Education Essay Example: The Messiness of Readiness

Children starting the preschool are put on different gauge scales to weigh their preparedness for school. Every player has their gauge that that is used to measure the preparedness of a child for joining preschool. These preparedness gauges differ for each stakeholder, as they have different expectations from each other. The preschool teachers have different expectation from the parents, the government and the society in general (Powell, 27).

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In the article Powell (28) looks at various factors that may hinder children from joining preschool and kindergarten, these factors range from the system created to societal creation that bar the children as they are accused of not being ready. The different perceptions of children readiness for schooling are shaped by various factors mostly informed by the stakeholders own learning experience, the expectation of the school children, the schooling structure, societal attitudes in early childhood education and other social forces. Though these factors play a critical role in determining the children readiness for teaching, the need to appreciate and prepare for the schooling of a child should begin at home hence the society and parents have a significant role to play in making a child ready for school. According to Deuteronomy 6:7 (The New King James Version), children, should be taught by their parents when they are with them anytime and every other time. This gives parents a mandate to help in preparing their children to be ready for schooling and not leave the task to teachers and the society.

Although the age-graded school system is mostly used to define the readiness of students, it can be a failure as students have different abilities, cognitive and emotional potentials though they are of same relative age. The age for entering schooling system should be based on meeting key basic characteristics that may include some socio-emotional abilities and cognitive skills. These threshold assessments are essential to ensuring that children, when taken up by teachers, are helped to develop, as per teachers training. Teachers are expected to develop the basic skills as they help the children in development (Powell, 26).

Children should be socialized to be always ready to learn to learn from the parents and society, who are the first ones to interact with the children. Biblically, children start learning from their parents. With a firm foundation of the learning experience, once in the hand of teachers and the schooling system it will not be difficult for them to pick up as they are ready for school.

Where We Stand on School Readiness

National Association of Education for Young Children (NAEYC) is an organization that promotes active learning for young children. In the article, the organization provides a critical analysis of how children should be prepared to be ready for schooling. According to Denham (87) readiness for schooling is the process of ensuring that children start schooling when they are well prepared for the environment they had been interacting in, including the parents and the society before they join the school.

NEYC commitment to ensuring that children are universally assisted to be prepared for readiness to start schooling is informed by its policies that are guided by equality for each child in terms of accessing schooling opportunities, establishing reasonable expectations of what children are supposed to do once in school and recognizing and supporting the different abilities of children (Denham, 57). Though this policy structure addresses most of the pertinent issues, it highly focuses on when the child is already at school. The policy should have started dealing with the matter from when a child is not yet at school, as they are highly influenced in terms of preparedness to start schooling while still at home. Therefore, focus should be put on an environment that affects them before they begin schooling. Biblically parents are granted the responsibilities of taking care and teaching their children, hence, helping in making the young ones ready for schooling.

Though NAEYC provides a realistic situation on addressing the issue of school readiness, it fails to give realistic strategy of sending the proposal they make. Families of the young truly need to access the resources of ensuring that young ones are adequately prepared for readiness in joining the school. A workable strategy for ensuring that this is met, need to be put in place. The family forms the basis for understanding the various needs of the children, thus being at the best place in addressing those needs. This will not only help in reducing the risk of failure in readiness for high at risk children but will provide a basis for understanding their challenges hence being addressed separately once enrolled in school as there will be coordination between teachers and parents (NAEYC, 3).

The various bottlenecks for readiness rose in the article that includes legal entry age, parents role in preparing for readiness and children at risk need to be addressed adequately. All the stakeholders need to be brought on board to have the various issues addressed to achieve the mission of preparing the readiness for school by the young.

References

Denham, S. A. (2006). Social-emotional competence as support for school readiness: What is it and how do we assess it?. Early education and development, 17(1), 57-89.

Powell, P. J. (2010). The Messiness of Readiness. Phi Delta Kappan, 92(3), 26-28

National Association for the Education of Young Children. Where We Stand on School Readiness. NAEYC Position Statement. Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2009. www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/Readiness