In a few weeks, it will be the most exciting and scariest day in the lives of some young children. It will be the first day of real school – grade one. It will be big buildings, different people, new rules and unfamiliar new friends. Another less obvious commonality is that these children want to learn. They are eager and enthusiastic.
The mandate for adults simply is to maintain that enthusiasm and eagerness to learn. If, by the second or third grade, there is a “I hate school” attitude, then somehow the adults have failed – and failed miserably.
The long term consequences are dire.
If children begin to dislike school and do poorly, it is havoc on their self esteem. It means that statistically they fall into the category of potential ‘drop out’. And, eventually, they will be part of the stress on the social support system.
The tragedy is that culturally the early school years are not seen as that important. That is not where the finest teachers are directed. However, it is in those early years that young attitudes are shaped. Perhaps the child development arguments pale in light of one simple comparison. That comparison is between the wages of the teachers in the early primary grades and the wages of the people who check out and bag your groceries. On a wages-per-hour comparison, the workers at the grocery market are paid better. With all due respect to the hard work of grocery store personnel, what does this say about the value placed on early education?
Catherine Forsythe