An Analogy for School Readiness

As the school year draws to a close, there are  families feeling the pressure to make a decision about whether or not a young 5 year old is ready to go to kindergarten.  There are good reasons to give a child who is not ready some extra time before beginning the long school years.  School districts have to pick a date (social workers call it the "iron law of specificity") - if you're born on that date, you're ready for school and if you're born one day later, you're not.  School districts don't have the advantage of knowing individual children.

If you think of academics and school life as the seat of a three-legged stool, then a child needs to have all three legs of that stool steady and strong underneath to support learning.  The three legs are social readiness, emotional readiness, and self-management and awareness.  Short definitions of each of these would be:

Social readiness - able to play cooperatively with a lively exchange of ideas, with lots of "Let's say you're the teacher.." or "Let's pretend this is our boat.."   Given personality differences, a basic ability to enter a social situation without a great deal of fear and anxiety.   Interest in the ways that families are alike and different.

Emotional readiness - able to separate easily from parents and trust that other adults can help.  Able to understand relative need in a class of 20-30 children with one teacher.  Able to hold one's own, to tell someone to stop hurtful behavior, to articulate one's own feelings in an age-appropriate way.

Self-awareness and management - understanding of oneself as a knower, indicated by saying things like "I didn't know that!", or articulating questions.  Keeping track of one's belongings, understanding school culture and one's place in it.  Knowing that there is a topic being discussed and having relevant thoughts to share.

So with all that in mind, here's my analogy.  When you are driving on a normal day, driving doesn't demand a lot of attention from you - you can listen to the radio, talk to children in the back seat, notice something along the side of the road. You are relaxed and in control with no need to be hyper-vigilant.  But if it starts to sleet and the roads get icy, you find yourself asking the children to be quiet, turning off the radio, gripping the wheel, and concentrating hard.  Your level of tension goes up and you are very vigilant about your surroundings.

It's the same with readiness to be at school.  You don't want a child to spend their school years figuratively gripping the wheel, feeling vigilant all the time because they don't have the relaxed, easy confidence in themselves to meet all the new challenges that the school years bring.  Readiness begins in kindergarten but continues throughout the next 12 years and beyond.  Will your third grader be ready to meet the increased academic challenges if he or she feels uneasy socially?  Will your seventh grader be ready to stand his or her ground in the face of peer pressure? Will your tenth grader be solid enough to follow an individual path?

I think there are wrong reasons to give a child extra time, like hoping they'll be bigger for sports.  And I think there are very good reasons for giving a child extra time, time that loosens the grip on the steering wheel and has the child walking up the sidewalk to school with an easy gait and happy expectancy.