More on Pre-School
Why would anyone think pre-school is so damn important, anyway? Alright, I confess I know little about the history of education, but as a concept that's been around since like forever, its formulation and structure must have more-or-less evolved through trial and error. Over time people presumably settled on a sweet spot for when it makes sense to start teaching kids reading and arithmetic. If teaching kids younger than 6 were a fruitful enterprise, why wouldn't that have been common. Sure, not teaching kids at all would be easier, but if you're going to bother to start teaching them at age 6, why not earlier?
And how often do you hear about parents pushing to get their children into classes early? Red-shirting, on the other had, is very common - why? Because an older child is able to learn more than a younger child. If learning at an earlier age were such a tremendous advantage, parents would be jockeying left-and-right to have their allegedly precocious child entered into kindergarten a year early. But this rarely happens.
Of course it makes sense that whatever additional education can be provided at age 3 or 4 or 5 will help the child read and add faster when he does get to first grade. But then the improvement should be immediately obvious. But how is that supposed to lead to significant, measurable improvements at age 30? Common sense tells you that whatever the advantage pre-school provides would be most magnified in first grade and then dissipate over time. But if the advantage is supposed to be evident at age 30, then it must be absolutely overwhelming in the early grades - and surely jump out at you as early as 4th grade.
But, as I pointed out in yesterday's posting, no such obvious advantage is observable among 4th graders. And if we can't see any clear advantage among 4th graders, how in God's name can we expect there to be any lasting mpact into adulthood? Yet David Brooks and President Obama are both certain that early-childhood education is the golden road to future prosperity. We are being led by insane people.
And how often do you hear about parents pushing to get their children into classes early? Red-shirting, on the other had, is very common - why? Because an older child is able to learn more than a younger child. If learning at an earlier age were such a tremendous advantage, parents would be jockeying left-and-right to have their allegedly precocious child entered into kindergarten a year early. But this rarely happens.
Of course it makes sense that whatever additional education can be provided at age 3 or 4 or 5 will help the child read and add faster when he does get to first grade. But then the improvement should be immediately obvious. But how is that supposed to lead to significant, measurable improvements at age 30? Common sense tells you that whatever the advantage pre-school provides would be most magnified in first grade and then dissipate over time. But if the advantage is supposed to be evident at age 30, then it must be absolutely overwhelming in the early grades - and surely jump out at you as early as 4th grade.
But, as I pointed out in yesterday's posting, no such obvious advantage is observable among 4th graders. And if we can't see any clear advantage among 4th graders, how in God's name can we expect there to be any lasting mpact into adulthood? Yet David Brooks and President Obama are both certain that early-childhood education is the golden road to future prosperity. We are being led by insane people.
posted by ziel | 2/16/2013 11:41:00 AM
6 Comments:
It's just politics. They talk about pre-school because it's hard to say no to pre-schoolers. What, do you hate children? Or course not, so pay up. It's a convenient excuse for them to funnel $10 billion more of our money to their supporters.
Politics explains Obama - universal pre-K would create thousands more government employees per state, further solidifying Democratic gains.
But how do you explain Brooks, other than that he sincerely believes the nonsense.
re: "But how do you explain Brooks" ziel
Brooks is a alien from Toronto who had one good idea: Bobos in Paradise. His career has been a descent into Liberalism, that is, if he was not a Liberal from the start.
As to pre-school, this is just another educational fad at best, make-work in reality, and baby-sitting in action. If run by the government it will be done poorly. If done by private concerns or even by a church, it may be done efficiently but ultimately it will make no difference to an individual as a human brain is not developed enough: recall the old concept of the age of reason. School can wait for most kids. Let kids be kids.
Dan Kurt
When I first went to kindergarten I just made the cut when it came to age and was the youngest kid in the class. And even for my age I was pretty immature. I was not disruptive, but I was mostly in a fog and just did what I was told and really did not get anything out of being there. This lasted until halfway through the 1st grade when I guess my few brain cells managed to connect to each other and I actually started to learn at school.
So putting me into a pre-kindergarten class would not have accomplished anything except waste money since my brain had not developed enough to get anything from it. Now some kids probably would get some benefit from this but since this is a government program it will be a one size fits all deal and so many or even most of the kids would just be there as a form of warehousing
However you can’t say that everyone is not the same since that goes against the present religion that everyone is the same and even more pertinent that all our kids are from Lake Wobegon and so they are all above average and so they will be learning to write poetry at the age of 4 at their wonderful above average Pre-school.
Schools are the most important institution that inculcates the principals in our life a well-structured school with greatest ethos is certainly appreciated by the parents. Schools make our learning foundation stronger and give us insight to know and learn the world around us with ease, Pre school are also of great significance as it teaches the kids their initial learning lessons of life.
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Pre school stage is really important and kids must really go on this stage in education. In here, the schools will focus on the values of the kids in order for them to be guided from what is right and wrong.
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