WARNING: Strong opinion to follow
Kindergarten round-up/Advanced Kindergarten. First of all, I have to confess I have a negative attitude so that being said I just don't get the requirements that these little 5 year old children are suppose to have mastered. I went to the open house the other day, excited, nervous, worried for my Maddox. He is my middle child and he fits the description perfectly, but that doesn't make his Mama love him any less. Within 1o minutes of the introduction, we were told they need to be potty trained, know how to tie their shoes, button their pants, know their letters upper case and lower case, recognize their numbers and if possible know what sound each letter makes. It took everything I had not to raise my hand and ask so WHAT will you be teaching them? I feel they are practically expected to come to school and become part of the craziness that has become the normal in today's society. It's all about ISTEP pass-plus numbers, administration goals, school reputation, which is all good but what happened to looking at each child as an individual? What happened to thinking that parents know best? What happened to researching how a child learns and building on their strengths?
All that being said, I know that Maddox will be fine, but it does make me wonder about those kiddo's that don't have a strong foundation at home. Again, they will feel like failures to authority. They will have no voice in a world that passes them by because they are different. They will have another standard forced upon them at such a young age resulting in yet another statistic. They will be labeled. It truly breaks my heart!
In my happy little world, we would focus on loving others instead of focusing on how many little children can read at the end of the 1st semester in Kindergarten.
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I have a book for you to read, but it is dangerous...I had the very concerns as well when my little ones were ready to be in school...Read this book, and knew I had to homeschool the early years...Individualism and own pace education cannot be accomodated in the school system and with my two eldest being very much on their own time line, I knew that the school system would eat them up...And like you, I wondered what happens to those that fall thru the cracks, those that barely pass because they do not have the vigilance at home....I hear you, sister!! Go Joni!!
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