Interestingly, the more preschool models itself after regular school—the more it becomes a venue for loading kids up with information and feeding them answers to questions they have not yet asked—the more it seems to squelch their natural curiosity. The child psychologist Alison Gopnik has9 been outspoken in criticizing the trend of turning preschool into school—which, she notes, is driven by overambitious parents and (in the United States, at least) by federal mandates requiring more standardized teaching in preschool.
Play is critical for healthy development of inquiry skills...
