sharing a blog post on early learning

[familyvalues]

emmaP1030295, a photo by marymactavish on Flickr.

Dear Tinderbox Homeschool: THANK YOU THANK YOU.
Everyone else with kids or who cares about kids: However you intend to educate your kids, homeschool or private or unschool or public, whether or not you intend to send them to preschool, and especially before you choose a school, PLEASE read this. This is absolutely everything I know to be true, based on my own education and experience, but supported by Rebecca's education, experience, and professional research, about early childhood education, academics, and play.

http://tinderbox.homeschooljournal.net/2012/03/02/early-learning

I have a post coming eventually, really, about my own educational philosophies, and at this point, my preference is still to homeschool Owen, but that might change according to the wishes of his other parents, and what he personally needs: homeschooling isn't best for every kid, or every kid/parent combination, and we don't know what will be available to us as he ages. But I get so frustrated with programs that make kids spend half their day waiting, or learning in ways that don't suit them well, or being pushed academically in ways their brains aren't ready for, when the same learning could be done more experientally and appropriately.

And believe me, Owen will be appropriately socialized, he'd see to that himself even if we didn't.

Maybe I should set aside dedicated time to research and write that soon, because reading stuff like this gets my fire up.

*the photo is my grandniece, Emma, researching kinesiology and shadows ;)

Comments

[0jack]

I couldn't agree more. I *STILL* don't know how to play. We *LEARNED*. Everything was labelled. There were flash cards. Alphabet cards. Quizzes. When I was around Owen's age, 12mo well-baby visit, I could rattle off the proper names of my body parts for the doctor—I have the assessment notes in my documentation of weirdness files.

It sucked. It was awful. I never knew how to socialize well as a child. I'm still baffled when people do things for fun. I have no idea what my mother would have done if she hadn't had high IQ kids. But the end result? Catastrophe. And I'm sure at least a bit of the mess can be laid at the feet of high pressure age-inappropriate learning.