Changes! Eek!

[rivka]

I just scheduled a visit to a nursery school for next Thursday.

Well, nursery school/daycare. They have both. All the kids do nursery school in the morning, and you can either bring them home at noon or have them stay for lunch, nap, and afternoon daycare. They have a two-year-old classroom. If we like the school, we'll be signing Alex up to start in May.

I had despaired of finding a good play-based nursery school, because all of the ones that advertise in Baltimore's Child magazine talk about "computer literacy" and "pre-reading skills" and "kindergarten readiness." It's part of a trend that, unbelievably, includes academic tutoring for 3-5 year olds. From the way things are going I do predict that Alex will master preschool concepts early and be reading by three or four - but I am utterly opposed, philosophically, to sending her to an "academic" nursery school where those concepts are formally presented.

My friend Suzanne passed on some materials about the Bolton Hill nursery school. "Play is a child's work," the flyer began, and went on to explain that young children learn best from exploring their world, not from formal instruction. The teachers provide a rich environment - music, art supplies, pretend play equipment, a courtyard and a nearby playground for outdoor play, books, building materials - and help the children negotiate social interactions. They do all the traditional nursery school projects, like sprouting seeds in Dixie cups and visiting a fire station, but "rarely will you enter a classroom and see all the children seated at a table doing the same art project." It seems very free.

Best of all: they offer a flexible schedule - anywhere from 1-5 half and/or whole days a week - and they are much cheaper than a nanny. They're located just six blocks from our house, so we can walk there. And Suzanne's son Leo, who is in playgroup with Alex, will be going 1.5 days a week - so she would be starting out with a familiar playmate.

Still: nursery school? Already? What a scary thought. And yet, Alex really enjoys being with other kids. We've been thinking that when our current nanny graduates from school and takes a full-time job, we'll probably want to put Alex in group daycare. It's just the word "school" that's making me think "Whoa!"

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

That is a really lovely picture.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Michael took it, and boy do I ever love it. It really captures the unrestrained joy that toddlers are capable of. Full-size version is here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rivka/209601103/).

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a great setup. The place Liam goes is similar in some ways. Definitely play based. There's a nice mix of kids who are going part-time and others who are full-time. We like it a lot - I hope it lives up to its press!

My friend Sue's 3-year-old just started going to pre-school 2 days a week. She found the whole "school!" thing to be a scary thought/ big transition too. I never got that, because since we've always used a group daycare, Liam's been in school since he was 5 months old. I won't get the big "eek - school!" moment until Kindergarten...

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I got expelled from nursery school and then kindergarten, but I seem to have managed without.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a member of the informed-ignorant (two siblings of almost 20 years age less tham mine, when averaged, whom I was in the house to help with for the first few years), that school sounds way cool, and a decent idea.

Kids do well with other kids, and it will pay off at home.

TK

[aloha-moira.livejournal.com]

"But I am utterly opposed, philosophically, to sending her to an "academic" nursery school where those concepts are formally presented.

But Rivka, then how will she ever get into Harvard? She'll be SO BEHIND!!!

Kidding, obviously. That second "school" sounds like a wonderful place, for both of you. Hope it works out!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

But Rivka, then how will she ever get into Harvard? She'll be SO BEHIND!!!

You know, the people quoted in those tutoring articles actually believe that. Or they're worried that, without tutoring, their kid won't be accepted into the "right" preschool or kindergarten.

Sheesh.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Also: how will she ever get into Harvard?

Sad, but true: she will write on her application, "When my great-grandfather was on the faculty here, he won the Nobel Prize." And that'll do it.

It's one of the reasons why I didn't even apply to Harvard. I realized that acceptance would be meaningless, because I would never know whether it was due to my own merits.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Cool! I Did Not Know this about you. Who was your grandfather?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

George Wald (http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/04.17/GeorgeWaldNobel.html), Physiology or Medicine 1967.

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

Coolness! Sounds like he was a good person as well as a smart person, which to my mind is more important. Living in Germany between 1932 and 1934 must've been interesting (not necessarily in a good way), what with the Nazis taking power in 1933. Bird's eye view and so forth.

As for Alex, good for you guys putting her in a preschool/daycare where she gets to be a kid instead of a homework receptacle. Particularly since if she can already count to six at the age of 17 months without having been formally "taught" to do so, I highly doubt she'll NEED formal teaching in order to acquire the rest of the preschool skills.

It's weird, though. On the one hand you've got yuppie parents stuffing their 3-year-olds full of knowledge and not giving them a chance to be a child, and what's more, to acquire skills naturally, and on the other hand you've got parents who don't do enough enrichment activities with their kids. My mom teaches Grade 1 in a school that's classified as inner city for funding purposes (it's actually in a blue-collar suburb, but it has all the poverty and social problems associated in the popular mindset with the inner city). So yeah, she gets 6-year-olds starting Grade 1 and not having basic skills, while simultaneously yuppies in the highly gentrified former inner city are drowning their kids in demands for skills and achievement.

She has to really nag to get some of the parents to practice reading with their kids in the evenings, because they see the kid learning to read (a fairly essential skill one is supposed to acquire in Grade 1) as being exclusively the teacher's problem. Mind you, that's often just a question of personality. I mean, there are some dirt-poor immigrants who only have a Grade 4 education in their own language, let alone English, but when she says practice reading with your kids, take them to the library during vacation time, etc, they're happy to do it. It's just a question of communicating (some teachers don't bother trying to get parents with poor English focused on their kids' education, unfortunately). Just because someone comes from a disadvantaged background doesn't mean they're stupid or that they aren't willing and able to give their kids the tools to succeed.

And then you get another set of parents, possibly from an identical background, but they really don't give a shit. The key variable is parental attitude rather than parental socio-economic background. And their kids might have arrived in Grade 1 better prepared if they'd been in a Head Start-type program of some kind. And then we get the Head-Start-on-Steroids parents who bombard their kid with Baby Einstein from birth, leading to stressed-out preschoolers.* There doesn't seem to be a happy medium between the two extremes.

* Granted, I was the first physically healthy three-year-old my pediatrician had ever seen who was suffering from stress (I had a muscle tic in my face that my mom thought could be nerve damage, but it was stress). HOWEVER, my mother wasn't doing anything to make me stressed out, like, say, giving academic tutoring to a 3-year-old. I came out that way, according to her. And I already knew how to read.

As for a pediatrician in practice today, I wonder how often they see stressed-out preschoolers suffering from parents trying to mold their kids into baby geniuses. Particularly since my understanding is that when the occasional child is so profoundly gifted as to be at the Doogie Howser/River Tam/Good Will Hunting level, they usually are that way no matter what the parents do in infancy and early childhood, and aren't the beneficiaries/victims of intensive tutoring. It's perfectly possible to give a small child intellectual stimulation through play rather than work, as Alex's example shows.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

I second that. My grandmothers worked as cleaners, granddad 1 was an electrician, and granddad 2 left school early, but BOY did they value education. Granddad 2 taught me to read at age 3 (in a playful way, may I add), and I'm sure he was key to my mother's and my performance at school.

[aloha-moira.livejournal.com]

Well, heck. I did not know that about you(r grandfather). Pretty spiffy - but more spiffy that you did not want to take advantage of it to get into an Ivy. I don't know too many people who would take that high road... especially at 17! Seems like you've done okay without Harvard, anyway. ;)

[dafna]

Heh. Though if you enjoyed Reed, you probably would have hated Harvard anyway. (As I'm guessing you knew then, too.) I remember meeting prospective students who were all excited about "really studying" and trying to convince them that, no really, they'd be much happier at Swarthmore, but it's the rare 17-year-old who will believe you.

Cool family history. (At some point, if you don't mind, would be curious to hear about when and why the religion switched.) My parents were actually class of '70 (my mom helped take over the administration building; my dad, otoh, was in ROTC, but for socioeconomic reasons,) so I'm sure they'd remember him. Must remember to ask.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I hope the visit goes well. From what they say in their literature, I think it will.

[ratphooey.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a great place. We're looking for something similar for our Alex, either for January or next fall.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

The warning labels are for your protection.

That place sounds good, though. Walking distance!

Oh, I don't know...

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

...my brother was the only one of us kids to go to kindergarten, and he ended up a dairy farmer. ;-)

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

I found with HM's friends and the kids I saw hwile I was helping out at her Pre-K that there was a window for them learning how to be comfortable and fluent socially, and use their imaginations in play, and that window seemed to me to start closing at four or five. It may be a coincidence that they started to be resorted by academic aptitude at that age, but it didn't seem that way to me.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Will Alex get to go along on the visit?

I would have thought that the idea of <1.5yos having friends was kind of adultomorphic (which, if it isn't a word, should be). Until I watched my younger-than-Alex nibling go into climbing-the-porch-railing squealing pointing glee last week when he recognized the little girl coming up the walk to join the crowd we were visiting. He obviously remembered that she was one of his people, and she was coming to play with him. So yeah, having Leo in the group would be a bonus.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Will Alex get to go along on the visit?

Yes, all three of us will go together.

I would have thought that the idea of <1.5yos having friends was kind of adultomorphic (which, if it isn't a word, should be). Until I watched my younger-than-Alex nibling go into climbing-the-porch-railing squealing pointing glee last week when he recognized the little girl coming up the walk to join the crowd we were visiting.

Yes. All the reference books tell you that toddlers are primarily oriented towards adults, and think of other toddlers as inconvenient objects rather than as people to interact with. They haven't seen Alex pulling at the doorknob asking for, "Zoe! Zoezoezoezoe! Zoe-time!"

It's true that she and Zoe (or Leo) don't really know how to play with each other. But yeah, "climbing-the-porch-railing squealing pointing glee" is a good description of how they are when they see each other.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I read the article about tutoring, and it doesn't really sound all that different from what any academically minded parent would do with their kid: teach them things. Obviously, it's weirder than weird that the parents are paying someone else to do this, but the ideas and activities are not any more advanced than most middle class kids are expected to master.

Parenting has been made incredibly complex in the last 15 or 20 years, I opine, as a parent of some mid-20-somethings.

K. [and who, for the record, sprouted her bean seed in a dixie cup in kindergarten]

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I read the article about tutoring, and it doesn't really sound all that different from what any academically minded parent would do with their kid: teach them things.

I don't know, though. When teaching happens at home, it's usually spontaneous, in short bursts, and corresponding to something real - like counting cookies as you eat them, or spelling out the letters on a sign together, or practicing writing your name to sign a drawing. That seems qualitatively different to me than sending your kid to a tutoring center to study for an hour, using computers or worksheets.

the ideas and activities are not any more advanced than most middle class kids are expected to master.

I think the expectation that children should be taught to read at three or four is new, and so is the expectation that they'll be doing addition and subtraction at that age. I mean, I've known kids who did those things on their own - I was one of them - but I think the baseline expectation used to be that your learned to read in first grade.

[iamjw.livejournal.com]

This sounds terrific. I look forward to Alex-at-school stories.