WayzUp
02-17-2006, 08:25 AM
Saw this headline on Yahoo this AM & checked it out...it's a thought-provoker, that's for sure. I say that because my little girl was learning new things at an astonishing rate right up until she started going to pre-school. She says she likes it and maybe my being fairly new to this parenting thing makes me a little ignorant of some of the 'lulls' in learning rates but I can definitely see a slow-down in the number of new things she learns. It used to be an almost-daily occurrance that she'd come up to me and surprise me with something I thought she could never know but did.
For example, she could count to twenty in Spanish when she was about 2 1/2 years old and to 100 in English with barely a problem. The alphabet she knew long before that. Since she's been going to pre-school, it's almost like she's losing stuff...she struggles to get to 100 now and can't get past 10 in Spanish and I know it's because they don't do that kind of thing in preschool so she doesn't practice it as much. If you don't use it, you lose it kind of thing. Maybe I give my girl too much credit but it's almost like they're slowing her down to keep the whole class at more or less the same level when she's been past what they're teaching her for a long long time. There are kids in her class that can't say the alphabet for whatever reason and Ryan's been able to do that forever.
Guess I'm just fishing for opinions here and see if anyone else has any similar experiences with their kids. :confused: Don't jump off the boat and think I'm seriously considering "unschooling" my kids but it does make me stop and think how effective schooling can be and if it could be a hinderance in some cases. I know I was smarter than most everyone in my school but I was so bored in class (because I knew most of what they were teaching before we got to it) that I slacked off because it simply didn't interest me.
UNSCHOOLING...cool or not? (www.yahoo.com/s/273387)
For example, she could count to twenty in Spanish when she was about 2 1/2 years old and to 100 in English with barely a problem. The alphabet she knew long before that. Since she's been going to pre-school, it's almost like she's losing stuff...she struggles to get to 100 now and can't get past 10 in Spanish and I know it's because they don't do that kind of thing in preschool so she doesn't practice it as much. If you don't use it, you lose it kind of thing. Maybe I give my girl too much credit but it's almost like they're slowing her down to keep the whole class at more or less the same level when she's been past what they're teaching her for a long long time. There are kids in her class that can't say the alphabet for whatever reason and Ryan's been able to do that forever.
Guess I'm just fishing for opinions here and see if anyone else has any similar experiences with their kids. :confused: Don't jump off the boat and think I'm seriously considering "unschooling" my kids but it does make me stop and think how effective schooling can be and if it could be a hinderance in some cases. I know I was smarter than most everyone in my school but I was so bored in class (because I knew most of what they were teaching before we got to it) that I slacked off because it simply didn't interest me.
UNSCHOOLING...cool or not? (www.yahoo.com/s/273387)