I want to change the name of kindergarten to “Kindergarden.” That’s kinder as in being kinder to others and that’s garden as in growing a flower garden.

I also want to change what we teach our 5- and 6-year-olds. Let’s start Kindergarden by eliminating a need to for first schoolers to read and to calculate math.

In a National Education Association article, Brenda Alvarez stated, “Parents think their children will learn letter recognition and sounds. They are shocked to learn what is expected in kindergarten … the reading requirements stress out teachers and students.”

In 2002, The No Child Left Behind Act scaled up expectations that trickled down to young learners. Subsequently, “the law placed pressure on students in kindergarten, first and second grades to pass the third-grade standardized test,” says Shyrelle Eubanks, a senior policy analyst for NEA and a former kindergarten teacher in Maryland.

Peggy Martin-Lockhart of the Greater St. Louis Area agreed, saying it’s OK to expose early learners to print so they can begin to recognize sight words, but you can’t expect everyone to grasp it — their brains aren’t ready.”

Martin-Lockhart’s district expects kindergartners to finish the year reading at a D-Level. This means students should be able to read fiction and nonfiction; follow text with the eyes (not point); read text with fewer lines of repeated words; read compound words; and self-correct mistakes.

So with all this effort spent on this academic achievement placed upon 5- and 6-year-olds, what has to be compromised during their time in the classroom?

“There’s no research that show kids who master these skills in kindergarten have any better academic success than kids who do it in first grade,” says Mariucci. “We’re getting away from what they need — and that’s play.”

Exactly.

In Robert Fulghum’s book, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” he said, “These are the things I learned: share everything, play fair, don’t hit people, put things back where you found them, clean up your own mess, don’t take things that aren’t yours, say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody, wash your hands before you eat, and flush.”

He added, “Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you, and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.”

And let’s not forget, “Take a nap every afternoon and when you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.”

My favorite one of his maxims is, “Wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.”

Of course, Fulghum’s point in his book was that these absolutes are what we need to follow in our adult lives to be happy, too.

So in Kindergarden, kids who have not yet been totally hypnotized by electronics simply need to learn basic human interaction skills, which too many teens and young adults (who can read very well by the way) lack in today’s world. When 5- and 6-year-olds play, they experience most of Fulghum’s skill sets and when conflict occurs, emotions rise, and tears fall, teachers can impart teachable moments so kids can learn conflict resolution, problem solving, and coping skills, all of which are so very much needed to erase the anger we often see in adults.

Kids and adults who commit crimes or commit suicide often have lacked the ability to resolve conflicts or to cope with life’s setbacks. Reading, despite it being necessary to function in society, is essentially an individual and private activity that can isolate humans further from each other.

Educational gurus require first schoolers to know how to read and to collect math skills inside their little brains, too. The State Common Core Standards for kindergarten math are equally mind-boggling. Five- and 6-year-olds should be able to learn counting and cardinality, operations and algebraic thinking, number and operations in base 10, and basic geometry!

I feel sorry for those think tankers who have come up with this nonsense. They must have had no fun in their own childhoods, so now they’ve cast their misery upon our beginners, who by their nature, just want to play all day long.

In Kindergarden, my Common Core would require teachers to nourish their students to grow and bloom in the Garden of Happy. Laughter and fun top the list of objectives every day. Storytelling by the teacher would inspire listening skills and a love of language (without student reading). Simple math skills would be achieved when kids check that everyone has the same number of snacks.

Show and tell time would be an essential activity to foster individual confidence and group acceptance, personal qualities missing in the makeup of many older kids today.

As Porky Pig would say, “And that’s all, folks!”

Besides the stress forced by academic mandates upon such a young child’s brain that’s not yet fully developed, let’s remember that “all work and no play make Johnny a dull boy.”

The best thing I learned to do when I was 5 years old and I still love doing today is to take an afternoon nap.

That’s only after I have had a cold glass of milk and some warm chocolate chip cookies.

Rich Strack can be reached at katehep11@gmail.com.