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What Happened to Recess and Why Are Our Children Struggling in Kindergarten?

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Anyone with children will realize that the Golden Age of Education is over. Gone are the halcyon days of elementary school where children were first taught how to be good human beings and live in a civilization, and academics came second. Now, with high-stakes testing and the punitive "No Child Left Behind" initive by the Bush administration (which is more accurately called "No Child Left Untested" by the author), testing has become paramount to just about anything else teachers do or have done in decades past.

Case in point: a school district in Michigan has a 539-page curriculum for PRESCHOOL. Student's ranking in schools and teacher's salaries are directly linked to one or two tests that students take that focus on exclusive and often inappropriate material. Children in elementary schools throughout America are taking tests for days on end, racking up more test-taking hours than potential lawyers taking the Bar Exam. Wild animals used in Hollywood films have more break times in their days than your average schoolchild. Kindergarten curriculum, in the words of many people who run education, should be preparing children for college. In other words, as a nation, we have completely lost our marbles when it comes to testing and too many governmental folk are bowing down at the altar of test-worship.

A local educator recently said, "if I need to know how Little Johnny is doing in school, I go to HIM, not to his Ohio Proficiency Test from 1999." This clear and obvious paradigm for finding out how a child is doing in school has been completely left behind in recent years, and is likely to keep on happening. Ms. Ohanian's book is frighteningly FULL of examples and incidents when educators have gone straight to some standardized test to see how children are performing in school vs. the children themselves. Where the teachers stand in all these goings on is somewhere between a soldier on the front lines being given totally ridiculous and dangerous commands, and a prisoner of war being forced to do whatever the Big Wigs say, or else they're likely to find themselves up against a firing squad (for example, a school in Chicago SUED a teacher for 3 MILLION DOLLARS for looking at a standardized test before administering it to the children. A teacher will go to JAIL if they even GLANCE over a child's shoulder during standardized tests in Florida).

Ms. Ohanian asks some very good questions throughout her book, including why aren't teachers and parents DOING something about this national craze for test scores, and how is this REALLY HELPING any child to be tested to the point of getting sick and vomiting? She also asks some quite valid questions, like why are we spending billions of dollars testing children when so many schools are literally falling apart? Instead of shelling out 3 million dollars to a test-writing company, why not spend that money on repairing the SCHOOL? What do we hope to accomplish by testing children into the ground? What message are we sending our teachers and our children when their teacher is not only NOT allowed to even LOOK at the test, but risks jail time if they do? (can't you just see THAT one: HARDENED CRIMINAL: "whatcha in for, buddy? Murder 1?" TEACHER: "no, I looked over the shoulder of a first grader during a standardized test...").

The message is pretty clear: children don't matter at all unless they fall within a certain range on one or two standardized tests that are usually given once, graded by someone who is NOT an educator, and the results are posted months later (in Cleveland, our proficiency tests were taken back in March, but we're just getting the results of those tests NOW, 7 months later). It's also clear that teachers and parents are clearly not experts on their own children, because the LAST person to be consulted about how Johnny does in school are these very people: those who write the laws and the curriculum and who punish the schools and teachers are only looking at pages of statistics.

Gaaah... Maddening...

Ms. Ohanian's book is meticulously well researched and she cites startling and often frightening statistics and stories about what is considered "normal" educational proceedings in America today. I myself am rereading it for the second time, taking notes as I go and passing it along to my teaching colleagues. Actually, it's getting to the point where EVERY SINGLE PAGE documents something either useful, scary or enraging that I'm finding it easier to simply hand the book to friends and colleagues and say, "here, read this."

My hope is that this book and others like it will actually DO SOMETHING-spark off a national debate and get parents and teachers and students to go out there and stop putting up with this nonsense. There's no reason children in North Carolina have to be tested on the spelling and meaning of "circumference" in first grade. Nothing good will come of testing our children so often that they loose the ability to THINK and can only regurgitate information and bubble in little circles with a no. 2 pencil. PARENTS know that. TEACHERS know that. FAMILIES know that. ANYONE who works with a child knows that. NOW we need to make sure that our lawmakers (who obviously all live in a totally different world from us Common Folk) begin to know that as well. Get the book, read it through, then pass it along to someone else. If the people lead, eventually the leaders will follow.

Susan Ohanian's book let me know that I wasn't alone - that mothers all over the country shared my outrage over high-stakes testing - mothers that are acting on their instincts in a big way. She writes - "a growing number of women in this country consider themselves on the brink of a new civil war, a war centering on the control of children. To protect their children these women consider all their time and all their energies sacred to the cause of test resistance. Politicians, take heed" (page 211).

Through the pages of Susan's book - I found the last bit of courage I needed to take a stand against high-stakes high school graduation testing in my state. As I turned the last page, for me, there was no turning back.

I think another American patriot is smiling down on Susan and her book. Just as Thomas Paine called the colonists to revolution in 1776 with his 50-page pamphlet "Common Sense" - Susan calls on parents of American public school children to see standardized test abuse for what it is - child abuse.

We need to put this book on the best-seller lists - one parent at a time. Every copy sold tells the political and corporate establishment that we are taking our schools back. Not until we all know the truth about the high-stakes testing agenda can we have a meaningful national dialogue on this critical issue.

Although the intended audience for What Happened to Recess and Why Are Our Children Struggling in Kindergarten? is parents, it's a rich resource for test-defiers from any perspective, a veritable OED - Ohanian Encyclopedic Disquisition - of stories, facts, and figures about standards, the high-stakes tests they've spawned, the corporate honchos who hawk them, the harms they bring to children, and the heroes and heroines who resist them. In his preface to the book, Alfie Kohn calls Susan "defiantly anecdotal," and the book does include her trademark stories of nonstandard children from her own classrooms and from parents and teachers across the country, but it's also packed with outrageous examples from actual standards documents and released items from a number of state tests. Florida elementary school principal (and outspoken opponent of testing abuses) Cathy Kitto wrote me shortly after she finished Recess: "If this book isn't a call to action, nothing ever will be."

Much of the power of the book derives from Susan's omnivorous reading and her ability to make unlikely connections that particularize and illuminate her themes. Within a few paragraphs a reader might find a reference to Maurice Sendak's classic children's book Where the Wild Things Are, a quote from a New York Times columnist, and a document from the American Association for the Child's Right to Play. In a section called "A Lizard Career Path," she relates a story from The Boilerplate Rhino, by her favorite science writer, David Quammen, about a biology grad student conducting repeated speed trials with Mexican lizards, some of which improve their time while others get slower. Susan writes, "Are the people who insist that children must be tested and retested and tested some more listening? Plenty of kids are exhausted. Others, wise to the game, simply aren't interested any more. Sad to say, they've lost interest not just in tests but in school. At least none of the lizards vomited."

Always an opponent of jargon, Ohanian deflates and deconstructs the business lingo that education bureaucracies and their corporate buddies bring into our schools. One of my favorite sections of the book is a long riff on "benchmarks," which Susan traces to its origins as a surveyor's mark, through its uses as a software tool, and into the schools, where teachers are forced to "bow at the benchmark shrine." Lest anyone conclude that this is mere linguistic diversion, Susan provides some incredibly detailed and difficult benchmarks for middle school social studies in South Dakota.

The final chapter of the book is a roll call of the Resistance, featuring stories and tips from grassroots organizers in many states. Ohanian honors and acknowledges the courage and commitment of parents, teachers, students, and a few administrators who are speaking out against high stakes tests. There's Juanita Doyon, button-making queen and parent activist extraordinaire from Washington state; Michelle Trusty-Murphy, whose 9-year-old son Connor may be the only child in Nevada to resist the state test; Florida teachers who called a press conference and ripped up their bribe money for improved FCAT scores; Connecticut valedictorian Annelise Schantz, who delivered a scathing indictment of testing with the governor on the dais beside her, and many more inspiring figures and stories from the Resistance.

A number of professional test-related editorial cartoons, along with some original ones designed by Ohanian, add another layer of interest to Recess. The book also includes a thorough index that will help you quickly locate just the story or data you need to spice up your next letter to the editor. And in a final, sweet irony, the book is published by a professional division of McGraw-Hill - one of the largest test-makers in the country.

Fastmoving, quick-paced, and well-researched, this Susan Ohanian books swims in waters no man has tried before--or woman. What is said is worth reading--twice, mulling over, and wondering about, and then, taking action.

That big business is taking the joy out of education is becoming more and more real every day. What that joy really is, Susan makes very clear to all: discovery, wondering, questioning, and trying...not scores, and informational feedback, and high-stakes testing.

The words beat much like a throbbing heart that has loved education and children maybe too much and therefore breaks too quickly and easily under this new sort of approach to children.
No Child Left Untested is more like the way things are becoming.
Susan backs up her opinions with strong research and data proving her point.

I found the book to be revealing, to the point of being unable to put it down for long. It leads into the future and the future right now doesn't look good for children.

We live in an age when researchers, politicians and corporations who have never been teachers themselves are mandating what real teachers in complex classroom environments must do. In detached, aloof and arrogant positions, they ignore the fact that children are wonderfully unique, have not complied to the political rhetoric and will not be standardized.

Ohanian takes us back to what schools and education are really about- the children. Not numbers on spreadsheets or potential fodder for political and financial gain, but children. And she can do so because she is not a drive by researcher or politician but a liflelong teacher. Ohanian knows what it is to teach and she eloquently and often humorously - brings us back to true basics as she cuts through the extremism and the insanity of the glut of standards and testing that are choking the life out of schools.

The forward by Alfie Kohn alone is worth the price of the book. Every parent, teacher and yes... politician... in this country should read Susan Ohanian.

Susan Ohanian has written a startling book. Parents need to read this book. They need to understand the fallacies inherent in standardized testing and standards-based education. In the name of "world class standards" California has pushed middle school academics into 4th, 5th, and 6th grade, and first and second grade work into kindergarten. Parents need to know that their children aren't failing; the system is failing by setting up inappropriate standards evaluated by inadequate tests. "People don't understand how testing is used to control the curriculum and how that might connect very intimately with our democratic rights." (p. 240)

Reporters need to read this book. They need to understand what the "test scores" they report in their newspapers and on television actually describe. They need to do some investigative reporting, showing the corporate money trail involved in evaluating teachers, schools, and students.

Legislators need to read this book before they mandate yet another program or yet another "reward" system to improve "failing" schools, schools which may really not be failing at all. "Since when did 'being average' become a dirty word?" (p. 239)

Teachers need to read this book. They need to understand that if they don't take action, everything they say and do will be specified by people who haven't been in a classroom in years, if ever. Teachers are the professionals who know what children need, and how to help them learn it. Ohanian quotes Professor Linda McNeil, who says, "..standardized reforms drastically hurt the best teachers, forcing them to teach watered-down content required because it was computer-gradable." (p. 70)

Anyone who cares about children needs to read this book. If we want to raise children who are creative thinkers and problem-solvers, children who don't accept just one solution as the answer, children who will be the inventors, explorers, and leaders of the future, the system of standards-based education and standardized testing needs to be changed.

Susan Ohanian presents a pithy, radical explanation of the destructive actions being taken to "fix" children who aren't broken. Read this book! Take action!

Ohanian's book is a great resource for parents and teachers who want to keep the joy and wonder in childhood. Every parent, grandma, grandpa, teacher, superintendent and school board member should have a copy of this book.

Experiencing frustration with the extreme focus on raising test scores in our public schools today, I went online to see if anyone was writing on the topic. I stumbled upon this book and am SO glad I ordered it. If you, too, have been thinking something's not quite right about this testing craze, you will find your feelings validated and well articulated in this book.

This is a wonderful book exposing the downfalls of our public schools. I graduate high school before Ohio started the OGT which everyone must pass. I was part of a group that was required to take practice questions for the new test so they could figure out which questions to use. I do not think I would have graduated if I had to take the new test, at least the math portion. My mother teaches special needs preschool and has to perform standardized tests with her children. Even those who cannot even talk or function due to illness. It is ridiculous that 3 year olds have to take these test. The children have to identify pictures, if they say cake instead of birthday cake, or boat instead of sail boat they got it wrong. There is something drastically wrong with this picture. Many of the special needs children come from low income families or have parents who are also delayed. The school system should support these children instead of shoving into classrooms where they will never succeed. Mainstreaming is toted as good but some children struggle more there because of the excessive testing and fast pace. While I don't have children yet I am concerned about the way our schools are moving and want to get involved before I have children. I do think the ultimate irony is that the books is published by McGraw-Hill one of the largest test promoters and a company that is not viewed well in the book. Maybe the executives at McGraw-Hill should read this book so they can see how they are helping destroy America's schools, children, families, and our future.

WHAT Happened to Recess and WHY are our Children Struggling in Kindergarten? by Susan Ohanian

In his foreword for this book, Alfie Kohn writes Ms. Ohanian is "our archivist of educational absurdities, fearlessly clipping newspapers and trawling the Internet" who "insists that we think about children as children." RECESS is long on documentation of educational absurdities. The bibliography is almost 12 pages of small font and many of the referenced newspaper, magazine, and journal articles can be read on Ms. Ohanian's website. Almost overwhelming!

Ms. Ohanian records students' triumphs and states: "Such triumphs are not objective. They don't appear on standardized printouts, so no high-powered committee on excellence will pay attention. But I insist that even if one anecdote is just that-a story-two anecdotes are data. And so I persist with stories..." (125)

She invites us to "look beyond the corporate charts and chants and see real children." (160) She intersperses relevant stories about real children from her own teaching experiences, as well as stories told to her by parents and teachers. Dennis eats his pencils to avoid writing. Charles learns that it's OK to be different when he reads "The Ugly Duckling." Leslie's friend Jessica teaches her to understand knock-knock riddles, a must-have skill for children. Michael learns the power of personal letters. And, kids cry over and vomit on tests. There are others.

Stories about children are the heart of this book: Ms. Ohanian's unique gift to us. Personally, I would like to have read more success stories about real children in today's public schools where they are often treated like numbered robots being processed for the global economy and fewer horror stories about the "Standardistas."

In the final chapter, Ms. Ohanian documents honorable efforts of parents and educators to change the test-prep curriculum back to kid-driven instruction for life-long learning. Some parents and educators are encouraging others to just say no to this harmful test mania by opting out of the standardized tests. There may be consequences for these battles, but we must win the war to re-establish our schools as places where people are more important than test scores.

Buy it, read it, and give a copy to any parent, teacher, or politician who reads and who cares about the future. Our children are our future. What kind of citizenry are we creating when test scores are more important than character? Character is supposed to count. We must learn from the kids in the Seattle Special Olympics who demonstrated by their actions that "what matters in this life is much more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others to win, too, even if it means slowing down and changing our course now and then." (51)