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

[rivka.livejournal.com]

We didn't have to do long division, but we did have to know our multiplication tables, be able to do simple division with remainders and write in legible cursive by the time we finished kindergarten. It was essentially a feeder school for the local prep school, though, so I don't think was average by any means.

Yeah, that was probably a pretty bright bunch of kids. Although I'm surprised that a bunch of kindergarteners had the physical dexterity to write in legible cursive.

I wonder what the educational philosophy behind it was. Do you know? I mean, I can easily see that five-year-olds would be able to memorize the multiplication tables - look at how many of them have memorized the names of thirty different dinosaurs - but I have to wonder why you would want them to.

[therealocelot.livejournal.com]

I mean, I can easily see that five-year-olds would be able to memorize the multiplication tables - look at how many of them have memorized the names of thirty different dinosaurs - but I have to wonder why you would want them to.

That's pretty much the basis of classical education theory - that the primary grades are a time when rote memorization is easy and natural, so children memorize the base facts for the various subjects during that stage, and then are taught how to use them later.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Don't get me started on my opinion of classical education theory. ;-)

[therealocelot.livejournal.com]

Oh, but that sounds fun!

[ink-monkey.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure there was a specific educational philosophy behind it; we were just treated like very small adults. I think the only accomodations they made for our age were having a short school day and a nap in the afternoon. Otherwise, it was just three hours or so at our desks, lunch, recess, hour long nap and then an hour of art and/or music. Overall, it was a pretty miserable experience, and made elementary school miserable as well; I didn't learn anything new until fourth or fifth grade.

As for handwriting, it was massively difficult to start with, but after a school year's worth of practice, we could all more or less manage it. Of course, the effort went to waste pretty much immediately; my parents got a new computer and let me have their old Mac. I never handwrote anything I could type after that.

As for why, I really have no idea. I think it was really more "Why not?" than "Why?".