Quick question for my European readers...
Mar. 10th, 2007 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
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.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 07:24 pm (UTC)The Swedish children I've observed can read a bit and add and subtract a bit and sing a few songs in English before they start school at seven. They don't all go to preschool but most of them do.
Among our acquaintance, most of Linnea's age-peers (3 or almost 3) in England are being strongly encouraged, at least, and sometimes pushed, to count and to identify letters; some of them want to, some don't; some understand what's going on, some are rote-learning for strokes. They're also generally being toilet-trained, in some cases in the face of screaming tantrums and in others with enthusiastic cooperation from the child.