and lesbians. The paper traces this man's parenting processes and their effect on the schooling of many children, not only his own, and then contrasts his voice with the reluctant, often denying, and finally acquiescent voices of school people. The narrative captures the essence of cultural and identity change as well as individual and institutional processes. Turning to theory, I use postmodern dilemmas to define the episodic movements of the groups and the multipositionality of the individuals involved. Agency, social roles, and collaborative and individual activity illuminate the agenda of social groups effectively working with and through this parent to meet political goals for students.
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