Five Questions with Susan Engel, author of “American Kindergarten: Dispatches from the First Year of School”
What can or should we expect during the first year of school? How are children learning and growing during those hours spent away from their homes? Susan Engel embarked on finding these answers in American Kindergarten: Dispatches from the First Year of School. Engel toured twenty-nine classrooms across fourteen states, observing each closely, with a special eye toward the ways each classroom’s goals reflect its community. Over the two years of her classroom visits, Engel identified five promises that teachers and their classrooms make to their students: reading, order, thinking, identity, and love. Engel found that schools differ in how they prioritize and keep the promises they make; some make all five promises, while others emphasize only one or two. The five promises capture a set of values, aspirations, and goals that drive everything that happens in a classroom.
In this post, we speak with Susan Engel about the inspiration behind this project, what she learned during the two years of classroom visits, and what she wishes people knew about five-year-olds.
What inspired you to write a book about the first year of school? How did you decide on the locations for your research?
The idea for this book snuck into my head without announcing itself at all. I was reading yet another article in a mainstream publication about the horrors of schooling in the US, and I felt an instant resistance, uneasy with the blanket despair conveyed in the media. I thought to myself, “Hmm. I wonder what I would think if I could travel around the country and look for myself? What would I find, and what would I think?” The minute that small idle thought entered my mind, it took hold. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and before I knew it, I was planning my travels. To be honest, at first I planned to visit kindergartens and 9th-grade classrooms. I figured that would give me a good sense of two important starting points: elementary and high school. But a wise pal warned me that that was too much to cover in one book. He suggested I choose one grade or the other. That was easy and took me all of five seconds. I have spent my whole life studying young children, and it’s what I know and love best. Also, kindergarten is the actual beginning of the whole shebang – all 12 years of formal schooling start there. It’s a wonderful feeling to start a project like this with gnawing curiosity. I had no idea what I would find, and what I would conclude, and I couldn’t wait to find out.
As I describe in the book itself, the first surprise was discovering how difficult it was to get schools to let me visit. The reasons are complicated, and I talk a bit about that in the book as well. I knew I wanted to sample a range of public schools – rural, urban, suburban, middle-class, economically struggling, racially diverse, and racially homogenous. I also wanted to visit the four quadrants of the map. But in the end, it was something of a crap shoot. I went wherever a principal, teacher, or superintendent would let me. The good thing about that slightly random selection process was that I had no chance to skew my sample in one direction or another, to support any preconceived notions. That said, I did manage to see schools in many different locations with very different populations. I travelled to the south, the west, the east, and the north, cities and small towns, and everything in between.
Over the two years of classroom visits, what left you most discouraged and what made you feel hopeful for the future?
I was dispirited by the many teachers who seemed to be following a bad script (often written by others), which had little connection to what five-year-olds are like, or what they need from the classroom in order to thrive in school. These are, for the most part, kind and well-intentioned teachers. But no one is helping those teachers think through why they are working with kindergarteners or what really matters for five- year-olds to flourish for the next 11 years, and beyond. And because of that, many of them are dragging themselves and the children through a series of routines.
I was totally inspired to see what can happen when teachers have a well-developed idea of what children need and what is possible during the school day. Such teachers, even in schools where children have difficult lives, create dynamic and nurturing classrooms; classrooms where children are humming with interest and good intentions. Needless to say, those teachers enjoy the children a lot of the time, and that too is essential.
But actually, thething that gave me most hope as I travelled around was re-discovering how heartbreakingly, upliftingly earnest and eager five-year-olds are. They want to be friends with others, to learn, to become good at things, and to share ideas. They want to be part of the world around them.
While you were researching and writing American Kindergarten, what did you learn that surprised you the most?
I was surprised to find that the easy stereotypes so often promoted in the media about the relationship between race, social class, and school quality do not hold up. That’s too simplistic. I saw wonderful classrooms in embattled neighborhoods, and arid, constricting classrooms in privileged neighborhoods. Economic and racial equity are necessary, but they’re not sufficient. Teachers who have a clear and vibrant idea about what they are doing and why, and who really like kids – those features are just as necessary.
I was also surprised to see how important love is in the classroom. I didn’t expect that to emerge as such a strong characteristic—its presence made a world of difference, and so did its absence. I was even more surprised by the discomfort some experts have felt when I used that term. It’s odd to me that any adult would be uncomfortable with the claim that love is an important ingredient for a room full of young children.
Where will your research and writing take you next?
Well, at the moment, I am continuing my research on how children pursue ideas. But actually, the next chapter of that project was inspired, in part, by watching all those kindergarten students. No matter what region of the country I was in, or who the children were, I was mesmerized by the passion with which they dove into the process of thinking. And so, I am doing research right now on how it feels to think.
Someday, I might try to do an international comparison of kindergartens, an extension of the work I did for American Kindergarten. But for now, that’s a pipe dream.
What do you wish people knew about five-year-olds that they don’t already know?
I wish people knew how dynamic, rich, and complex the inner lives of five-year-olds are, because then maybe people would think a bit more about how important kindergarten is, and why.
Susan Engel is the Class of 1959 Director of the Program in Teaching and a senior lecturer in psychology at Williams College. She is the author of The End of the Rainbow: How Educating for Happiness (Not Money) Would Transform Our Schools, The Hungry Mind: The Origins of Curiosity in Childhood, and The Intellectual Lives of Children.
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