Social media has overflowed with declarations of support after neuroscientist Per Brodal and child psychiatrist Charlotte Lunde in their book “Play and learning in a neuroperspective” make solid and professional arguments that the six-year reform should be reversed. Now the Ministry of Education and Culture and Tonje Brenna have also accepted the evaluation report on the six-year reform, and it shows great variations between the first class our children encountered 25 years ago and what they encounter today. Something has happened with the fulfillment of the intentions with first class for five-six-year-olds in these years. There are fewer flexible work sessions and less play that the children themselves initiate. At the same time, eight out of ten teachers expect the first-graders to be able to read and write simple words by Christmas. Despite good intentions and the idea of ”the best interests of the child”, the road to hell can be paved with gold. Strong words, but an almost unified field of study has argued year after year for the importance of children’s play for holistic learning and that the six-year-olds must be allowed to be the kings and queens of the world of play in the kindergarten. Nevertheless, education policy in Norway, with good intentions and bad choices, has steered our children’s childhood towards ever more stress, quality of life under pressure and anxiety. Unfortunate limit rise In the notes to the Kindergarten Act, it is stated that a child is considered to be three years old from and including the calendar year the child turns three. This was a clear improvement for the youngest children in the nursery and an acknowledgment that children under the age of three need more contact with adults. This means a kindergarten pedagogy adapted to the children’s age, and a design of the kindergarten’s play environment especially adapted to the youngest children. In the children’s lives two years later, this limit is moved back again when all children are to be counted as six-year-olds from January. The five-and-a-half-year-olds become first-graders who have to master the same things as their friends who already have more than six months more speed time. There is a big difference between school and kindergarten as educational institutions. We believe that this difference is perhaps greater than we have dared to admit in the years of the six-year reform. Research shows that there are big differences between kindergarten and school. The pedagogical basic idea in the kindergarten is based on play, co-created learning, cooperation and community, while the school facilitates individual learning. Take the consequences of the knowledge At the same time, we know that children’s way of learning and understanding the world and themselves is through the senses. This corresponds well with kindergarten pedagogy, where the kindergarten is well equipped to experience the world. In first grade and at school, learning immediately becomes much more abstract. The children must understand symbols such as numbers and letters, and this often also happens on a digital learning board. The six-year-old in first grade manages to learn this, but the question is at what cost. They lose time for play, and play is the royal road to developing psychological robustness, a belief that they understand the world and can be in a reciprocal relationship with what is happening around them. Refusal to go to school is a growing problem well into primary school. This can be better understood if we consider that children lose a lot of time to develop their psychological prerequisites to master school life when they start school life as six-year-olds. Increasing school refusal problems show that the saying “It should be hooked early, as a good hook should be” does not apply to children’s development. We actually know this very well. Now we have to take the consequences of the knowledge we have about children’s development and make a good offer for the six-year-olds. A good offer is where play is the focus, and where they do not need to use capacity to learn to be a student. Go for a kinderegg Reversing the six-year reform will give a “kinderegg effect”. Firstly, the six-year-olds themselves get more time to develop their play skills and master their life experiences through the world of play. Be it joyful risk-taking, intricate role-playing or games with rules that require and at the same time develop social competence, regulations and adaptations. Secondly, the five-year-old steps down from his place as school starters in the kindergarten. They are released from “school preparation measures” and get the six-year-olds back as play experts as role models in the kindergarten. Last but not least: The seven-year-olds will be the newcomers to the school and can benefit from all the expertise in early childhood education and the cooperation between the nursery school and the school that has been developed in these years. Falling numbers of children provide a welcome opportunity to welcome six-year-olds back to kindergartens. There is free space in the departments, the pedagogic standard has been strengthened, and there is political will to further strengthen both this and the level of education in the kindergarten. Let the children start school when they turn six in August – this also allows for a more flexible start to school.
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Let the six-year-olds play again – Statement
