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System
Student Fails To Recognize Strengths
December 22, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
What to do
when children can’t see their own
abilities.Read
more...
Take A Business Approach To Conferences
Parent-teacher
conference may be your most important meeting of
allRead
more...
Son’s Attitude Problems About School
September 15, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: Elementary
School
Three
Things That Cause DisconnectRead
more...
Old Style Discipline and Authority Won’t Work In Today’s World
August 18, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
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Dear Dr. Fournier: My son is back in school but at registration, I was handed a copy of the new discipline policy. On the first day of school, he and his classmates got an explanation of the policy and it has scared him to death. He cries, doesn’t want to go to school, and says he can’t do his work because he is afraid. He’s 9 years old and in the 4th grade. He has always been a happy child who loves to play and ask questions. I’m really worried. What should I do? Debbie M., Lexington, Ky. |
School has started back and my son’s school has started a card system to try and better manage the behavioral problems the school had last year with kids. If a child misbehaves, the child’s card is pulled. This continues for three card-pulls then the child is punished. An act of misbehaving can be something as simple as not having a pencil out. As a result, my son now feels like he is in prison and is so afraid of doing something wrong, he doesn’t want to do anything. How can he learn when he is filled with fear? Robert D., Birmingham, Ala.
Dear Debbie and Robert: Often I hear, “Remember the one-room schoolhouse?”
It was a time when teachers ruled with a hickory stick and the students all stayed in line.
This method may have worked well in the past but it will not prepare today’s students to be the collaborative decision-makers our country needs for the future and for the global world in which we live.
The Assessment: Schools of a past era – the Industrial Era, specifically – prepared students for a rote workforce where the need was for manual laborers to tend positions on an assembly line doing the same job, day in and day out, for the same supervisor.
Schools mimicked the structure that students would experience in the real world, and teachers maintained authoritative control with a standard discipline policy.
The problem is that schools are still teaching this way, yet the work environment for which our children are being prepared is fast disappearing and in fact, barely exists in this country. As such, the rigid policies and disciplines of the Industrial Era that are still being used in today’s schools are not going to produce the workforce of the future.
However, it seems to be producing quite a few college graduates that are turning up on parents’ doorsteps, jobless and ready to move back home.
If you have not read Thomas Friedman’s books, you should. I recommend The World Is Flat 3.0, and Hot, Flat and Crowded.
His first book is about the connectivity of the world and technological advances that have made it possible to do business almost instantly around the world. In his second book, Friedman talks about the rise of the middle class in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and how they are now consuming products like Americans have been for decades.
This can only mean one thing. Companies producing products and services for this new global consumer will likely require employees to be creative and collaborative to meet the needs of that new consumer. And since said companies probably have global offices, workers will be expected to be collaborative in a decision-making process that ensures appropriate social interaction among co-workers from various countries.
This is practically a mandate for changing how our classrooms are managed and how our children are being taught. If we want to prepare our children for the world Friedman describes, we should be teaching students in an entirely different way and as such, controlling the classroom in a different manner.
It is this one, of classroom control, which lies at the heart of your issues, Debbie and Robert.
Rather than viewing classroom behavior as a 30-to-l battle between students and teacher, schools need to mimic the emerging new world reality in which behavior is not mandated. Instead, behavior is the result of collaborative decision-making that ensures appropriate social interaction among students.
This rather radical change in the student-teacher relationship emphasizes the capacity to collaborate and to solve problems together, rather than the old structure of blind submission schools still rely on today.
Students and teachers must begin to work together to establish the rules and consequences for group behavior so that the responsibility for conduct is on everyone. In doing so, the learning environment is enhanced not diminished.
What To Do: Until schools change to meet the needs of today and the future, your children will need to deal with their fear of the system.
First, openly discuss with your children how schools responded to the needs of the past, teaching people how to obey, follow instructions, work independently and repeat what the teacher said. Explain to your child it was not out of meanness but out of necessity that our schools created such systems and are unfortunately, stuck in this mode of thought today.
Explain to them that even though today’s schools cling to the policies of the past, they will have a wonderful opportunity in the future to work with other people and make decisions together, not just follow directions.
To cope with the present system, legitimize your children’s fears. Talk with them about the moments in the day that they fear most. List these explicitly, and then have them find a solution and carry through with that solution.
For example, Robert, if your son is afraid of getting his card pulled because he doesn’t have a pencil ready, he could carry a pencil case in the front pocket of his book bag or put a mechanical pencil in his shirt pocket. If he is afraid of getting out the wrong book when it’s time for math, he could put different colored stickers on the book covers of each book so he can recognize each subject by its color.
The process of problem solving is important. Help your children brainstorm, evaluate ideas, test them and change what doesn’t work. Help them to be in control rather than be controlled.
Until schools begin to transition into teaching based on collaborative decision-making, parents must take on the responsibility of building reasoned thinking and collaboration in their children as a response to rigidity.
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Viewing Public Schools As A Corporation
August 11, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
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Dear Dr. Fournier: This year
my child will be entering first grade in a Little
Rock Public School. Recently, I had some spare
time and dropped in to visit the school. There
was a sign at the entrance that stated all
parents and visitors were to check in at the
front desk.
I stopped at the front desk and asked permission to walk through the school. I was told the principal was in a meeting and she was the only one who could take me on a tour. I explained I only wanted to take a peek at the school facilities and not to go into any classrooms. I was rudely told that this was unheard of and there would be an open house for new parents and students. I decided to visit two private schools the same day. I was very warmly greeted and immediately given a tour. They told me if I wanted to set an appointment to come back, they would take me into the classes. Do you have any suggestions for new parents who want to visit a public school? I dislike scheduled appointments, because I like to see what the school is like every day. Lisa M., Little Rock, Ark. |
Dear Lisa: When a child enters any school for the first time, no matter what his or her age or grade, the entire family is introduced to a new culture.
The Assessment: School will be your child’s home for at least six, maybe seven, hours a day Lisa. It is understandable you want to feel comfortable with both its educational and social aspects. All parents should desire this.
Unfortunately, culture shock often brings fear and intimidation. We are immediately confronted with new rules and new expectations that are so familiar to teachers and administrators, they can’t understand our frustration.
These frustrations often blend with a feeling of intimidation and parents back off, many staying away from their children’s schools. Teachers and administrators then misinterpreted this distancing as a lack of interest on the parents’ part. A gap occurs or is perceived as such, hurting the positive relationship needed between parents and teachers/administrators for a learning partnership that is supportive of the child.
What To Do: Lisa, I want you to look at the school through different eyes, professional not emotional. If it’s a public school, view it as a corporation in which you have purchased stock (in the form of taxes or tuition). Your dividend is the education, not just schooling, of your child. As a parent, you have a seat on the board of directors and with extensive knowledge of the company’s goals and operations; you have a voice in its policies.
Perhaps you need to do some research by talking to other directors (parents) and the company’s employees (teachers and administrators).
Just as you would make a professional appointment to meet a doctor, lawyer or CEO for the first time, you should also use this formal way of introducing yourself at your child’s school. At this professional appointment, however, you should be ready for an open discussion of goals, expectations, established policies and procedures, and other aspects of the school culture. Once knowledgeable, inform the school of your intention to visit without appointment.
However do not jump to hasty conclusions. Be prepared to observe your child’s school on numerous occasions and not come to judgments based on one visit. Gather knowledge from a variety of sources, teachers and other parents to complement your own observations.
It is important to attend PTA meetings and to participate in your child’s school culture. Having complete knowledge is more than important. It is imperative. This is the only weapon against your own fear and intimidation, and it is the basis for your effective participation in your child’s education.
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Uniforms or Dress Code Teach Reasons, Respect
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Dear Dr. Fournier: Should all children have to wear the same uniform to school or should they be allowed to dress individually as long as they follow a standard dress code? |
The Assessment: In our work life, we all have different roles that define what we do for those we serve. People who focus on carrying out their responsibilities with excellence, initiative, and innovation do so based on service to others, not on how they look.
Most working adults either have a uniform or a dress code that intends to guarantee the employee physical and emotional safety needed for themselves and from others to concentrate cognitively on their job. Examples include a pilot who wears a uniform that designates authority and trust; a surgeon who wears pajama-like medical attire for comfort, yet it is sterile for health and safety reasons; and tellers in a bank, who generally follow the “banker’s blue” dress code including closed-toed shoes for women, even though most of us don’t see a teller’s feet.
We all have the choice of wearing the politically correct social attire for what we do in our private lives. For example, when you get an invitation that says “Black-tie,” women know to wear a dark or black formal or semi-formal dress while men know to wear a formal black suit, even with a bow tie rather than a standard tie. If the invitation says “Causal,” or “Business Casual,” that may mean beach clothes if it is to a pool party or khaki pants and a polo shirt for men and a sundress for women if it is a corporate party.
Finally, there are social norms that we learn from parents or intuitively as we grow. Examples include how we dress when we go to church, a graduation ceremony, or a park festival. We know they are different, yet within each category, each place has its dress code.
The idea that clothes are to be used as a way for children and adolescents to develop individuality is a poor excuse for not teaching children that attire has to do with those they serve or care for. On too many occasions, children brought up to use attire to develop individuality end up believing that what they want is more important than following the guidelines of what is considered respectful.
I have been to formal weddings where men showed up in blue jeans, a Bar Mitzvah where girls bared their midriff, a graduation where the graduates dressed as if they were heading out to a nightclub, and a church where some girls go in shorts that are almost non-existent. I once had a prospective employee show up to his interview in flip-flops and clothes that should be in the washer.
Some may read this and say this is their prerogative. While true, your attire should not speak louder than your intelligence.
As for dress codes or required uniforms, students – in the name of individuality – are constantly try to cross the lines. It really does not matter whether a school has a uniform or a dress code. It does matter that we teach them why it matters.
What To Do: Starting as early as possible, every parent and school should hold themselves responsible for teaching our youth that their bodies talk, and once their bodies speak, what your body says will be, “I command respect by giving respect.” That includes wearing a uniform or following a dress code.
It is amazing how students will follow the rules when they understand the reason for them. For example, in my Day School, students are not allowed to wear rubber flip-flops because of the chance they get caught on the carpet and someone ends up on the floor face down with no front teeth. Boys do not wear earrings because they are expected to dazzle the world with their mind and not with their earlobes.
Personally, I prefer uniforms. When I was required to wear one in ninth grade, I thought I belonged because of my mind power and not because of what I wore.
The development of individuality should be about respect for self and for others – not disrespect. This is the most important rule of attire: A school dress code or uniform is intended to keep your MIND on your MIND, not “How can I outwit the rule today to flaunt my body instead.”
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Education Reacculturation
May 05, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
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Dear Dr. Fournier: My 3-year-old granddaughter is not in preschool, although all of her friends entered preschool at age 2. My daughter has exposed her to many things, trips to the zoo, children’s museums, art galleries, and such. She is what I call a normal kid, going to parks and playgrounds, riding MARTA (the subway system) to ballgames with her dad and just being a kid by playing at home and with friends. She is an extremely bright child and while my daughter has not pushed her to learn, she can count to 15, knows shapes, colors, and can print the alphabet extremely well for her age. Shouldn’t she be in pre-school and learning already? |
The Assessment: Your three-year-old granddaughter is already learning. Without pushing, yet with considerable exposure to learning tools (toys) and experiences, she is learning at her current natural developmental pace. Joyful and safe exposure with and by persons that love her uniqueness and are invested in maintaining and developing her desire to learn, as well as her learning, are doing an incredibly good job.
How many of us were able to count to 15, know shapes and actually have the fine motor dexterity to print the alphabet by the age of 3? Not me.
Why is it that if something is not broken, we are so easily convinced by fear tactics of pre-school marketers that our children should be there before they are ready or else they will be considered broken?
And let’s not forget the politicians who convince society they will save education by getting to innocent fun-loving, learning children at a younger age with accelerated curriculums, diagnostic tests and labels and medication. They’d rather do that than deal with saving high schoolers close to a dead end life because they were killed by the education machine a year at a time, each year being convincing they were dumb and dumber, that they would never need math, that proper behavior was expected and if not genetically present, alternative measures of punishment or alternative schools would be enough to finish them off.
Parents claim they want a normal child when Mom is pregnant - but they are lying. They, along with grandparents want a genius child as soon as they are born. This means that learning what is developmentally accessible to the child is demeaning as soon as anyone else says his/her child is learning “The Odyssey” in kindergarten!
What To Do: The new word is “green.” The joke is that green no longer symbolizes the holy sacred dollar. It means putting nature and what is natural back in its place. It means respecting what we abused when mesmerized by having “more of whatever we wanted, no matter the price.”
Now apply this to the children of our nation. They are the last bastion of our “greed,” in which we ask them to learn and do more at the price of their emotional safety, cognitive wellness and desire to learn. Can we begin to see that the old green, A+ hungry, accelerated curriculums are a black hole in which too many of our emotionally sick, medicated, diagnosed disabled, punished to the maximum, family-buster, uneducated youth have fallen and can’t get out?
Can we as a nation go to the new green with our children? It starts by getting away from more and going to what is RIGHT!
The President and his Secretary of Education can spend all the old green they want. They will continue to black hole our children until they spend money on re-educating and re-acculturating parents, grandparents and teachers that there is no greater natural resource we need to save than our children’s hearts and desires to learn, including those now in college.
What could you possibly want your granddaughter to learn by the time she is four that can’t wait until five?
The change starts with each of us. Green is the color of the day. Which green still drives you? That question is directed to everyone who has a chance of saving a child.
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Pat On The Back v. Helping
April 28, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
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Dear Dr. Fournier: I was just
reading your article in the Examiner on parenting
and I agree basically with your approach. With no
parenting qualifying degrees, me and my late
husband raised four offspring and are proud of
them as adults.
I have seen the problems and the problems are us parents and grandparents who don't have a clue that we should be in charge, and how to be in charge to achieve the outcome that is wholesome and produces productive adults in the end. I am currently volunteering on a project here in Little Rock with the "Children’s Defense Fund" to host a summit on the "Cradle to prison pipeline.” As we outline action plans, I want to do the parenting piece. I have been trying to find monies for one of the finest grassroots, systemic, world class parenting initiatives launched. What do you know of resources and or foundations that could be helpful |
The Assessment: First, congratulations on your achievement. As proud as you are, your success is the result of your capacity to parent by living through disappointments, fear, pain, joy and every other emotion imaginable that every parent knows too well.
A parent is the CEO of their child’s education. However, this is far easier for some parents to do than others facing barriers you don’t know because you have never faced them. For many families today the problem is that parents and grandparents do not know they should be, nor how they should be, these CEOs.
However, to say that your solutions to the parenting issues you faced are THE solution for all parents clearly indicates that that you have not yet had a true grassroots experience.
Grassroots movements know that we do not find answers in the grass – we find them in the roots.
You will never know what systemic changes must be made to help all parents be CEOs until you are willing to know what you don’t know about the roots that love as you do yet laws and regulations keep them from food, water and sunlight.
It is clear that to attempt systemic change you must know where the external systems fail and become barriers to parents so that they one day can say, “I did it! I raised my children to give and have hope,” as your children have.
What To Do: Look at your title. Is this a conference title that says to parents, “Come to a safe place to get the tools to parent your child to success?”
Who is your audience? Is it parents? If so, I would not go. I would know you have already pre-judged me and that you think you are saving my children from me! Is your audience the very political agents who must change the laws? If so, is this for self-serving reasons – let’s save ourselves from the evildoers?
First, I strongly recommend you train in grassroots participation and leadership. You cannot give people your shoes to walk in as the solution to all their ills. However, you could walk in theirs and find out why you were successful and they were not.
Ask yourself if you want a conference to have a platform to tell your success story or if you want a conference so more parents can have success stories. Organizations will be hard pressed to fund chatter sessions that make the righteous feel more righteous.
For funding organizations I suggest you research the William T. Grant Foundation and The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. In addition, refer to Education Week, on line edition, March 16, 2009, “Education Philanthropy Catching a Chill as Economy Cools Charitable Giving,” which includes a table of the nation’s 10 wealthiest foundations. By researching each of these you may find the one that funds what you are interested in: grassroots research and development, systemic change, and/or national conferences.
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Documentary Shows Disparity In Education
March 10, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
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Dear Dr. Fournier: I have a 13-year old son and an 11-year old daughter in the public school system. They are making good grades, As and Bs. I thought they were doing fine until at a recent parent-teacher conference, we watched the movie, “Two Million Minutes.” Now I’m worried that their As and Bs mean nothing. Have you seen this movie? What do you think about it? What advice can you give on this? |
The Assessment: 2 Million Minutes is Robert Compton’s documentary on the tsunami of global literacy being led by India and China. It infers children in the United States school systems are less concerned with learning and more concerned with sports and social activities. The inference is that our decades-old education model is not working, which is what I’ve been saying for many years.
I have worked with students for 30 years and I see A and B students every day that have learned nothing. They memorize well but they can’t apply what they’ve memorized. Their parents see this and bring them to me because I teach children how to become the CEOs and visionaries of their own education, how to set goals for themselves, and how to mesh their talents with their passions. This is what India and China seem to be teaching, based on my interpretation of his documentary, and what we are not teaching in our school systems.
These children I counsel do not know how to plan their future with even the slightest research, imagination or wisdom since many a career they are contemplating will soon disappear or doesn’t pay the six-figure salary they thought it did.
An A means nothing if a child cannot take what he or she has learned an apply it to create new knowledge.
I congratulate Compton. Someone in this country finally asked the “right” question: Is the U.S. school system educating our current and future generations to know how to collaborate and work with the global economy/community? Compton’s documentary reveals how well China and India, emerging super powers, are educating their future leaders. Above all, he infers that countries interested in progress, and in the future of their children, are not using the U.S. school system as a role model for education. WHY? Because our model no longer works and each day we delay creating a new one, we are teaching our children to be the laborers for these new emerging superpowers.
Compton was motivated to search further when he realized that first graders in India and China had aspirations. As a result, he continued his efforts with two more documentaries, 2 Million Minutes In India, A Deeper Look, and 2 Million Minutes In China, A Deeper Look.
What To Do: Go back to your parent-teacher association and suggest your group watch these additional two documentaries then recommend all three be shown to the students. Start a dialog at parent-teacher meetings about things at your children’s school that need to change so that they not only keep up with this global literacy movement but that they get ahead of it and if need be, draft suggestions for change that your parent-teacher group can present to the school administration and to your local school board as well as to political/community leaders.
After your children have seen all three documentaries, sit down with them and discuss them. Then ask your children what their goals for their lives are and if they do not have any yet, start the process now. Have them research the fields they may want to go into.
Make sure your children are applying what they have “learned” for those good grades. Ask them to demonstrate to you how they might apply their knowledge. And remember, you ultimately are responsible as the parent for making sure they get the education they need to be the CEO of their successful adult life.
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2010 Education budget proposal
March 03, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
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Dear Dr. Fournier: President Obama’s education section of the 2010 budget to me just says more money for more testing. Why can he not see testing and standards cannot take the place of learning and knowledge? |
The Assessment: The following excerpt is taken from Obama’s recent budget proposal under the category of education:
“Strengthens and reforms public schools to meet the needs of all students, by helping States to develop high quality, rigorous standards and assessments, vigorously supporting and rewarding effective teaching, and investing in and widely disseminating effective approaches to improving student achievement to help all students make progress toward high standards.”
I had such hope when he was elected that he would actually bring about the change he promised, yet these words are just more political “lyrics” put to music and sung as powerfully as Aretha Franklin sang at his inauguration.
They render the illusion that our values, hopes and dreams as American citizens finally deserve action rather than lip service, and a firm promise rather than rhetoric, yet this is what we got: lip service and rhetoric with a big chunk of money to keep alive an antiquated education model rather than creating a new education paradigm.
His words from that same speech to Congress are as superficially heart-throbbing as the others:
“In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer a way to opportunity, it is a pre-requisite.”
Yet, in the context of education, what is knowledge?
What To Do: What we need to do is make sure children are learning to use the strategy, Data-Info-Knowledge™.
Data is what a teacher gives a student. There are two types of data: what we can change and what we cannot.
I must take the data and covert it to Information. Recently, a couple brought me their son, who is having a problem with math, for testing. He has a grade of C- and I can change that. I cannot change that he is 10 years old or the problems in the home and from outside influences. Until I can express in my own words the data that has been given to me, I am a person who happens to know nothing unique.
Students go to school not to receive knowledge but to receive data (a skill perfected in elementary school). Teaching to standardized tests does nothing but show the level to which a child can memorize data and nothing more.
When children acquire the skills to access data on their own, they must enter into the process of creating their own information (a skill introduced in elementary school but weighted much less, and mastered by the end of middle school). It is at this point that our children begin creating their own Knowledge.
When a child merely recalls on tests or aloud what teachers have said, he/she is merely recalling data and someone else’s information. It is never their knowledge. Knowledge had to come from them. That is the crossroad all future students and workers must come to.
I am sick of hearing the counterfeit phrase, “Knowledge is power.” It is not!
We are living in an era of the redistribution of power and wealth, which I first stated was happening at least 20 years ago. I also said at that time the phrase should actually be, “He or She Who Creates New Knowledge Will Rule And Lead the Rest.”
This is what other countries are doing and it would be wise for President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to demand a new education paradigm based on this.
As I have often heard, “The person who knows how will always be needed, but the person who knows why will always be the boss.”
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District of Crisis
February 24, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
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Dear Dr. Fournier: I frequently read with interest your articles that appear in the Corpus Christi Caller Times. I, too, am involved in education, having attended and taught school and served on a school board for many years. I now am on a college board. I continuously look for solutions to our present problems in education, especially in public schools. I just read your article about Michelle Rhee where you said she had the “near impossible” task of fixing the D.C. public school system. What is your solution? |
The Assessment: I did say Ms. Rhee faces a near impossible battle to win, that of “fixing” the DC public school system but our educational system is doing the job that it was created for, that of teaching the minimum knowledge and work ethic needed for the Industrial Era. The problem is that we are far removed from the Industrial Era yet we’re still teaching the that era’s ethic: memorization (for rote tasks on an assembly line); following a job description or process to the letter (the company’s way of doing it, even though you know a better, quicker or less costly way); how to compete with co-workers to win the best employee award (obedience award); the sense that once you get a job with a company, you’re entitled to it for life so you can coast (called “having paid your dues”); and that you should not question things and leave your solutions and creativity at home (called “don’t rock the boat” so you won’t be labeled a troublemaker).
Even though the Industrial Era ethic has no way of taking this country forward in this new millennium, the same work ethic is still being beaten into our kids. And they are sending us the urgent message that they are ahead of their teachers, administrators and our politicians though the Internet, Facebook, and so much more. They know the world has changed and what teachers are teaching them is as outdated as the prison system schools from which this foolish content is disseminated.
What To Do: For some unexplainable reason, this nation thinks it could fix a broken horse and buggy and then go win a NASCAR race!
While the horse and buggy is an important part of history, it no longer meets the population’s need for an effective/efficient mode of transportation. So, you can’t fix the horse and buggy so that it will work for today’s need. You have to create and build new models. This is the case with our school system, so it is not broken, just outdated like the horse and buggy.
Until we can as a nation change what the product of education needs to be, not memorization, not teaching to the test, not studying, not learning, but knowing, our kids’ next challenge will be to find a country still willing to employ obsolete minds. You can’t create a product, service or machine until you have had the courage to define the need not yet known. Steve Jobs/Apple did this with the iPod. He didn’t try and fix the 8-track.
Bronowski in “The Ascent of Man” says the genius is not the person who gives the right answer. It is the person who asks the right question. The question is, “How can you expect to fix an Industrial Era school system to produce workers for a Creative/ Synergetic Era?”
The answer is so simple, it’s embarrassing: You can’t. Unfortunately Dinosaurs still rule in the United States. In other countries they never had the Dinosaurs to contend with so their children’s minds are being taught to rule. Cowardice to tear down a horse and buggy unionized school system is the root of all evil and the solution is to build a new model of transportation, not try and fix the old one.
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Red-Shirting At Kindergarten Level
April 21, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: Pre-School
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Dear Dr. Fournier: My daughter is contemplating keeping her 3 yr. old from starting kindergarten at age 5. She’s in a lottery-based, pre-K program for 4 yr. olds. If he doesn’t win entry into the pre-K program, he will then have 2 yrs. before kindergarten (starting at age 6, instead). This pre-K is extremely academic. Children are learning such things as the States, etc., and, it’s expensive. Do you have any advice on red-shirting boys for kindergarten? |
The Assessment: From beginnings in college sports, coaches red-shirted an athlete to keep the player from playing for a year, most notably to give the athlete time to gain physical and cognitive as well as emotional maturity.
The term has been pushed down to pre-schoolers whose parents must decide whether to put their children in kindergarten at the age of five or wait to give them a developmental advantage.
The reason a five-year-old would need a developmental advantage in kindergarten is because it’s no longer designed for five-year-olds.
It’s structured to please researchers and educators who think the solution to our educational system’s failure is to get to kids sooner. They have colluded in convincing parents that pre-school and kindergarten are the places to set firm foundations to prepare your child for college. What nonsense!
This concept has become so accepted as fact that even bright people with common sense are drones in the belief that if your child is not reading by kindergarten either you are a failure or something is wrong with your child.
You can see this in the volume of over-prescribed addictive medication and the proliferation of special education classes to correct what natural development and appropriate expectations would have done on their own. Had I not lived the reality of this myself many times over, I might have become a Stepford Wife to the “more, and sooner, is better” curriculum.
Can children sustain the pressure of a pushed-down curriculum? Yes, in the same way girls who have started their menstrual cycles at age 11 can tolerate a pregnancy at that age.
What To Do: Children have different ages: Chronological, physiological, psychological, emotional, education-learning ready, cognitive, social (with known children), socialization (with new adults and new children), experiential, language skills, spiritual, empathetic, sensorimotor, listening for directions, new challenges and more.
After visiting the classroom in which you plan to place your child, ask yourself whether you feel he/she is “age appropriate” in the majority of the categories above. If yes, just understand that your child is in development and will continue to develop. Once in school, indicate to the teacher any areas of concern but take care to do so in a positive way and not a negative one. The good thing about pre-school is that should you believe you have made a mistake, you can pull your child out at any time without it being in their record.
If you do not believe your child is ready in most of the categories, then your answer is clearly red-shirt.
By the way, placing a child in a school of any level without visiting it is like buying a gold mine off the promise there’s gold in those hills. You’d better inspect it first to make sure it’s not fool’s gold.
And, if you pull a child out, ask yourself if maybe you had excessive expectations before you look to a problem with the child. Should your child do well, that’s great for you and the child. If not, don’t get discouraged. Some of the world’s great leaders and thinkers were late bloomers, even failures before great success (President Abraham Lincoln).
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