Kiersten Pasciak

>>>> Perhaps you could ask her to expand and give examples of
>>>>the "certain things". She may end up talking herself out of her
>>>> own position. One question for her might be "Why wouldn't he
>>>>learn that when he...[some real life situation]?" If it is
>>>>important in society, then he would surely learn through
>>>>interacting with real people in society. Is it
>>>> how to stand in line? One trip to Disneyland (or the market)
>>>>will take care of that for life. <<<<<<

LOL, We just has this discussion yesterday!
One of the moms from my local moms group was going on and on about
how great preschool is for her son who started last week. (He is 3)
She kept saying how it was so wonderful because she watched the
teacher on the playground and she "gasp" managed to get 8 boys to
stand in a line to come inside :)

I asked my husband why it would ever be necessary to be trained to
stand in line at school. We do stand in lines whenever we go
somewhere it is required...the store, the bank, the library.
Playgrounds allow opportunity for sharing and playing with other
kids. Seems so easy.

One question...
In this same group, a mom mentioned an article in this
months "Parents" magazine which discussed the benefits of preschool.
The conversation turned into an attack on one of our moms who did
not enroll her 3 yr. old in preschool (and has no intention of doing
so, although she will be going to school later on) They (the moms)
actually said "How can your kid be ready for Kindergarten if she
doesn't go to preschool"

(This has become one of my favorite inside jokes with my husband,
LOL)

Anyone read the article? I haven't seen it.
Might be worth a letter written in if the article is as biased as
she seemed to be making it.
I am going to try to check it out at the library.

Kiersten

J. Stauffer

<<<<<They (the moms)
actually said "How can your kid be ready for Kindergarten if she
doesn't go to preschool" >>>>

Just so you know, this is no longer a joke, at least here in Texas. Thanks to "No Child Left Behind", the legacy of George W.

My three youngest wanted to try school this year, one went to first, two went to K. Within 2 weeks I am getting calls from the teacher. "Daniel doesn't know the sounds of all the letters." "Daniel holds his pencil oddly." "Michelle is not finishing her work." "Michelle doesn't seem to understand multiple directions given at the same time."

Sigh. They wanted to put them in Special Ed.. I had to fight and fight with the school to make sure they understood that the kids had NEVER been in an academic setting before....that I wasn't sure if Michelle even understood that she really was expected to finish worksheets even if she thought they were boring, that Danny is used to writing however he likes.....to just give them time. They did and the kids are now wowing them...but it was a fight to get the school to give them room to do that.

Just an aside....Michelle loves doing homework sheets and Danny hates them so Michelle talked Danny out of his last night and she did them for him while he rode his bike. Go figure.

Julie S.


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