After lunch and snacks, alphabet and story times, the lights go off.
Sixteen tiny bodies sprawl on a sea of red foam mats, the sounds of
classical piano coaxing them to sleep.
And there they stay, tucked under Spider-Man and Powerpuff Girls blankets,
until teacher Chantay Wynn switches on the lights 45 minutes later. “Come
on, get up,” Wynn chides 4-year-old Steven Dieu, lifting him from his mat.
“Open your eyes.”
It’s a daily ritual for the pre-kindergarten students at Hoffman-Boston
Elementary School in Arlington, Va., as it is at countless schools across
the country. But in the increasingly urgent world of public education, is
it a luxury that 4-year-olds no longer can afford?
By asking that question, a few leaders of Washington area school systems
have begun to challenge one of the pillars of the early school experience:
afternoon naps.
“Nap time needs to go away,” Prince George’s County, Md., schools chief
Andri J. Hornsby said recently. “We need to get rid of all the baby school
stuff they used to do.”
Hornsby wants to convert his pre-kindergarten classes into a full-day
program. If he gets the money to begin that next fall, there will be no
mats or cots allowed, he said. In Anne Arundel County, Md., where full-day
pre-kindergarten is in place, Superintendent Eric J. Smith also has opted
not to build nap time into the schedule.
Educators including Hornsby and Smith find themselves under growing
pressure to make school more rigorous — even in the earliest grades — in
the belief that children who are behind academically by age 6 or 7 have a
difficult time catching up.
“The time is very precious,” Smith said. “When they come into first grade
or kindergarten for the first time, they learn within a few weeks of the
school experience that they’re not as capable, and that’s a burden that is
extremely damaging.”
Critics of eliminating school naps say the reality is that many
4-year-olds don’t get enough sleep at home. There are piano lessons,
soccer practices and other scheduled activities during the day, and many
kids stay up past their bedtime because their parents come home late from
work and want to talk or play.
“Kids are often kind of overscheduled even as toddlers, even as
preschoolers,” said Kenneth A. Haller, assistant professor of pediatrics
at Saint Louis University School of Medicine.
“We are a sleep-deprived society,” agreed Stephen H. Sheldon, director of
the Sleep Medicine Center at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
Typical 4- and 5-year-olds need 10 to 12 hours of sleep, and if they don’t
get that at night they will likely fall asleep during the day, according
to the American Academy of Pediatrics. The amount of sleep a school-age
child needs decreases each year, and the need for naps diminishes after
age 3, pediatricians say.
But support of naps is hardly unanimous.
“Do all 4-year-olds need nap time? The answer is certainly no,” said Ari
Brown, a pediatrician in Texas and author of the book “Baby 411.”
Smith, who came to Anne Arundel County in July 2002 from Charlotte, N.C.,
is a firm believer that pre-kindergarten students don’t need naps. His
teachers and principals urge parents to make sure the children get enough
sleep at home. In place of nap time is “quiet learning time,” during which
students look at books or play with puzzles, said Barbara Griffith,
coordinator of the county’s early childhood programs.
If they do fall asleep, the teacher doesn’t wake them. But the message is
clear: “This is not a child-care program. It’s an educational program,”
Griffith said.
In effect, kindergarten is becoming more like first grade, teachers say,
which makes preschool more like the kindergarten of yesteryear.
“When I was in preschool, I remember learning socialization skills,” Wynn
said. “By the time they get to kindergarten, they have to hit the ground
running.”