In their first year of at-school schooling, first-graders are still learning how to tie their shoes, cut with scissors, take turns and pay attention, reports Hannah Natanson in the Washington Post.

In Fairfax County, Virginia, Christine Jarboe “has kicked off a weekly shoelace tying contest. She provides laces to students who wear Velcro or slip-on footwear, and hands out small hourglass sand timers so children can time themselves.”

Second graders are way behind too. They push each other out of the way during story time, says Jenna Spear, a teacher-naturalist in New Hampshire.

“Normally, when you read a story in second-grade, kids know to sit down so everyone can see the pictures,” Spear said. “But you’d have kids standing in front, like right in front, of everybody.”

. . . As the year continued, she observed other patterns. Children easily grew frustrated with one another in group settings. They struggled with the concept of taking turns, pushing each other out of the way to see a caterpillar she was holding in her palm. And, when Spears walked the children into the woods for her traditional “quiet minute challenge,” they were unable to stay still and silent for even 30 seconds.

An elementary school in Oakland, California is trying both meditation and mediation to limit fighting, Natanson writes. Trained to be “safety leaders,” fourth- and fifth-graders help resolve conflicts between students.

To help students with reading and teach social skills, other schools are pairing older and younger students as “reading buddies.”

(That’s not a new idea. My daughter had a sixth-grade “buddy” when she was in kindergarten, and recognized her years later when she was interviewing at a law firm.)

Older students have to be retaught how to have a classroom conversation, an eighth-grade teacher tells Natanson. In Zoom classes, they were silent, unseen observers, and some of them like it that way.

Top comments on the story ask: Why can’t parents teach their kids to tie their shoes? Do teachers have to do everything?