This framing accents the importance of building a tidier system, one that incorporates the array of existing child care centers, then pushes to make their classrooms more uniform, with a socialization agenda 'aligned' with the curricular content that first or second graders are expected to know. Like the common school movement, uniform indicators of quality, centralized regulation, more highly credientialed teachers are to ensure that instruction--rather than creating engaging activities for children to explore--will be delivered in more uniform ways. And the state signals to parents that this is now the appropriate way to raise one's three- or four-year-old. Modern child rearing is equated with systems building in the eyes of universal pre-kindergarten advocates--and parents hear this discourse through upbeat articles in daily newspapers, public service annoucement, and from school authorities.

Zeb was kindergarten teacher--a good one. I always thought it was because he was the same emotional age as his students.

Lila walked by with her nose in the air. In a straight line behind her, six obedient kindergartners waddled like baby geese, singing in unison, 'Row, row, row your yacht...

Nature was my kindergarten.

All I really need to know... I learned in kindergarten.

The notion of children being 'kindergarten ready' is a bizarre oxymoron. It's like saying you have to know how to play the piano before you can learn how to play the piano.

I'm like the kid in kindergarten I really do send valentines to everyone.

In kindergarten we all stand before a choice - Do we accept the accepted to be accepted or do we stay logical and keep thinking?

It is a healthy approach not to expect persons to turn out precisely how you would have wished.

Somebody said once or wrote, once: 'We're all of us children in a vast kindergarten trying to spell God's name with the wrong alphabet blocks!