R Meyers

Several years ago I had the misfortune of going to Michelle's website and reading her idea of what young children should be doing. She was very active on the boards and email groups as well. I had quite a few confrontations with her, none ended nicely I might add. She would advocate that all these new homeschoolers out there be following her "plan" for their young children and basically they were behind if they didn't fill those expectations. I made a point to counteract each and every of Michelle's posts on boards or email lists that I was on to let people know that there is another way and that they should thoroughly research her ideas of early education before embarking their little charges with a full academic schedule as she prescribed. Anyway, she finally faded away and I am happy to say that her website is no longer running so hopefully less and less people will be influenced by her ideas.
Rachel
----- Original Message -----
From: LisaBugg
To: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2001 9:39 PM
Subject: Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] Pre-schooler skills+


I found this under the two year old section
<<<< Holds a crayon correctly when coloring.>>>>

I'm sort of hoping Michele Lewis is not on our list, because this is pure
bs. I have had 4 2yr olds pass through my home and there's no way you can
say a *2* year old needs to be able to do this. And who gets to define
correctly? When in that second year is this a supposed need? 3 days after
the birthday when they are still babies? OR the day before they turn 3 and
you're missing that baby face you knew so well? We won't even go into the
wide maturation differences inherent in boys and girls. I had one son that
was a "baby" until shortly after his 4th birthday. He didn't lose his baby
face, nor his baby ways until then. He wasn't and isn't 'slow', he's just
himself.. He didn't speak until 4ish either, and then he spoke in complete,
complicated sentences. He hated to color or draw until about the age of 8
and just last week, at now 11, he asked me for a drawing class.

I read through the rest of the list and realized that what I disliked most
about the infomation there was the tone in which things were presented. I
offered the children all of these things and more, I just didn't fret over
the idea of having them master or prove the skills. I trusted that they
would want to write and color and sing and waxh hands and learn to read. I
trusted their inate ability to love me and trust me and talk to me.

She also thinks 4 year olds shoud understand the concept of sin and
forgivness. I know learned adults who disagree on these concepts. I know
Christians and Jews who hold diametrically opposed definitions of these
concepts. 4 year olds shouldn't even know the word sin, IMNSHO.

i didn't think much of the site to tell you the truth.

Lisa


Original Message -----
From: "Dalene Mactier" <Mactier@...>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2001 4:16 PM
Subject: [Unschooling-dotcom] Pre-schooler skills+


> BlankHi All
>
> Someone pointed me to this list of skills to be mastered by 2, 3 and 4
year olds. I would love to hear other people's opinion on it. Personally I
think the Phonics, Writing and ARithmetic skills lists are a bit too
advanced for my liking. My almost four year old is not even close to
mastering it.
>
> Here are the lists
>
> http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Forest/2468/skillslist.html
>
> Dalene
>
> http://geocities.com/mactiers
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
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