幼儿园新概念 少些学习多些玩耍

PASADENA, Md. — Mucking around with sand and water. Playing Candy Land or Chutes and Ladders. Cooking pretend meals in a child-size kitchen. Dancing on the rug, building with blocks and painting on easels.

马里兰州帕萨迪纳——在沙盘和水盘旁玩耍；玩《糖果大陆》(Candy Land)或《滑梯与梯子》(Chutes and Ladders)等桌上游戏；在儿童规格的厨房里玩过家家；在地毯上跳舞；堆积木并在画架上作画。

Call it Kindergarten 2.0.

就把它称作“幼儿园2.0”吧。

Concerned that kindergarten has become overly academic in recent years, this suburban School district south of Baltimore is introducing a new curriculum in the fall for 5-year-olds. Chief among its features is a most old-fashioned concept: play.

由于担心幼儿园在近几年过于侧重于教学，巴尔的摩以南城郊的这个学区在秋季为五岁学童引进了新课程。这个课程的特色则受到一个古老概念主导：玩耍。

“I feel like we have been driving the car in the wrong direction for a long time,” said Carolyn Pillow, who has taught kindergarten for 15 years and attended a training session here on the new curriculum last month. “We can’t forget about the basics of what these kids need, which is movement and opportunities to play and explore.”

“我觉得我们长久以来，把车开往了错误的方向，”在幼儿园教学长达15年的卡洛琳·皮洛(Carolyn Pillow)说。“我们不能忘记孩童所需的基础，那就是玩乐和探索的活动和机会。”皮洛上个月参加了为新课程开办的培训班。

As American classrooms have focused on raising test scores in math and reading, an outgrowth of the federal No Child Left Behind law and interpretations of the new Common Core standards, even the youngest students have been affected, with more formal lessons and less time in sandboxes. But these days, states like Vermont, Minnesota and Washington are again embracing play as a bedrock of kindergarten.

由于联邦政府《不让孩子掉队》法案(No Child Left Behind)的影响，以及对“共同核心”(Common Core)标准的解读，美国教学着重于提升数学与阅读分数，这让最年幼的学童也受到了影响，要上更多正式的课程，减少在沙坑玩耍的时间。但近来，佛蒙特州、明尼苏达州与华盛顿州等地，再次接纳玩耍，视其为幼儿园的基石。

Like Anne Arundel County here, Washington and Minnesota are beginning to train teachers around the state on the importance of so-called purposeful play — when teachers subtly guide children to learning goals through games, art and general fun. Vermont is rolling out new recommendations for kindergarten through third grade that underscore the importance of play. And North Carolina is encouraging teachers to evaluate paintings, scribbles or block-building sessions, instead of giving quizzes, in assessing the reading, math and social skills of kindergartners.

如同安妮阿伦德尔县这样，华盛顿州和明尼苏达州开始培训州内的教师，让他们了解所谓“目的性玩耍”的重要性：教师悉心引导学童借由游戏、艺术与一般的乐趣达成学习目标。佛蒙特州则推出新的教学建议，对幼儿园到三年级的学童强调了玩乐的重要性。北卡罗莱纳州则鼓励教师评比学童的画作、涂鸦与积木作品，而不是进行小测验，考察阅读、数学与社交技能。

But educators in low-income districts say a balance is critical. They warn that unlike students from affluent families, poorer children may not learn the basics of reading and math at home and may fall behind if play dominates so much that academics wither.

但是低收入地区的教育人士认为，如何平衡才是关键。他们告诫说，较贫穷的学童不是富裕家庭出身，可能无法在家里学到阅读与数学的基础，因此若让玩乐主导教学，这些学生的学术能力就会萎缩。

“Middle-class parents are doing this anyway, so if we don’t do it for kids who are not getting it at home, then they are going to start at an even greater disadvantage,” said Deborah Stipek, the dean of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford.

“中产阶级家长无论如何都会这样做。因此，如果我们不让学童获得家里无法得到的东西，他们在起跑线上就会更加处于劣势，”斯坦福大学教育学院院长黛博拉·斯蒂佩克(Deborah Stipek)表示。

Across the country, many schools in recent years have curtailed physical and art education in favor of longer blocks for reading and math instruction to help improve test scores. The harder work even began in kindergarten.

近年来在美国各地，有许多学校缩短体育与艺术教育课程，并拉长阅读和数学的教学，从而帮助提升考试分数，甚至从幼儿园就开始致力于此。

Most recently, more than 40 states have adopted the Common Core, standards for reading and math that in many cases are much more difficult than previous guidelines. In some school districts, 5-year-olds are doing what first or even second graders once did, and former kindergarten staples like dramatic play areas and water or sand tables have vanished from some classrooms, while worksheets and textbooks have appeared.

最近也有超过四十个州采纳了共同核心标准，这套标准对阅读和数学的要求，在很多情况下难度都远超先前的准则。有些学区的五岁学童甚至开始学习一年级或二年级的课程内容。过去幼儿园里不可或缺的表演玩耍区、沙盘或水盘已经不复存在，取而代之的是练习册和课本。

A study comparing federal government surveys of kindergarten teachers in 1998 and 2010 by researchers at the University of Virginia found that the proportion of teachers who said their students had daily art and music dropped drastically. Those who reported teaching spelling, the writing of complete sentences and basic math equations every day jumped.

弗吉尼亚大学(University of Virginia)的研究者比较了联邦政府在1998年与2010年对幼儿园教师的调查，发现让学生每日进行艺术与音乐学习的教师比例大幅降低。而每日进行拼字、完整文句写作与基本算术的比例则大幅提高。

The changes took place in classrooms with students of all demographic backgrounds, but the study found that schools with higher proportions of low-income students, as well as schools with large concentrations of nonwhite children, were even more likely to cut back on play, art and music while increasing the use of textbooks.

出现这些变化的教室里，各种背景的学生都有。但该研究发现，低收入家庭学生比例更高的学校，以及非白人孩子大量集中的学校，更有可能在减少玩耍、美术和音乐时间的同时，增加课本的使用量。

Experts, though, never really supported the expulsion of playtime.

但专家从来没真正支持过挤压玩耍的时间。

Using play to develop academic knowledge — as well as social skills — in young children is the backbone of alternative educational philosophies like those of Maria Montessori or Reggio Emilia. And many veteran kindergarten teachers, as well as most academic researchers, say they have long known that children learn best when they are allowed ample time to go shopping at a pretend grocery store or figure out how to build bridges with wooden blocks. Even the Common Core standards state that play is a “valuable activity.”

用玩耍来开发幼儿的学业知识和社交技巧，一直是替代性教育理念的基础，如玛丽亚·蒙特梭利(Maria Montessori)和雷焦·埃米莉亚(Reggio Emilia)的理念。很多资深的幼儿园老师，以及大部分学术研究人员均表示，他们早就知道，允许孩子用大量时间去模拟的食杂店买东西，或是利用积木弄明白如何搭建桥梁时，他们的学习效果是最好的。就连共同核心标准也阐明，玩耍是一种“宝贵的活动”。

But educators point out that children are also capable of absorbing sophisticated academic concepts.

但教育工作者指出，孩子也能有吸收复杂学术概念的能力。

“People think if you do one thing you can’t do the other,” said Nell Duke, a professor of education at the University of Michigan. “It really is a false dichotomy.”

“人们以为不能一心二用，”密歇根大学(University of Michigan)的教育学教授内尔·杜克(Nell Duke)说。“这是一种误解。”

M. Manuela Fonseca, the early-education coordinator for Vermont, said her state was trying to emphasize the learning value of play in its new guidelines.

佛蒙特州早期教育协调员M·曼纽拉·丰塞卡(M. Manuela Fonseca)说，她所任职的州正努力在其新制定的指导方针中，强调玩耍的学习价值。

“Before we had the water table because it was fun and kids liked it,” she said. “Now we have the water table so kids can explore how water moves and actually explore scientific ideas.”

“以前我们配水盘是因为它好玩，孩子们也喜欢，”她说。“现在我们配水盘，则是让孩子们能够探究水是如何流动的，实际上就是探索科学思想。”

Still, teachers like Therese Iwancio, who works at Cecil Elementary School in Baltimore’s Greenmount neighborhood, where the vast majority of children come from low-income families, say their students benefit from explicit academic instruction. She does not have a sand table, play kitchen or easel in the room.

然而，像特蕾泽·伊万乔(Therese Iwancio)这样的老师表示，他们的学生会从明确的学业指导中受益。她在巴尔的摩格林芒特社区的塞西尔小学(Cecil Elementary School)任教，那里绝大部分孩子来自低收入家庭。她的教室里没有沙盘和玩具厨房，也没有画架。

“I have never had a child say to me, ‘I just want to play,’ ” said Ms. Iwancio, who has taught for two decades.

“我从来没遇到哪个孩子对我说，‘我只想玩’，”已有20年教龄的她说。

On a recent morning, she asked children to read aloud from a simple book. On the wall hung a schedule for the day, with virtually every minute packed with goals like “I will learn sight words” or “I will learn to compose and decompose teen numbers.”

前不久的一天早上，她让孩子们大声朗读一本简单的课本。墙上贴着当天的安排，几乎每一分钟都填满了诸如“我要学习常见字”或“我要学习组合和分拆十三到十九之间的数字”这样的目标。

Jayla Stephens, 6, said she liked school because “you get to do a lot of work and you will get better.”

六岁的杰拉·斯蒂芬斯(Jayla Stephens)说她喜欢上学，因为“你要做很多事情，而且会变得更好。”

In neighboring, more affluent Anne Arundel County, 321 kindergarten teachers last month attended training sessions on the new curriculum. Required each day: 25 minutes of recess, 20 minutes of movement, 25 minutes in play centers. The district is buying sand or water tables, blocks, play kitchens, easels and art supplies for every classroom that does not have them.

上月，在邻近的更富裕的安妮阿伦德尔县，321名幼儿园老师参加了针对新课程的培训。每天的要求是：25分钟休息时间、20分钟运动时间以及25分钟玩耍时间。该学区正在为没有配备相关用品的教室购买沙盘或水盘、积木、玩具厨房、画架和美术用品。

Teachers were given tips on how to be more creative in academic lessons, too, like tossing a ball printed with different numbers to teach math.

对于如何在正式的教学中更有创造力，老师们也得到了指点，比如在球上印上数字，用抛球的方式来教数学。

“We don’t think that rigor negates fun and play,” said Patricia J. Saynuk, the coordinator of early-childhood education.

“我们认为，严谨和乐趣、玩耍并不矛盾，”儿童早期教育协调员帕特里夏·J·塞伊努克(Patricia J. Saynuk)说。

Traci Burns, who has taught kindergarten for the last five years at Annapolis Elementary School, said she was looking forward to retrieving previously banished easels.

过去五年一直在安纳波利斯小学(Annapolis Elementary School)教幼儿园的特拉奇·伯恩斯(Traci Burns)说，她盼望着拿回以前被收走的画架。

“With the Common Core, this has been pushed and pushed and pushed that kids should be reading, sitting and listening,” she said. “Five-year-olds need to play and color. They need to go out and sing songs.”

“共同核心标准影响下，我们不断不断地强调孩子要看书、坐好、听老师讲，”她说。“五岁大的孩子需要玩耍和画画。他们需要出去唱歌。”

At Hilltop Elementary, a racially and economically diverse school in Glen Burnie, Melissa Maenner said she had found that teaching kindergartners too many straightforward academic lessons tended to flop.

在格伦伯尼的希尔托普小学(Hilltop Elementary)，族裔和经济背景均比较多元。梅利莎·门纳(Melissa Maenner)说，她发现给幼儿园里的孩子上太多完全和学业有关的课往往会搞砸。

“They are 5,” Ms. Maenner said. “Their attention span is about five minutes.”

“他们只有五岁，”门纳说。“集中注意力的时间只有大约五分钟。”