“I‘m sorry, but we can’t consider your daughter for the class next fall.”
The mother gaped at the admissions officer from the plush and private Washington school.
“Why on Earth not?” she blurted. This meeting was the culmination of a long process involving filing an application, paying an application fee, organizing a “shadow” visit for her daughter, undergoing a parent interview, and filling out a six- or seven-page questionnaire about the child’s interests and the family’s habits.
“We don’t think it would be a good fit. She’s not ready.”
“Not now, of course,” said the woman, forcing out a little laugh. “It’s February. She wouldn’t be starting kindergarten until next fall. That’s a long time in the life of a little girl!”
The admissions officer was unmoved. “I’m sorry,” he said again, “Her fine motor skills just aren’t where they need to be. You may want to consider pediatric occupational therapy.”
“Fine motor skills? But she can button her own shirt and zip her own jacket and she’s already reading –”
“We don’t test for reading,” he shot back.
“But –”
“Frankly, Mrs. X,” the man went on, with evident disapproval, “during her visit here your daughter seemed less interested in learning than she was in … playing.”
The mother’s mouth moved soundlessly for a moment, as her feelings of dismay were replaced by something closer to disgust.
“Isn’t that what little children do?” she asked dryly. “Play?”
Well, of course that’s what children do, especially children for whom kindergarten is still in the future. It’s good for them, too, apparently: Evidence is accumulating that playing forms the foundation both for formal education and for a lifetime of good habits. A 2007 study published in the journal Science, for instance, found that play-based early education is much better at inculcating self-control and mental flexibility than an academic, desk-based approach. Other studies confirm this.
Yet here in Washington — and, frankly, in every other high-achieving, socially anxious area — the pressure is on for little children to start displaying the austere diligence of the ivory tower when they’re barely out of diapers.
“Kindergarten has become very demanding,” concedes a local occupational therapist. She adds: “Children are now expected to start school already able to write.”
In her 2004 novel “amanda bright@home,” my friend Danielle Crittenden lampooned the academic scrutiny to which little Washingtonians are routinely subjected. When the main character’s son resists a school psychologist’s instructions to stack blocks and scribble with crayons, he’s labeled as suffering from “acute social anxiety.” His “poor scissor skills” require immediate remediation at $80 an hour. Rates have gone up since then.
Now, to be fair, fee-based schools certainly have the right to choose whom they wish to admit. If the school thinks a child isn’t up to snuff, it’s under no obligation to pretend otherwise.
Perhaps the admissions director saw the mother of the aspiring kindergartner as yet another irksome, pushy parent, too entranced with her own child to see the girl’s deficiencies.
Is the girl deficient? That remains to be seen. She has an appointment in a week or so. She’s going to be evaluated and treated, at the rate of $125 an hour. Let’s hope her improved scissoring skills are worth it.
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at mgurdon@washington examiner.com.
