Posted on 05/12/2011 6:49:09 PM PDT by no gnu taxes
We took our 5 year old to kindergarten registration yesterday and I am surprised at how much kids are expected to learn there these days. Don't know if it is the same way everywhere.
Back when I was in school, kindergarten was strictly private and kids only learned things like social "niceties" and basically just played and colored for activities.
Kids now are expected to know their alphabet, know how to write their name, be able to count to 20, and know all of the basic colors and shapes BEFORE they start kindergarten. I didn't know those things when I started 1st grade. By the end of kindergarten, they are doing basic math and composing short essays.
Oh good! A public school is catching up to the classical homeschoolers -- this sounds like the integration of subjects, which is proper for the dialectic stage! Kind of like ... medieval classical education! :-)
"Taken by and large, the great difference of emphasis between the two conceptions holds good: modern education concentrates on "teaching subjects," leaving the method of thinking, arguing, and expressing one's conclusions to be picked up by the scholar as he goes along. Medieval education concentrated on first forging and learning to handle the tools of learning, using whatever subject came handy as a piece of material on which to doodle until the use of the tool became second nature." ~ Dorothy Sayers
Pre-school is so overrated.
Even if your daughter knew nothing, she would soon catch up and fly. I am thoroughly convinced of that. I wasted so much money on pre-school.
FWIW, I overheard a guy in a restaurant talking just the other day about taking his family to England recently. He has a daughter (18 - 19). They visited the Churchhill memorial; afterward, his daughter asked “who was that guy Churchhill?”
He refers to his daughter as “functionally illiterate.” Good for one thing, having kids. The US is in for a very rough next
30 years.
Yeah, this n00b appears to have a strange smell to him. Have to wait to see what he posts next.... :-)
“My wife is spearheading the effort at this point! I came home from work for lunch and they were reading “The Boxcar Children”....”
Readalouds were a huge feature of our home school and I don’t regret one of them.
From the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Hobbit, all the Little Britches and Wilder books, some Dickens. . . Ramona the Pest is a Must Read for our kindergartners, but the whole family listens in. I include the teens.
Right now I am reading Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, my elementary school kid loves but so does my jr higher.
If what you say is true, and generally so, Why Oh Why do I read so often that the kids in our schools by disgustingly large percentages are unable to read at a level of competence deemed appropriate for their age?
I also was amazed at what they demanded your 5 year old to know,then quickly found out it was only for their convenience, as they basically get nothing done here as all our local schools are failing ones.
Even the homework in the lower grades involved the parents teaching them what was necessary and then letting them do it.
As they became older they were able to get things done on their own,most likely due to the foundation laid down in the home.
My sweetie teaches on the southside of Chicago. A Catholic, 100% African-American school. No vouchers, parents pay for tuition and the school has LOTS of fundraisers.
He shares your love of 3rd & 4th graders. While he has to teach several grades, this is still the group he loves the most. The best way I can describe his thoughts are, that he feels this is his last, best chance to really reach kids; before the cultural pressures start taking a toll. I hope I’m explaining it right. I guess he means that they are still kids then, and so teachers can still make a difference. But starting with 5th grade, it becomes progressively more difficult. I guess what we used to call “the sex, drugs, & rock & roll” kick in. By the time the kids reach 7th & 8th grade, he’s ready for them to GO.
By then, the good ones are still good, heading to the better high schools. The rest of them are wasting their parents’ money (and the funds of private benefactors who absorb an enormous chunk of the tuition cost). They are “adult size,” somewhat violent, disrepectful, and interested in continuing the “lifestyle.”
He’s a little discouraged and seeking a geographical transfer next year.
Once, Kindergarten was to learn social skills and discipline to be in a place of learning. Then it wasn’t enough, Pre-K was for that. Next, you’ll be required to school them from three or something, jeez.
Welcome to FR “no gnu taxes.”
Most kids learn their colors and numbers, etc at home (or at day care), before they enter the K-12 school room door.
Thanks for your observations.
There are always a few who survive. But many a “good” kid gets swept away in the social chaos and intellectual misanthropy of the later grades.
And all of the kids, no matter how poorly schooled, no matter how well trained by the later grade levels in social debasement and chaos, disrespect for morals and disrespect for the American ideals and the founders who made those ideals a national ideal, all make up society and culture, many will vote.
Even a “good” kid, proceeding to great colleges and career, can only rise so far above that baseline of the debased.
With regard your post and the replies I made earlier, as well as that of DaisyJane69, it might be that the cohort of teachers and teacher teachers of the grades K through 4 are well aware, as a cohort, of the lost-cause of an educational hell that awaits American public school children following fourth grade. And with such awareness, they seek to impart as much as they can while they can.
Doing basic math and essays - did you ask how the school teaches reading and math? Do they use phonics and tried-and-true math teaching, or “whole word” and “new math”?
Those vile methods are really good at showy results in the first few years, while not actually teaching kids what they need to master reading, writing, and arithmetic.
I won’t send my daughter to a public school. I can teach colors and shapes myself.
I’m trying to decide if I should believe you. I’m suspicious of anyone that signed on to FR to post something such as this....
I’ll wait and see as I read the thread.
“What a spiteful mean spirited post.”
I am shocked. How did that come across as mean-spirited?
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