[blparent] First Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K, Preschool ...

[Jennifer Jackson]

Children also used to have a larger number of things they were expected to
know at home. Many kids do not have any household chores or other
responsibilities besides learning academics. Modern children are also
rewarded for behaviors that involve sitting still and being quiet. Many
children will learn to read very quickly if you leave it alone until they
are six or seven. Additionally, by the fourth grade or so there are no
measurable differences in the reading levels of children who began reading
at different ages.

I like your point, Rebecca, about the childhood illness connection. I read
something similar before about this and the relationship between the overall
reduction in illness being the real reason women have been able to enter the
workforce in such numbers during the second half of this last century. A
case of the measles means someone has to be quarenteened for over a month.
Someone has to care for the person while sick, and if it is a child then
someone has to continue that care through the whole quarentine. This is the
kind of work that most often falls to women.


Jennifer


-----Original Message-----
From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Pickrell, Rebecca M (TASC)
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 7:25 AM
To: 'Blind Parents Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [blparent] First Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K, Preschool ...

        I had a preschool director tell me (and it's important to remember
her perspective) that the stakes are lower in preschool which is why it's
important kids go. She says that if a six year old bops someone over the
head while he's figuring out how to share, it's far more serious then if a
three year old does it.  I found this interesting.
I think part of the push for preschool is that families are smaller now.
Kids do need to learn things that they used to have learned from older
siblings and other big kids in their lives.

I also think that kids are able to do school type stuff earlier because
we've gotten rid of many childhood and big people illnesses. The energy that
used to be spent getting sick, being sick, then recovering can now be used
for other things.

As for our educational system compared to the rest of the world, I'd be
careful with that. We only know what other countries want us to know.  The
U.S. is very good at giving the rest of the world a clear view. Other
countries, well not so much. Look at some of the Indian engineers who can do
exactly what they are told, but who cannot think creatively.  I'll see if I
can find an article I recently read and post to the list.

Also, India uses far more manual labor then the U.S. so not everybody is
bennifitting from what we think of as a better education.

What I've always found interesting is that no matter when and where an
earthquake happens, there are a large number of children not at home with
their families.  Look at this next time an earthquake hits the news. No
matter what time it is local time, you'll find a surprisingly large number
of children not with mom and dad.
Where I do think America fails is that the vocational tech programs are
where they send the "bad kids".  This to me is very wrong because it sends
the message that these professions aren't valuable.  It also means you have
to do poorly in school to be considered for HVAC, automechanic or plumbing
training.



-----Original Message-----
From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Jo Elizabeth Pinto
Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2012 11:19 PM
To: NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List
Subject: [blparent] First Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K, Preschool ...

My daughter started preschool a year ago; now she's in Pre-K. She goes two
days a week and really enjoys her class activities. But I'm wondering about
the trend of getting kids started earlier and earlier. When kindergarten
came about, it was to prepare kids for the first grade. It was a half day a
week, just sort of easing the kids into school and teaching them how to be
students--share, cooperate, follow directions, the basics. Kindergarten
isn't even mandatory in all states, but now there are year-long waiting
lists to get kids into full-day kindergarten classes. And we have Pre-K
programs at our preschools. And preschool is promoted to get kids ready for
Pre-K, which will prepare them for kindergarten, which was meant to prepare
them for first grade. The insinuation is that if your child doesn't have
Pre-K, she'll not be on track for kindergarten, and if she doesn't do
preschool, she won't measure up well in Pre-K. So when and why did
everything get so competetive? When and why did we stop letting our kids be
kids till they started school? What are we pushing them toward, and is it
good for them in the long run?

As part of her Pre-K information, I was given a list of standards that most
kindergartens hope their students will be on track with before they start.
They need to know all of their letters and numbers, as well as recognizing
some common words by sight.  They need to know how to count to twenty and
remember all the tens up to one hundred.  They need to know their colors and
shapes by sight, and be able draw the shapes with a pencil.  They need to
have basic skills with crayons, scissors, and glue.  It's preferred if they
can write their first and last names.  That sounds like first grade used to
be.  I believe I remember learning my letters and numbers in kindergarten.

I just worry that our society has become too competetive with young
children.  Besides that, if the standards are so strict for incoming
kindergartners, then what are they teaching in kindergarten, and why isn't
the quality of our education system, particularly in America, rising when
compared to that of students elsewhere in the world?

Jo Elizabeth

I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's
brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and
died in cotton fields and sweatshops.--Stephen Jay Gould
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