The New Preschool Is Crushing Kids (2016)(theatlantic.com)
theatlantic.com
The New Preschool Is Crushing Kids (2016)
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/the-new-preschool-is-crushing-kids/419139/?single_page=true
101 comments
I've been shocked and a little disgusted reading Facebook posts by some ex-coworkers in NY City obsessing over their daughter getting accepted into pre-k. Like she'll be flipping burgers for the rest of her life if she doesn't start an exclusive academic career at age 4. It's insane.
I went to Montessori schools from preschool to 2nd grade. I has a really positive experience since I was able to pick and choose what interests to explore without a whole lot of structure. I loved it and switching to a public school in 3rd grade was an interesting change of pace.
I hate how educators are attempting to force standardization of learning at such an early age.
I hate how educators are attempting to force standardization of learning at such an early age.
The educators, by and large, aren't. It's the parents and politicians leading these ridiculous charges, over the objections of teachers.
My daughters have been going to Montessori school. I wish I had had that kind of education.
I generally describe modern schools as the assembly-line for obedient workers who shall live in factories -- hence a need for "unschooling".
I generally describe modern schools as the assembly-line for obedient workers who shall live in factories -- hence a need for "unschooling".
> Forcing young children to learn specific topics can only lead to one outcome: a destruction of man's natural desire to learn about the world through association of learning with pain.
Wow, op, please take a step back and relax. Every American spends 10+ years in a classroom, sitting at a desk for 6+ hours a day (post-kindergarten). Man's natural desire has yet to see this inevitable destruction. I thought the article was a bit fear monger-y, but you've stepped us up to pure clickbait.
Wow, op, please take a step back and relax. Every American spends 10+ years in a classroom, sitting at a desk for 6+ hours a day (post-kindergarten). Man's natural desire has yet to see this inevitable destruction. I thought the article was a bit fear monger-y, but you've stepped us up to pure clickbait.
You raise a reasonable point: we look around, and it doesn't quite look like the world is on fire, people aren't walking around like zombies, so what is the big deal?
The destruction of man's mind will not be witnessed as an explosion. It will be a quiet kind of wasting away. The factory that isn't built. The breakthrough that isn't discovered. The rise of a culture that isn't based on ideas, but on pure emotion.
As you say, most Americans spend 10+ years in a classroom, sitting at a desk for 6+ hours per day. This has gone on for decades. And the result? Trump. Post-truth. A culture in which most people can't rationally debate ideas without resorting to emotional attacks. A nation that formerly accepted immigrants by the millions, confident that our greatest days awaited us if we would only reach and work for them... to a nation focused on building walls, terrified of the unknown, and fearful of ideas.
Cultural change is slow, until it isn't: 30 years ago, Venezuela was the wealthiest country in South America, now there are no more dogs left to eat. We are more fortunate because past generations created a culture of achievement, science, liberty. But the overall trajectory is unmistakable and we are running on borrowed time.
A radical shift in education is the fundamental challenge of our time. Fix education - teach children to think, use reason, and to know that they can shape the world through dedicated focus and effort - and everything else is easy.
The destruction of man's mind will not be witnessed as an explosion. It will be a quiet kind of wasting away. The factory that isn't built. The breakthrough that isn't discovered. The rise of a culture that isn't based on ideas, but on pure emotion.
As you say, most Americans spend 10+ years in a classroom, sitting at a desk for 6+ hours per day. This has gone on for decades. And the result? Trump. Post-truth. A culture in which most people can't rationally debate ideas without resorting to emotional attacks. A nation that formerly accepted immigrants by the millions, confident that our greatest days awaited us if we would only reach and work for them... to a nation focused on building walls, terrified of the unknown, and fearful of ideas.
Cultural change is slow, until it isn't: 30 years ago, Venezuela was the wealthiest country in South America, now there are no more dogs left to eat. We are more fortunate because past generations created a culture of achievement, science, liberty. But the overall trajectory is unmistakable and we are running on borrowed time.
A radical shift in education is the fundamental challenge of our time. Fix education - teach children to think, use reason, and to know that they can shape the world through dedicated focus and effort - and everything else is easy.
You're wrong. Watch the two documentaries called 'High School' and 'High School 2'. The way schools are structured absolutely do kill, in almost all cases, any persons desire to learn, along with their general spirit and enjoyment of living. One of the documentaries, I honestly forget which, is of a school that decided to try instead centering every single class on critical thinking. Instead of teaching by fiat, the teachers gave the students the tools to question them and encountered them as intellectual equals, two thinking human beings one of whom simply had more knowledge in an arena than another. When they didn't know the answer to a question, they'd admit it and try to figure it out with the student. It took a poor Latino neighborhood school and created the class that set the record for number of students to go on to receive a college degree - across any school in the country.
But it's hard to teach if you have to treat the students like people, and teachers for the most part go into it because they were very good at manipulating the arbitrary meaningless systems of rules at schools when growing up, then got scared by the whole 'you have to have reasons' part of reality so fled back into the school system as teachers where no reason was needed. No hats indoors? Sure! It's law! No shorts? Or maybe mandatory shorts? Whatever, nothing matters, they're just kids you can restrict and regulate them all you want to make your own life easier, no one will stand up for them!
But it's hard to teach if you have to treat the students like people, and teachers for the most part go into it because they were very good at manipulating the arbitrary meaningless systems of rules at schools when growing up, then got scared by the whole 'you have to have reasons' part of reality so fled back into the school system as teachers where no reason was needed. No hats indoors? Sure! It's law! No shorts? Or maybe mandatory shorts? Whatever, nothing matters, they're just kids you can restrict and regulate them all you want to make your own life easier, no one will stand up for them!
I like where you were going with the first half, but disagree with your detour towards blaming teachers for the authoritarianism of the educational system. Not that I have any a priori love for authoritarian systems or individuals, but I do think there are enough good reasons to justify maintaining authoritarian control in primary/secondary educational settings, and while yes it unfortunately attracts some "bad apple" authoritarian teachers, they're not the root cause of the problem.
The real problem, which you seemed to be getting at in the first half of your post, is standardized testing becoming the be all end all of educational goals and outcomes. Which is exactly why OP was not being alarmist and GP is being foolishly dismissive. Extending this faulty pedagogical regime to even earlier points in children's educations will undoubtedly have the effect of further degrading the population's desire to learn for learnings sake.
I graduated high school 10 years ago. I was lucky enough to go to a good public school and learn from some great teachers who didn't only teach to the test to the exclusion of teaching critical thinking. Even so, you know what I came out of high school feeling like I was genuinely good at? Taking standardized tests. I was proud of how good I had become at gaming the testing system (even though I already understood this to be somewhat perverse, I also couldn't help it). But you know what? If I hadn't been a high percentile achiever, I'm certain it would have severely impacted my sense of self-worth and my desire and willingness to continue to higher education.
Using test scores as a proxy measure for the educational attainment of a population is a similar fallacy to using GDP as a proxy for a the wellbeing of a nation's populace. Like the GDP, outsized gains at the top will cover up stagnancy in the middle and bottom, and encourage further macro level policies that continue this trend.
The real problem, which you seemed to be getting at in the first half of your post, is standardized testing becoming the be all end all of educational goals and outcomes. Which is exactly why OP was not being alarmist and GP is being foolishly dismissive. Extending this faulty pedagogical regime to even earlier points in children's educations will undoubtedly have the effect of further degrading the population's desire to learn for learnings sake.
I graduated high school 10 years ago. I was lucky enough to go to a good public school and learn from some great teachers who didn't only teach to the test to the exclusion of teaching critical thinking. Even so, you know what I came out of high school feeling like I was genuinely good at? Taking standardized tests. I was proud of how good I had become at gaming the testing system (even though I already understood this to be somewhat perverse, I also couldn't help it). But you know what? If I hadn't been a high percentile achiever, I'm certain it would have severely impacted my sense of self-worth and my desire and willingness to continue to higher education.
Using test scores as a proxy measure for the educational attainment of a population is a similar fallacy to using GDP as a proxy for a the wellbeing of a nation's populace. Like the GDP, outsized gains at the top will cover up stagnancy in the middle and bottom, and encourage further macro level policies that continue this trend.
I graduated in 96, before standardized testing 'took over' apparently. We had standardized tests like the ACT and SAT, they were easy and I don't think the school played much of a role in preparing kids for it. I mean, those tests were the first place in my life I'd ever seen constructions like "apple is to checkerboards as zombies are to what?" and similar. The math was largely the same I suppose, no actual mathematics and just rote computation (which is not the same thing, but I didn't know that until long after leaving school).
I graduated right before Columbine. I know that there have to be people who went to my high school who think "we barely got out alive". About a half dozen of my friends would wear pin-stripe suits on Fridays and people called them the 'pin-stripe mafia'. I wore a floor-length green military trenchcoat most of the time. At one point I wore an empty 9mm pistol shoulder holster on top of a loud Hawaiian shirt. I and my friends were basically the incarnation of every "warnings signs" list produced after Columbine. I've never been in a fight. Neither have most of my friends. Only 1 or 2 even tried anything illegal substance-wise. We produced 3 out of the 5 top students in our graduating class, including the Valedictorian. We were the freaks and weirdos, and utterly harmless. And one thing they ignored about Columbine when putting together their warning signs: Columbine was a new school. It had metal detectors on the doors. It had surveillance cameras inside and outside. It had police that periodically patroled. It required students to carry a badge and tracked their movements around the building. It was an authoritarians wet dream. And, as far as I am concerned, the people who built that school are responsible for all the deaths and trauma. If you build a prison, whoever you put in it will act like prisoners.
Control is poison. Both for the person being controlled and also for the person made to do the controlling. It is in fundamental conflict with our nature and biology, and it harms both sides. Peoples responses to it are really predictable on a large scale. They exert control over themselves (tattoos in prisons, wearing edgy shit in high school), they form alternative power structures (cliques in high school, gangs in prison), they engage in conflict interpersonally (fights), they engage in inter-group conflict (gang fights), and eventually they will go to war against the system controlling them (prison riots, revolutions, etc). This is not because the people involved are bad. It's because the people are put in a system which MAKES them bad by making them do things that, little by little, poison them. I will eat my hat if neuroscience doesn't verify this within the next 20 years, there's already a bunch of very suggestive evidence in that direction. Prison guards really shouldn't have one of the highest suicide rates of all professions you wouldn't think.
I'm sure standardized tests do not help, but the fact we know what actually WORKS and we simply aren't willing to make teachers put in the effort to DO it is stunningly sad. Everywhere that the solution is education and empowerment, whether its schooling, child abuse prevention, drug abuse prevention, wherever, nobody wants to hear it. They're comfortable with control and want it even if it is transparently ineffective.
I graduated right before Columbine. I know that there have to be people who went to my high school who think "we barely got out alive". About a half dozen of my friends would wear pin-stripe suits on Fridays and people called them the 'pin-stripe mafia'. I wore a floor-length green military trenchcoat most of the time. At one point I wore an empty 9mm pistol shoulder holster on top of a loud Hawaiian shirt. I and my friends were basically the incarnation of every "warnings signs" list produced after Columbine. I've never been in a fight. Neither have most of my friends. Only 1 or 2 even tried anything illegal substance-wise. We produced 3 out of the 5 top students in our graduating class, including the Valedictorian. We were the freaks and weirdos, and utterly harmless. And one thing they ignored about Columbine when putting together their warning signs: Columbine was a new school. It had metal detectors on the doors. It had surveillance cameras inside and outside. It had police that periodically patroled. It required students to carry a badge and tracked their movements around the building. It was an authoritarians wet dream. And, as far as I am concerned, the people who built that school are responsible for all the deaths and trauma. If you build a prison, whoever you put in it will act like prisoners.
Control is poison. Both for the person being controlled and also for the person made to do the controlling. It is in fundamental conflict with our nature and biology, and it harms both sides. Peoples responses to it are really predictable on a large scale. They exert control over themselves (tattoos in prisons, wearing edgy shit in high school), they form alternative power structures (cliques in high school, gangs in prison), they engage in conflict interpersonally (fights), they engage in inter-group conflict (gang fights), and eventually they will go to war against the system controlling them (prison riots, revolutions, etc). This is not because the people involved are bad. It's because the people are put in a system which MAKES them bad by making them do things that, little by little, poison them. I will eat my hat if neuroscience doesn't verify this within the next 20 years, there's already a bunch of very suggestive evidence in that direction. Prison guards really shouldn't have one of the highest suicide rates of all professions you wouldn't think.
I'm sure standardized tests do not help, but the fact we know what actually WORKS and we simply aren't willing to make teachers put in the effort to DO it is stunningly sad. Everywhere that the solution is education and empowerment, whether its schooling, child abuse prevention, drug abuse prevention, wherever, nobody wants to hear it. They're comfortable with control and want it even if it is transparently ineffective.
The purpose of school seems to be to crush your spirit in anticipation of the job you'll get after school, which will crush it even further. By the time you reach the workforce, you're hopefully zombified enough to "endure" it.
Except that everyone I know suffered a major or minor depressive episode upon graduating college/university and entering the workforce.
I think it's pretty common, but the good news is that it usually only lasts about 40 years.
the methods of crushing the young today are so efficient that they can become zombies that wish to cannibalize their own brains rather than endure any more years of the burning hunger in their gut
I've forgotten about the HN echo chamber where traditional education is drivel. Do you honestly believe schools, in almost all cases, schools kill the desire to learn and general enjoyment of living? Is every single high-schooler in living hell? Everyone stops learning after school because they hate it? Nobody learns to code on their own, because they learned to hate learning?
>Do you honestly believe schools, in almost all cases, schools kill the desire to learn and general enjoyment of living?
Yes, absolutely. They do. Teens enter high school full of life, and leave it bored and hating existence. Schools have progressively become more and more like prisons, and consequently students have begun to act more and more like prisoners. Schools were optimized to produce workers for repetitive manufacturing jobs which no longer exist.
> Is every single high-schooler in living hell?
Many of them are, yes. Perhaps check out the stats on how many use drugs to escape the hell? Or commit suicide? Or take to violence or shooting the place up? The harder you squeeze, the more people you will push over the edge.
>Everyone stops learning after school because they hate it? Nobody learns to code on their own, because they learned to hate learning?
I said almost (or was it essentially? It was some weasel word) because I knew someone would be bothered if I made an absolute statement. You're not going to get me to pretend like it is at ALL common for people to do those things because it flatly is not. The vast majority of people never read another book after leaving high school. They never sign up for an e-learning course. They don't even go Wikipedia-wandering. They limit their focus to their immediate environment, maybe taking in some sports or celebrity news on occasion, and everything else disinterests them.
If high school was an enjoyable place for students where learning is emphasized, would there be metal detectors on every door, police roaming the halls, surveillance cameras everywhere, lockdown once the schoolday starts, no leaving campus for lunch, dress codes enforced arbitrarily, people prevented from receiving a diploma because they wore something too edgy? Are these things conducive to producing a question-asking authority-challenging person who feels the world is theirs to engage with?
Have you ever watched TV? Like, any of it? Perhaps watched isn't enough... have you ever examined the fundamental basis it is produced against? For instance, take any sci-fi show. Who are the heroes? The researcher, the scientist, the intellectual, the one who sticks to their guns and the facts against the folks who want to just swing in with a gun and follow their hearts? No, those are the arrogant guys whose hubris drives everyone into the danger that the hero, the muscle-bound guy who isn't smart but follows his heart or 'instinct', can swoop in and save them from. See a character pick up a book in a sitcom and sound the seconds until someone makes a joke about them never getting a date. To be honest, that is all a bit of a wider topic than schooling and I don't know how much crossover there actually is between the anti-intellectual movement that's been growing since society saw science built tanks and mustard gas for WWI and horrible school environments.
Yes, absolutely. They do. Teens enter high school full of life, and leave it bored and hating existence. Schools have progressively become more and more like prisons, and consequently students have begun to act more and more like prisoners. Schools were optimized to produce workers for repetitive manufacturing jobs which no longer exist.
> Is every single high-schooler in living hell?
Many of them are, yes. Perhaps check out the stats on how many use drugs to escape the hell? Or commit suicide? Or take to violence or shooting the place up? The harder you squeeze, the more people you will push over the edge.
>Everyone stops learning after school because they hate it? Nobody learns to code on their own, because they learned to hate learning?
I said almost (or was it essentially? It was some weasel word) because I knew someone would be bothered if I made an absolute statement. You're not going to get me to pretend like it is at ALL common for people to do those things because it flatly is not. The vast majority of people never read another book after leaving high school. They never sign up for an e-learning course. They don't even go Wikipedia-wandering. They limit their focus to their immediate environment, maybe taking in some sports or celebrity news on occasion, and everything else disinterests them.
If high school was an enjoyable place for students where learning is emphasized, would there be metal detectors on every door, police roaming the halls, surveillance cameras everywhere, lockdown once the schoolday starts, no leaving campus for lunch, dress codes enforced arbitrarily, people prevented from receiving a diploma because they wore something too edgy? Are these things conducive to producing a question-asking authority-challenging person who feels the world is theirs to engage with?
Have you ever watched TV? Like, any of it? Perhaps watched isn't enough... have you ever examined the fundamental basis it is produced against? For instance, take any sci-fi show. Who are the heroes? The researcher, the scientist, the intellectual, the one who sticks to their guns and the facts against the folks who want to just swing in with a gun and follow their hearts? No, those are the arrogant guys whose hubris drives everyone into the danger that the hero, the muscle-bound guy who isn't smart but follows his heart or 'instinct', can swoop in and save them from. See a character pick up a book in a sitcom and sound the seconds until someone makes a joke about them never getting a date. To be honest, that is all a bit of a wider topic than schooling and I don't know how much crossover there actually is between the anti-intellectual movement that's been growing since society saw science built tanks and mustard gas for WWI and horrible school environments.
This kind of reasoning is why society waits until an idea/system completely explodes and causes huge/irreversible damage before people finally change something.
Lets just relax and not worry about global warming until a few hundred cities are flooded.
Lets just relax and not worry about antibiotic resistance until all antibiotics are useless and a few million people die of common infections.
Lets just relax and not worry about the financial system until a crisis like 2008 hits.
Fuck it, don't worry, be happy, the world will automatically take care of itself right? How about being proactive in shaping the world and fixing things BEFORE somethings on fire?
Lets just relax and not worry about global warming until a few hundred cities are flooded.
Lets just relax and not worry about antibiotic resistance until all antibiotics are useless and a few million people die of common infections.
Lets just relax and not worry about the financial system until a crisis like 2008 hits.
Fuck it, don't worry, be happy, the world will automatically take care of itself right? How about being proactive in shaping the world and fixing things BEFORE somethings on fire?
OP's point is that it's shitty in high school, too, and that it kills your intrinsic motivation to learn, by associating "learning" with "memorizing boring, rote information without any particular reason to ever apply it".
And you can lighten up on the ad-hominem attacks and the clickbait cry-foul.
And you can lighten up on the ad-hominem attacks and the clickbait cry-foul.
Are classrooms really the best we can do and that innocuous?
this was an example once used by rd laing to show that from as early in our lives as preschool, much of the "nice" things we do because we care about others can still cause them to feel great distress
- teacher asks her students "which one of you nice children knows what 2 + 3 is?" & many children go "I do!" and raise their hands
- teacher pretends to not notice the ones who have their hands raised and instead gives her attention to a boy she thinks has not been participating very much as of late
- says "Billy, can you tell me what it is?". he dreads the embarrassment of being laughed at for making a mistake. he also doesn't like it when other students would immediately jump on the opportunity to demonstrate they could tell the teacher what they were supposed to tell her.
- after a silence following the teacher's question intended to encourage him, Billy answers "um 4?". the comedic effect of the long silence while the classroom waited watching billy answer ended by a meek mistake unfortunately proves hilarious to some of the students. others yet raise their hands even higher than they already were, restlessly trying to get the teacher's attention.
would it be fairly common for preschool children to personally feel they disappointed the teacher when they can't perform what the teacher asks?
if Billy is doubtful he can make the teacher proud and Billy wants to move the unwanted attention onto a student who wants the visibility (and grows restless without it), then Billy's subject to irreconcilable demands. Of course it's possible he'd grow petrified because he would associate "the opportunity to learn something I didn't know" with being singled out according to the demands of everyone else in the room.
this was an example once used by rd laing to show that from as early in our lives as preschool, much of the "nice" things we do because we care about others can still cause them to feel great distress
- teacher asks her students "which one of you nice children knows what 2 + 3 is?" & many children go "I do!" and raise their hands
- teacher pretends to not notice the ones who have their hands raised and instead gives her attention to a boy she thinks has not been participating very much as of late
- says "Billy, can you tell me what it is?". he dreads the embarrassment of being laughed at for making a mistake. he also doesn't like it when other students would immediately jump on the opportunity to demonstrate they could tell the teacher what they were supposed to tell her.
- after a silence following the teacher's question intended to encourage him, Billy answers "um 4?". the comedic effect of the long silence while the classroom waited watching billy answer ended by a meek mistake unfortunately proves hilarious to some of the students. others yet raise their hands even higher than they already were, restlessly trying to get the teacher's attention.
would it be fairly common for preschool children to personally feel they disappointed the teacher when they can't perform what the teacher asks?
if Billy is doubtful he can make the teacher proud and Billy wants to move the unwanted attention onto a student who wants the visibility (and grows restless without it), then Billy's subject to irreconcilable demands. Of course it's possible he'd grow petrified because he would associate "the opportunity to learn something I didn't know" with being singled out according to the demands of everyone else in the room.
"Remember Citizen, your worth as a human being begins and ends at how much more measurable value you provide than average. If you can't do better than average, your existence was a mistake!"
This article kind of reminds me of the super-high-pressure environment of Japanese education, where test scores are the be-all-end-all until you (hopefully) become the appendage of some state-supported hypercorp.
I've heard somewhere (I can't remember and my search-fu is weak) that "People need bread, but they need roses too", where bread is what makes life possible, and roses are what makes life worth living (like art and such). We hyper-optimize for bread, and burn the roses to save on fuel.
This shit makes my blood run cold.
This article kind of reminds me of the super-high-pressure environment of Japanese education, where test scores are the be-all-end-all until you (hopefully) become the appendage of some state-supported hypercorp.
I've heard somewhere (I can't remember and my search-fu is weak) that "People need bread, but they need roses too", where bread is what makes life possible, and roses are what makes life worth living (like art and such). We hyper-optimize for bread, and burn the roses to save on fuel.
This shit makes my blood run cold.
If you want to follow this idea further, I highly recommend Scott's "Seeing Like a State." It's an analysis of how states exert power by imposing legibility--insisting on having access and to measuring in certain ways. His thesis is that this legibility is actively corrosive to other properties that don't show up in the measurement. The book starts with an account of how 19th C European forestry managers imposed legibility on their forests in terms of lumber production, and ended up killing off everything but a monocrop, which then collapsed. Eventually he gets around to education, where it's pretty clear there are big externalities to the way we insist on measuring what happens in school. There are broader lessons here for the technocratically-inclined.
That's been on my reading list for years now, I should get around to reading it at some point. I've heard good things!
it's really hard to know what even are the properties of complex systems - good article by yaneer bar-yam about them https://mystudentvoices.com/why-complexity-is-different-ecd4...
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So, to be clear, we "hyper-optimize for bread" in a society where 12.3% are food-insecure at some point during the year (https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo...)?
The line you're thinking of goes, "The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too." It's how the rose became a socialist symbol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_Roses
>This shit makes my blood run cold.
It makes mine run hot with rage and fire, but honestly, what doesn't?
The line you're thinking of goes, "The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too." It's how the rose became a socialist symbol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_Roses
>This shit makes my blood run cold.
It makes mine run hot with rage and fire, but honestly, what doesn't?
You seem to be implying we don't have enough bread? Because we do. We would have enough bread if we all switched to 30 hour work weeks too. The problem of bread disparity is largely separate.
Running the mainstream worker ragged does nothing to ensure that the poor have access to necessities.
Running the mainstream worker ragged does nothing to ensure that the poor have access to necessities.
I'm just suggesting that talking of "hyper-optimization" without getting the cost function right doesn't help.
It's the people doing the hyper-optimizing for bread / raw output that don't have the cost function right.
>"Remember Citizen, your worth as a human being begins and ends at how much more measurable value you provide than average. If you can't do better than average, your existence was a mistake!"
Apologies for the pedantry, but doesn't that make half the world a mistake?
I think the roses comment is from V for vendetta (the comic book not the movie) but it's probably quoting from something better.
Apologies for the pedantry, but doesn't that make half the world a mistake?
I think the roses comment is from V for vendetta (the comic book not the movie) but it's probably quoting from something better.
> Apologies for the pedantry, but doesn't that make half the world a mistake?
If we take that statement literally, then yes. But it seems to be enough if there is one area in which you are better than average. That being said, there would still be loads of people who'd be a "mistake". I am afraid this is in fact how many people receive reality. This is probably one of the reasons why we discuss UBI so much lately.
If we take that statement literally, then yes. But it seems to be enough if there is one area in which you are better than average. That being said, there would still be loads of people who'd be a "mistake". I am afraid this is in fact how many people receive reality. This is probably one of the reasons why we discuss UBI so much lately.
That quote was meant to be a caricature of a heartless monster who can only regard something like the Mona Lisa by how much heat that burning it would put out.
My blood is also cold. To get personal I feel as if I have extremely stunted social skills/development due to pressure to show my worth in the form of good grades. This became all consuming for me, and my whole life until recently my self worth has been tied strictly to others perceiving me as smart. Not a good look. Kids need 'organic' socialization.
None of this early academic education is necessary. In Finland, which consistently has top scores in reading and math, kids don't start school until they're seven, and at that point they're only expected to be able to turn text rightside up.
(And before anybody jumps to the "homogenous society" explanation, Finland used to have mediocre schools before they put a lot of effort and money into them in the 70s and 80s.)
(And before anybody jumps to the "homogenous society" explanation, Finland used to have mediocre schools before they put a lot of effort and money into them in the 70s and 80s.)
Really appreciate the perspective. This is just one more on the huge pile of things where the US would be well served to just look around at how other countries are doing it better.
It's funny how a child shouting "me first!" will generally be scolded for being selfish, yet an entire nation shouting "America first!" is somehow considered virtuous.
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The population of Finland is roughly 5.5 million. The population of New York City (not the metro area) is 8.5 million. There are almost certainly 'scaling' problems with "just look around at how other countries are doing it better".
There seems to be a cycle for trends like these:
"New education alternative available to some children."
"Wealthy suburban parents begin turning to new education alternative."
"Public outcry over lack of education alternative available to middle and lower class children."
"New education alternative now being implemented in public schools."
"Wealthy suburban parents unhappy about options available in public schools, begin looking elsewhere."
...
I am very thankful that my parents ignored any of the hyped trends and just gave us both the most convenient education experience possible. Unfortunately, I think there is a spirit of constant, hand-on meddling that our generation has developed.
"New education alternative available to some children."
"Wealthy suburban parents begin turning to new education alternative."
"Public outcry over lack of education alternative available to middle and lower class children."
"New education alternative now being implemented in public schools."
"Wealthy suburban parents unhappy about options available in public schools, begin looking elsewhere."
...
I am very thankful that my parents ignored any of the hyped trends and just gave us both the most convenient education experience possible. Unfortunately, I think there is a spirit of constant, hand-on meddling that our generation has developed.
This is why my wife and I chose a play-based co-op pre-school for our kids. They both were academically above average compared to their peers in kindergarten.
But everyone is different. Our kids learned well by being allowed to pick what they studied. That may not be suitable for all children, and some, perhaps even many or most, might need more structure and rigor earlier.
But everyone is different. Our kids learned well by being allowed to pick what they studied. That may not be suitable for all children, and some, perhaps even many or most, might need more structure and rigor earlier.
Appreciate the nuanced perspective. When we toured preschools, they touted the "play-based" foundations, but there were very few specifics. It was mostly in response to parent questions about "do you do anything with the alphabet, numbers, days of the week, etc.".
All of the messaging around play-based learning was in the negative — "no, we don't do that; it's play based!". They never said "we do play based learning, which means that the teachers do x, y, and z to facilitate outcomes 1, 2, and 3."
All of the messaging around play-based learning was in the negative — "no, we don't do that; it's play based!". They never said "we do play based learning, which means that the teachers do x, y, and z to facilitate outcomes 1, 2, and 3."
In our case the school was almost completely unstructured and "play-based" was quite literal. The teachers would organize projects at "stations", but the kids were free to completely ignore that and go outside and play on the playground the entire time if they wanted.
Of course teachers and parents played up the projects the teachers worked on, and encouraged learning through play (e.g. understanding why the sand fell the way it did or how the swings worked, etc.). But it was very indirect and light-touch.
What we found was most kids naturally gravitated to things out of curiosity. Most knew the alphabet, days of the week, numbers and the like by the time they went to kindergarten. Many could even read and do simple arithmetic.
Of course teachers and parents played up the projects the teachers worked on, and encouraged learning through play (e.g. understanding why the sand fell the way it did or how the swings worked, etc.). But it was very indirect and light-touch.
What we found was most kids naturally gravitated to things out of curiosity. Most knew the alphabet, days of the week, numbers and the like by the time they went to kindergarten. Many could even read and do simple arithmetic.
If you're interested in play-based schooling, I recommend looking at the Reggio Emilia approach. Some very interesting and very practical approaches around early childhood education.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach
Last night at bedtime my 7yo son (2nd grade) said that he doesn't have enough time to play. Yesterday was a short day that he has once a week and he wished every day was a short day.
To be honest, it was really sad to hear him say that. He's a kid and doesn't understand the schedule being imposed upon him.
Without getting into a discussion about the right number of hours a 7yo should spend in class I wanted to ask another question.
What ideas have parents come up with to make it "feel" like there's more unstructured play time for kids during the school year?
To be honest, it was really sad to hear him say that. He's a kid and doesn't understand the schedule being imposed upon him.
Without getting into a discussion about the right number of hours a 7yo should spend in class I wanted to ask another question.
What ideas have parents come up with to make it "feel" like there's more unstructured play time for kids during the school year?
Your concern is completely valid, ignore the haters. We struggle with the same thing. We try to give our daughter the final say in any and all "structured extra-curriculars" she's involved in, even quitting right after starting, on the hope that her feeling even a little in-control of her own schedule is more valuable than "learning to finish anything you start". But cutting down on those is the only other place I can see to allow more unstructured play. And even then, we try where we can to "assist" with making the unstructured time more valuable, by trying to be present, engaged, and willing to do pain-in-the-ass things (like go run in the hot park for an hour after a long day of work) if that's what she wants. We try to ask her, and suggest options "do you want to stay in and play or go to the park or xyz...". But who knows, there is a constant feeling that no matter what, we're doing it wrong.
Thanks. Making it more valuable is what I was getting at. I think more time spent with me or my wife doing what they want would help too.
Interesting point on finishing what you start in relation to a limited quantity of time. I'll have to see if that's something we do or not.
Interesting point on finishing what you start in relation to a limited quantity of time. I'll have to see if that's something we do or not.
> What ideas have parents come up with to make it "feel" like there's more unstructured play time for kids during the school year?
Uh maybe, I don't know, actually giving them more unstructured play time? Schools have been drastically cutting back on mid-day recess and other types of "free time".
Uh maybe, I don't know, actually giving them more unstructured play time? Schools have been drastically cutting back on mid-day recess and other types of "free time".
My point is that there's a small window of time remaining in their day once school is out. And my wife picks them up right after school. Most kids are in after care until 6pm.
How can we make the 2 hrs of actual free time he has feel like 3? That's what I'm asking.
How can we make the 2 hrs of actual free time he has feel like 3? That's what I'm asking.
>What ideas have parents come up with to make it "feel" like there's more unstructured play time for kids during the school year?
Give them more unstructured play time and stop scare-quoting "feel" as if your kids can't tell you're lying to them.
Give them more unstructured play time and stop scare-quoting "feel" as if your kids can't tell you're lying to them.
1 hour of watching television feels shorter than 1 hour of jumping on the trampoline.
I think you misunderstood my question.
I think you misunderstood my question.
The most important thing my kids got out of preschool is mature immune systems.
Not all preschools are like this, and I'm not sure how things are really trending. In my neck of the woods, the more highly sought after programs feature more talking, listening, and discovery. A slogan that our child's school uses is "Play is children's work." Unfortunately, many of these are private and may or may not be eligible for state funds.
See this link for more information on this approach to learning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach
See this link for more information on this approach to learning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach
The more I read about the state of modern education, the more convinced I become that I dodged a bullet as an 80's kid. This is essentially child pageantry for the middle-upper class, with all of the associated pathologies.
I was homeschooled up until high school, and more or less allowed to study whatever I found interesting. When I entered high school I tested well ahead of my peers academically in most areas- taught myself to program a computer when I was 8- but, I didn't do well at all in terms of grades because I was never able to get used to studying what I was told to study instead of whatever I found fascinating. To this day, my work is somewhat sloppy unless I find it personally interesting. The fact is that to do well in our society you need heavy, heavy doses of obedience and conformity- originality and passion are sharply discouraged.
I have a feeling I'm really not that special in this regard though- I think most people feel kind of crushed in their daily lives, whether they were homeschooled as children or not.
I have a feeling I'm really not that special in this regard though- I think most people feel kind of crushed in their daily lives, whether they were homeschooled as children or not.
The flip side of this is really unfortunate, though.
Sometimes people don't feel passion about the fundamental underpinnings of something they feel passionate about, e.g. they want to build brain interfaces but throw a tantrum when you try to teach them about biochemistry. Eventually they do learn the underpinnings of their passion, but are left with gaps in their knowledge which means they simply don't see solutions. Human intelligence is just pattern matching, and you do better pattern matching when you memorize a bunch of stuff even if it's boring.
The other part is that sometimes stuff just sucks to learn/do and it must get done-- metaphorically, taking out the trash, cleaning etc. Somebody that does all the fun stuff and disappears when it's time do do the boring stuff is a liability.
Doing only stuff that one feels passion about is a privilege that very few people are skilled/fortunate abough to enjoy.
Sometimes people don't feel passion about the fundamental underpinnings of something they feel passionate about, e.g. they want to build brain interfaces but throw a tantrum when you try to teach them about biochemistry. Eventually they do learn the underpinnings of their passion, but are left with gaps in their knowledge which means they simply don't see solutions. Human intelligence is just pattern matching, and you do better pattern matching when you memorize a bunch of stuff even if it's boring.
The other part is that sometimes stuff just sucks to learn/do and it must get done-- metaphorically, taking out the trash, cleaning etc. Somebody that does all the fun stuff and disappears when it's time do do the boring stuff is a liability.
Doing only stuff that one feels passion about is a privilege that very few people are skilled/fortunate abough to enjoy.
Yeah, I'll admit these are good points (I upvoted your answer). However, I'd propose that having a teacher who could sell other topics and make them interesting too might make the other stuff less boring- ultimately forcing your students to memorize material they find boring is a failure on some level or another.
My experience is very similar to yours. I see my peers as too-easily crushed most of the time, and insist on my own way more than most.
"mainly served as a safe social space for children to learn to get along with others"
That's exactly what pre-school is supposed to be.
Now it's "If you don't get into the right pre-school, you won't get into an Ivy League university, so you'll be a failure!".
That's exactly what pre-school is supposed to be.
Now it's "If you don't get into the right pre-school, you won't get into an Ivy League university, so you'll be a failure!".
That can actually turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy completely independently of any actual change in the structure of the preschool curriculum. In fact, it can (and often does) become a self-fulfiling prophecy with regards to any externally observable characteristic of a person, whether or not that characteristic has any predictive power at all with respect to anything that anyone should actually care about. Skin color is the canonical example.
This has got to be regional as my kids are in preschool and I've never heard anything remotely close.
In my area, this is definitely a common feeling. It's not expressed in quite that way, but there's an underlying tone of stress among parents that want the latest buzz for their children, lest they suffer failure later on in their life.
Sadly, those parents are often the ones who eschew quality time with their toddlers. Yes it's tiring after a full day of work. Yes it's demanding. But that's also how as parents we help our little ones develop healthy emotional responses.
Just as with startups, children can suffer from vanity metrics. I'm always impressed when my 3-year old can use a 5-syllable word, but I'm acutely aware that it's a vanity metric. What matters to me are healthy emotional foundations which will help my child cope with all the setbacks that will happen when trying to learn.
Sadly, those parents are often the ones who eschew quality time with their toddlers. Yes it's tiring after a full day of work. Yes it's demanding. But that's also how as parents we help our little ones develop healthy emotional responses.
Just as with startups, children can suffer from vanity metrics. I'm always impressed when my 3-year old can use a 5-syllable word, but I'm acutely aware that it's a vanity metric. What matters to me are healthy emotional foundations which will help my child cope with all the setbacks that will happen when trying to learn.
It's possibly a Bay Area (and similar regions) thing. There are waiting lists years long for some schools, especially those perceived to offer that "leg up" on the academic career path. Some of this may be due to deficiency of supply, but some is definitely due to academic pressure.
Probably so. I just thought of an article I read about the hyper-competitive pre-school scene in NYC. The parents hired a coach for their 4 YO's pre-school admissions interview.
NYC has an exam for 4 year olds to get into 'gifted and talented' kindergarten classes. Of course there is a test prep industry and ridiculous numbers of preschoolers now qualify.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/nyregion/as-ranks-of-gifte...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/nyregion/as-ranks-of-gifte...
You always have to be careful when drawing conclusions about causality from observational studies.
> New research sounds a particularly disquieting note. A major evaluation of Tennessee’s publicly funded preschool system, published in September, found that although children who had attended preschool initially exhibited more “school readiness” skills when they entered kindergarten than did their non-preschool-attending peers, by the time they were in first grade their attitudes toward school were deteriorating. And by second grade they performed worse on tests measuring literacy, language, and math skills. The researchers told New York magazine that overreliance on direct instruction and repetitive, poorly structured pedagogy were likely culprits; children who’d been subjected to the same insipid tasks year after year after year were understandably losing their enthusiasm for learning.
Without knowing more about this study, it seems vastly more likely that sociological differences between the preschool and non-preschool groups explain this difference.
> New research sounds a particularly disquieting note. A major evaluation of Tennessee’s publicly funded preschool system, published in September, found that although children who had attended preschool initially exhibited more “school readiness” skills when they entered kindergarten than did their non-preschool-attending peers, by the time they were in first grade their attitudes toward school were deteriorating. And by second grade they performed worse on tests measuring literacy, language, and math skills. The researchers told New York magazine that overreliance on direct instruction and repetitive, poorly structured pedagogy were likely culprits; children who’d been subjected to the same insipid tasks year after year after year were understandably losing their enthusiasm for learning.
Without knowing more about this study, it seems vastly more likely that sociological differences between the preschool and non-preschool groups explain this difference.
Or the researchers were just generally guessing about the situation when talking about it one day and spitballing and a reporter wrote that up as 'researchers told... likely culprits'. That's seriously weak language, and when you account for reporters inflating things to make their work seem important, the reality was probably an off-hand comment with no backing or even significant thought behind it. Doesn't mean it's wrong, of course... just that if it DOES have actual factual support, that certainly doesn't give it to you.
Who on earth designs these things! Do they hate kids? Do they hate life? Are they doing this so there will be a plentiful market for antidepressants? Is the goal to program an unmotivated an unimaginative workforce of robots?
It's because the U.S. Department of Education got TDD religion -- Test Driven Didactics. Your child will not be allowed to grow and develop interests naturally; they will be refactored until they pass all the tests. Otherwise the school district loses money.
Ooh, that's a good word for it. They'll refactor your children!
Is anyone else in their early twenties, who is still a ways off from having kids but intends to, considering the option of moving to Europe to raise your kids? Could any Europeans chime in on such a sentiment?
Europe is a big place with wildly different educational standards. Just like the US. If you are wanting to move due to the schools then you should be aware that many places in the US have better schools than most places in Europe. It's not cut and dry.
When most people refer to Europe as an example of well functioning, progressive social policies, they are most always referring to the small, wealthy, socially homogeneous Scandinavian countries.
The kindergardens that I've walked past in Portugal did not feature 4-year olds cooped for hours and force-fed the alphabet. Portugal is the antithesis of Northern Europe.
That is so reductive, even if it weren't a tired cliche. Not every example of a successful policy that happens outside the U.S. is because of accidental political geography.
Or France/Germany/Switzerland. Never Slovenia, Belarus, Montenegro, or Moldova.
Being socially homogeneous is not relevant here
One thing to consider about European education: Here in America, if you don't like the state run system, you are free to remove your kids and educate them at home. In most of Europe, homeschool is illegal. A German family was recently threatened with deportation for homeschooling their kids. Disclaimer: My wife homeschools our kids.
Homeschooling is illegal or restricted in about half the countries of Europe.
> A German family was recently threatened with deportation for homeschooling their kids.
I assume you mean the case from 2013 in which the asylum status of a German family was challenged? While it's true they seeked asylum in the US to homeschool their children (in 2008 or so), the deportation issue was about the validity of the initial asylum grant, not the homeschooling. It appears they were not deported in the end: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/german-home-school-family-wont-....
> A German family was recently threatened with deportation for homeschooling their kids.
I assume you mean the case from 2013 in which the asylum status of a German family was challenged? While it's true they seeked asylum in the US to homeschool their children (in 2008 or so), the deportation issue was about the validity of the initial asylum grant, not the homeschooling. It appears they were not deported in the end: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/german-home-school-family-wont-....
Well, they are in good company in the US. There is this notion that children are their parents property, to do with as they like until they are 18. Then they are on their own.
Versus what? The European view that children are the State's property? Surely that can't be better than letting parents raise their kids according to their best judgment.
Consider the Charlie Gard case. No one will doubt that the parents had the best intentions at heart but the attending physicians had better judgement thanks to their training.
.. Looks like I need to chime in again.
You both have incredibly biased, prejudiced and ignorant views regarding the US and Europe. Please stop.
You both have incredibly biased, prejudiced and ignorant views regarding the US and Europe. Please stop.
Consider homeschooling.
If you're religious, you'll have no trouble finding other homeschoolers for your kids to socialize with. If you're not religious, move near one of the liberal coastal cities (I'm in Portland) and you'll have lots of secular homeschoolers for your kids to socialize with.
Seems a lot easier than having to deal with immigrating to another country and learning a different language.
If you're religious, you'll have no trouble finding other homeschoolers for your kids to socialize with. If you're not religious, move near one of the liberal coastal cities (I'm in Portland) and you'll have lots of secular homeschoolers for your kids to socialize with.
Seems a lot easier than having to deal with immigrating to another country and learning a different language.
Home schooling means that one of partners has to bite it and stop working entirely. That is quite frustrating situation to be in, unless you have one of few personality types that can be happy in such situation.
Fair enough. Then maybe start a school that works the way you want.
Raising children is the most important work that most of us will ever do. After even the most accomplished lives, children are, with rare exceptions, the only creations which remain. So if the world around you isn't working for your children, then change it.
Steve said it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvEiSa6_EPA
Raising children is the most important work that most of us will ever do. After even the most accomplished lives, children are, with rare exceptions, the only creations which remain. So if the world around you isn't working for your children, then change it.
Steve said it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvEiSa6_EPA
I strongly considered moving to the Netherlands because it's so much better for kids than America, but I decided it was better to be near family, and I worried that my stress in moving would be bad for the kids. I am not sure I made the right decision.
I'm Canadian, living in the US, planning to move back to Canada before I have kids. Education isn't the only factor, but it's definitely one of them. Anecdotally I received a world-class education in Canadian public schols, living in average middle-class neighbourhoods. It seems to be objectively true too - eg see this recent BBC article: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40708421
As someone who moved from the states to Europe and just had a kid a few weeks ago, I'm really curious what people have to say. The schools where I live (Ireland) are reasonably well-regarded but there's a lot of pressure to baptise your kid to get them preferential placement, and I still find myself looking at Finland with some envy. I _hated_ school when I was young (actually I hated it when I was older too...), and still think homework is completely unnecessary.
For more information about kids socializing and studying in other countries watch Michael Moore's doc "Where to invade next", eye opening.
It's okay. I'm in my mid-thirties and still don't see kids in the near future.
Denmark would honestly be ideal.
Denmark would honestly be ideal.
There are still plenty of play-based preschools, you just have to look for them. They are more common in the Co-Op preschool community, where parents are present, and see the impact of play-based learning.
Where do you draw the line between play-only and learning? My kids go to a preschool where they learn stuff. Writing their name and whatnot. They always have something to work on, but it's fun for them. I suppose if it ever ceases being fun or becomes stressful for them, I would pull them out.
Here is what the arguments in the OP led up to but the OP omitted: Children from birth to age at least 5 need nearly all their time (A) with their mothers, (B) in play with their siblings and/or peers, (C) with other loving adults, and (D) active alone, in about this order.
With this, and with only a little deliberate effort, the children will naturally enough learn about emotions, language, communications with others, how to interact with others, and much more.
In one word, it's called motherhood.
Do I understand motherhood? Nope. Neither does anyone else, even including the mothers themselves. So, no one knows how to replace motherhood.
To replace motherhood, we need new laws from Congress, new Federal funding, lots of achievement tests and numerical measures, researchers in child development, educational theorists, educators with special training in pre-school, kindergarten, pre-school, No Child Left Behind, Common Core, some AI robots with life-like plastic skin? Nope!
With this, and with only a little deliberate effort, the children will naturally enough learn about emotions, language, communications with others, how to interact with others, and much more.
In one word, it's called motherhood.
Do I understand motherhood? Nope. Neither does anyone else, even including the mothers themselves. So, no one knows how to replace motherhood.
To replace motherhood, we need new laws from Congress, new Federal funding, lots of achievement tests and numerical measures, researchers in child development, educational theorists, educators with special training in pre-school, kindergarten, pre-school, No Child Left Behind, Common Core, some AI robots with life-like plastic skin? Nope!
It’s illegal not to educate a child, so our control group will be hard to find. But perhaps the best bet will be the “unschooling” movement, a group of parents who think school is oppressive and damaging. They tell the government they’re home-schooling their children but actually just let them do whatever they want. They may teach their kid something if the child wants to be taught, otherwise they will leave them pretty much alone.
And this is really hard to study, because they’re a highly self-selected group and there aren’t very many of them. The only study I could find on the movement only had n = 12, and although it tried as hard as it could to compare them to schoolchildren matched for race and family income level and parent education and all that good stuff I’m sure there’s some weirdness that slipped through the cracks. Still, it’s all we’ve got.
So, do these children do worse than their peers at public school?
Yes, they do.
By one grade level.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/23/ssc-gives-a-graduation-...
And this is really hard to study, because they’re a highly self-selected group and there aren’t very many of them. The only study I could find on the movement only had n = 12, and although it tried as hard as it could to compare them to schoolchildren matched for race and family income level and parent education and all that good stuff I’m sure there’s some weirdness that slipped through the cracks. Still, it’s all we’ve got.
So, do these children do worse than their peers at public school?
Yes, they do.
By one grade level.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/23/ssc-gives-a-graduation-...
I have one child in preschool and another that just entered second grade. They go to a progressive school that focuses on inquiry based learning, and the most important metric is that they seem engaged and enthusiastic about school every day.
The bigger picture is that not every kid is the same, and that's shaped by the child and also the parents. Our parenting style is a combination of firmness around core behaviors coupled with plenty of freedom beyond that.
It's obvious when interacting with other kids and parents that other people have very different styles. Some of the other things other kids do, like behaving crazily at the dinner table, we would shut down immediately. Other things, like putting their 2nd graders into "Kumon," a kind of cram school with lots of busy-worksheets, we avoid. Check out the messaging and branding here to get some idea: https://www.kumon.com/. Apparently on the first day of Kumon they show kids the logo and tell them that the kid isn't smiling because learning is not fun, it is supposed to be hard work. I found it horrifying that parents felt the need to push their kids into that kind of environment to "keep up".
On the other hand, the progressive school is definitely touchy-feely and there's a sense that there's less structured learning. Fortunately it seems there's a balanced approach as they get into higher grades where progressive units of inquiry are augmented with some book learning. It takes an act of faith to believe that this will ultimately pay off - that they are not "wasting their time" just playing all day. Who wants to gamble with their kid's future?
Outside of school, we try to think "anticipate and encourage" not "force feed".
For example, when we visited friends and our son always gravitated towards playing with the piano, we got him a keyboard and let him play with it at home. Soon enough he was asking "why don't I have a piano teacher?". So we got him one. He generally likes it, and practices largely on his own with just a few reminders.
On the other hand, we took him to play soccer and after two games where he refused to step foot on the green, he insisted "I don't like any games with balls. Except dodgeball." So we didn't force it, but we did have him go to martial arts, which he enjoys. Maybe we'll have him try out socceer or baseball in the future - but only if he shows an interest.
The same goes for reading. We put lots of books in the house and also spend our own time reading physical books, so they can see us. They get curious what we're doing when we're not paying attention to them. While they aren't as advanced as some of the other kids in class, they are enjoying reading every time they pick up a book. And that's all we want.
The bigger picture is that not every kid is the same, and that's shaped by the child and also the parents. Our parenting style is a combination of firmness around core behaviors coupled with plenty of freedom beyond that.
It's obvious when interacting with other kids and parents that other people have very different styles. Some of the other things other kids do, like behaving crazily at the dinner table, we would shut down immediately. Other things, like putting their 2nd graders into "Kumon," a kind of cram school with lots of busy-worksheets, we avoid. Check out the messaging and branding here to get some idea: https://www.kumon.com/. Apparently on the first day of Kumon they show kids the logo and tell them that the kid isn't smiling because learning is not fun, it is supposed to be hard work. I found it horrifying that parents felt the need to push their kids into that kind of environment to "keep up".
On the other hand, the progressive school is definitely touchy-feely and there's a sense that there's less structured learning. Fortunately it seems there's a balanced approach as they get into higher grades where progressive units of inquiry are augmented with some book learning. It takes an act of faith to believe that this will ultimately pay off - that they are not "wasting their time" just playing all day. Who wants to gamble with their kid's future?
Outside of school, we try to think "anticipate and encourage" not "force feed".
For example, when we visited friends and our son always gravitated towards playing with the piano, we got him a keyboard and let him play with it at home. Soon enough he was asking "why don't I have a piano teacher?". So we got him one. He generally likes it, and practices largely on his own with just a few reminders.
On the other hand, we took him to play soccer and after two games where he refused to step foot on the green, he insisted "I don't like any games with balls. Except dodgeball." So we didn't force it, but we did have him go to martial arts, which he enjoys. Maybe we'll have him try out socceer or baseball in the future - but only if he shows an interest.
The same goes for reading. We put lots of books in the house and also spend our own time reading physical books, so they can see us. They get curious what we're doing when we're not paying attention to them. While they aren't as advanced as some of the other kids in class, they are enjoying reading every time they pick up a book. And that's all we want.
About time North America adapted to this new reality: Kids in Countries like Pakistan (and I reckon in China and India) as young as 3 year old are being pushed into learning reading/writing and from age of 4 onwards, they are learning basic arithmetic.
If we North Americans want to compete with them, we have train for it accordingly.
If we North Americans want to compete with them, we have train for it accordingly.
If we want to adopt the Chinese and Indian methods of academic success, we should start teaching 4 year olds how to plagiarize--your average Chinese 7th grader is copying work at a level surpassing even a 12th grade American child!
The point of this article is that education at this age us harmful, not helpful.
Counterpoint: why do we insist that children and learning be so customized? Are we really that different from one another?
Shouldn't we be demanding at least a certain amount of uniformity in our society to ensure we are a society?
Shouldn't we be demanding at least a certain amount of uniformity in our society to ensure we are a society?
Forcing young children to learn specific topics can only lead to one outcome: a destruction of man's natural desire to learn about the world through association of learning with pain.
Kids learn all the time at an incredible rate. One day, my daughter came home and said, "Daddy, look at this picture I made: a dog, a cat, a pig, a horse, a cow, a chicken! These are all animals that live on a farm!" Yet when I ask her "did you learn anything at school today," the answer, invariably, is "no."
To switch out this kind of early childhood education with a curriculum of forced learning intended to mold the child into a bureaucrats ill-conceived vision of a virtuous society is monstrous.