Kindergarten Crisis Why Children Need to Play in School
Time for play in most public kindergartens has dwindled to the vanishing point, replaced by lengthy lessons and standardized testing, according to three recent studies released by the nonprofit Alliance for Childhood. This group of advocates for children reports that classic play materials have largely disappeared from the 268 full-day conventional classrooms studied.
Authors of the research hail
from the University of California, Los Angeles, Long Island University and Sarah Lawrence College, in New York. In sounding the warning about the potential intellectual, social and physical repercussions of this widespread educational policy on childhood development, they also point to the aca- demic success associated with play-based schooling in other countries. Students in China and Japan, often heralded for their aptitudes in science, technology, engineering and math, enjoy a play-based experiential approach to school until second grade. Children in Finland, who don’t begin formal schooling until age 6, consistently achieve the highest score on international exams.
For more information visit
AllianceForChildhood.org.
Report Card Students Like to Pick Green Colleges
In The Princeton Review’s latest Col- lege Hopes & Worries Survey, 68 percent of students said they value having information about a college’s commitment to the environment. From a pool of almost 700 U.S. colleges and universities, the organization identified the country’s 371 exemplary green col- leges of 2010 (up from 286 in 2009). Key criteria include a healthy and sustainable quality of life on campus,
preparation for employment in a world facing environmental challenges and overall commitment to environmental issues. Fifteen institutions made the 2010 honor roll. The role
models setting the standard are in Arizona, California, Colora- do, Connecticut, Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hamp- shire, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Washington. The Sustainable Endowments Institute, too, offers its
College Sustainability Report Card. This in-depth eco-profile for 332 colleges in the United States and Canada also evalu- ates how each profiled institution invests its endowment assets. The site allows viewers to instantly compare selected schools in nine categories. In 2010, the group recognized 80 extraordinarily green schools and saluted 26 as “top of their class” in endowment allocation.
Visit
PrincetonReview.com/green and
GreenReportCard.org.
natural awakenings
August 2010
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