Five-year-old children need play, not pressure. Then, at six and seven, they need learning infused with joy, wonder, movement, colors, music, and satisfying work that makes real things. Adults who learned this way thrive. They are in no way behind those who faced pressure. So, why? Why do governments (this is not the teachers’ idea) pressure little children to learn according to a tight, unrealistic schedule? My story about teaching without pressure will be published this year. A Gift of Wonder, A True Story About School As It Could Be, invites readers into our classroom as my students and I travel through grades one through six. Please plan to join us to experience education that is uplifting. Sign up to follow Growing Children to receive a notification when A Gift of Wonder is published.

The blog post linked here tells about the pressures faced unnecessarily by most children today in the UK. The situation is similar here in the US.

Written by Kim Allsup for and published by Growing Children ~ January 28, 2017.

~ The Author ~
Kim Allsup’s childhood wonder years inspired her first career as an environmentalist and her second career as a Waldorf teacher. She was the founding staff member of the Buzzard Bay Coalition and a founding parent of the Waldorf School of Cape Cod. A graduate of Brown University and Antioch University (M.Ed), she served as a Waldorf class teacher, on Cape Cod and at the Pine Hill Waldorf School, for 22 years. She is currently a writer, an advisor to teachers and a gardening teacher pioneering the use of school sunhouses. She lives on Cape Cod with her husband and blogs at Growing Children.

She is the author of A Gift of Wonder, A True Story Showing School as it Should Be