Learning Process In Preschool

        Ever since the first kindergarten opened in 1837, it has been a place for telling stories, building castles, painting pictures, making friends, and learning to share. But kindergarten is undergoing a dramatic change.

        In today's kindergartens, children are spending more and more time filling out worksheets and drilling on flash cards. In short, kindergarten is becoming more like the rest of school.

        Exactly the opposite needs to happen: We should make the rest of school (indeed, the rest of life) more like kindergarten.

        What's so special about kindergarten? As kindergartners playfully create stories, castles, and paintings with one another, they develop and refine their abilities to think creatively and work collaboratively, precisely the abilities most needed to achieve success and satisfaction in the 21st century.

        Underlying traditional kindergarten activities is a spiraling learning process in which children imagine what they want to do, create a project based on their ideas (using blocks, finger paint, or other materials), play with their creations, share their ideas and creations with others, and reflect on their experiences -- all of which leads them to imagine new ideas and new projects. This iterative learning process is ideal preparation for today's fast-changing society, in which people must continually come up with innovative solutions to unexpected situations in their lives.

         If this approach is so well aligned with current societal needs, why do we so rarely support it in classrooms? One reason is that our society and our educational system don't place enough value on creative thinking.

         Another reason is a lack of appropriate media and technologies: Wooden blocks and finger paint are great for learning kindergarten concepts (such as numbers, shapes, sizes, and colors). But as children get older, they want and need to work on more advanced projects and learn more advanced concepts. To do that, they need different types of tools, media, and materials.

         This is where I believe digital technologies can play their most important role. If properly designed and used, new technologies can extend the kindergarten approach, allowing "students" of all ages to continue learning in the kindergarten style and, in the process, to keep growing as creative thinkers.