Building Blocks: Making Children Successful in the Early Years of School.Building Blocks: Making Children Successful in the Early Years of School. Gene I. Maeroff (Palgrave Pal´grave n. 1. See Palsgrave. Noun 1. Palgrave - English poet (1824-1897) Francis Turner Palgrave Macmillan Macmillan, river, c.200 mi (320 km) long, rising in two main forks in the Selwyn Mts., E Yukon Territory, Canada, and flowing generally W to the Pelly River. It was an important route to the gold fields from c.1890 to 1900. ). While there is growing interest in making preschool universal, and the nation is slowly moving in the direction of full-day kindergarten kindergarten [Ger.,=garden of children], system of preschool education. Friedrich Froebel designed (1837) the kindergarten to provide an educational situation less formal than that of the elementary school but one in which children's creative play instincts would be for all, Gene Maeroff, the founding director of the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Teachers College, urges parents and policymakers to embrace a more comprehensive strategy for improving early education. The central component of Maeroff's proposal is the creation of pre-K to grade 3 schools (or pre-K-3 academies within traditional elementary schools elementary school: see school. ), which will allow teachers to plan across grade levels and to participate in joint staff development, among other things. Maeroff presents an impressive collection of examples of schools and other groups doing early education well, in some cases in a pre-K-3 setting, but more often not. Inspiring though the examples are, they may not persuade a skeptical reader that the best way to improve early education for all is to harness it to the existing (if reorganized re·or·gan·ize v. re·or·gan·ized, re·or·gan·iz·ing, re·or·gan·iz·es v.tr. To organize again or anew. v.intr. To undergo or effect changes in organization. ) K-12 system. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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