Quick question for my European readers...

[rivka]

...is this person smoking crack, or what?

While I agree with the general consensus that it's a bad idea to push your kids too much, I have to say that when when I was in preschool (in Europe) we all had to learn how to read, write, learn multiplication tables, long division, addition, subtraction, inequalities, a foreign language, AND we played a lot.

It was pretty much the norm to know how to read and to have basic arithmetic skills *long* before you entered elementary school, and we never felt like we weren't having fun.

So if I had a choice, yes, I'd definitely want to send my kids to that kind of a preschool. It's not about being ahead of everyone else (because, like I said, in my case, I was just average when I could read when I was three). It's about the fact that no one can learn like a child can, and you only have a certain number of years before your brain starts turning into mush. Why waste those years with nothing but play?

Is it really "just average" for Europeans to be reading at three, and doing long division before the age of five? I've always been under the impression that Europeans are more likely to have a "let children be children" philosophy than Americans, but I'll admit that I don't have much to base that impression on, besides the big progressive educational philosophies (Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio Emiliana) all being European in origin.

(Obviously, I'm not going to run out and buy a lot of flash cards if she turns out to be correct. I'm just curious.)

NB: I don't think we're talking about a radical cultural disconnect about which ages constitute "preschool," because this is someone who now lives in the United States. She never specified where in Europe she is from; she included all Europeans in this comment and her further elaborations upon it.

Comments

Re: It completely and utterly depends

[thette.livejournal.com]

I was going to say "Well, she's not Scandinavian, at least." I started school at 7, though kids these days start at 6. We didn't have any English education until fourth grade, but I hear they've started with the basics in first grade now. Still not in pre-school. Of course, we're pretty much a monolingual society. I imagine it's different in Finland, for example.

When I was in pre-school, we were encouraged to read, but not taught it. When we were five, the four oldest girls in our group (one who was six, and three of us who was five) asked for math work books. The teachers humoured us and wrote us some papers with addition, and the other girls did one and got bored. I pestered them for more, until they gave up and made my parents make them for me. At the time, I did learn division (though not long division, but whatever it's called when you give the answer as an integrer and a "rest", like "55/6 is 9, rest 1") and simple equations. Whenever I tell people about this, they're surprised, so the experience is absolutely out of the ordinary.

Pre-school consisted mostly of play (both "free play" and "calm play", with one learning session a day, mostly learning the words for things. Body parts, tools, music instruments...

Re: It completely and utterly depends

[rivka.livejournal.com]

At the time, I did learn division (though not long division, but whatever it's called when you give the answer as an integrer and a "rest", like "55/6 is 9, rest 1") and simple equations.

Whoa, it's been a long time since I've thought about that. We called it a "remainder." It's a funny method, but I guess you don't have a lot of other options if you haven't introduced decimals yet. I think "long division," in the U.S., actually refers to problems in which the numbers you're working with are multi-digit: like, 4721/236. But I might be confused, especially given that I can't think of a specific term that applies to division with decimals.

I was just reading about a method of teaching math in which addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and fractions are all introduced in the first year (to 6-year-olds). But that method uses concrete manipulatives (rods of different lengths) to help children visualize and grasp the underlying theory of each operation - it's not based on early rote memorization.

Re: It completely and utterly depends

[thette.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought long division was just the notation method, and I though it was division with decimals, but I see on the Wikipedia entry that you can give the answer as a quotient and a remainder.

I don't think I learned the multiplication table until much later, though. Division, in the form of "how many times can you have this number in this number" was easier for me.

Re: It completely and utterly depends

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

We made toys for my siblings (and I'll do the same for my kids) which were sets of slats; varying in length.

Each inch had a dot. They went with a tray, twenty inches long, which had numbers, visible above the slats, when placed in it.

A kid with interest in math could self-derive (through play) a lot. General rules of arithimetic, principles of decimal structure, even some of the basics of algebra (solving for simple "x").

As a toy, they started to use it at about age three. It was a sorting game, like the pyramid of rings on a cone.

TK

Re: It completely and utterly depends

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

I'm 99% sure that long division is when you have to do multiple divisions by breaking the numbers into usable sets.

8533/77 is long division; 77 goes into 85 once, subtract 77 and bring down the 8, 77 goes into 83 once, subtract 77 and bring down the six; 77 doesn't go into 63, so either stop there, for 110, R63, or carry out to however many decimal places is required. (or say it goes 110 63/77 times).

So, essentially, any time the dividend is more than 10 times greater than the divisor, you're using long division.

Again, that's if I understand the term right. I'm generalizing from "long division" of polynomials.

Re: It completely and utterly depends

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that I was taught long division means divsion using the symbol like )_____ upside down, which is too hard for me to render in LJ-acceptable HTML at 1 AM. (*blink* How'd it get to be 1 AM? I better hit the sack.)