Tempting the kids to read.
Aug. 14th, 2004 07:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsI have discovered temptations needed to make the girls read. For Kouryou-chan, the temptation was perfect: the lyrics to this song. She spent all day reading the paper over and over and over. Y'know, she's eligible for state-sponsored kindergarten next year. She can already read for content. What the Hell would they do with a kid like her? But now I have to live with her singing it over and over.
For Yamaarashi-chan, the temptation was even better. Uninhabited Planet Survive is a Japanese anime targetted at the same age group that watches Yu-Gi-Oh and those silly things, but it's more mature and much less pointless. The basic story is a group of young kids, some middle school, some high school, are marooned on a distant planet and have to survive. The characters are predictable-- sort of-- and it's a fun show. The Japanese is right about where I am in my lessons, so it's excellent practice for me. And the subtitles are just fast enough that Yamaarashi-chan can read them and follow along, if she works at it. And she wants to. We've watched the first six episodes over the past week and had a good time doing so.
For Yamaarashi-chan, the temptation was even better. Uninhabited Planet Survive is a Japanese anime targetted at the same age group that watches Yu-Gi-Oh and those silly things, but it's more mature and much less pointless. The basic story is a group of young kids, some middle school, some high school, are marooned on a distant planet and have to survive. The characters are predictable-- sort of-- and it's a fun show. The Japanese is right about where I am in my lessons, so it's excellent practice for me. And the subtitles are just fast enough that Yamaarashi-chan can read them and follow along, if she works at it. And she wants to. We've watched the first six episodes over the past week and had a good time doing so.
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Date: 2004-08-14 08:00 pm (UTC)Hell is not too far off. She's got good enough bullshit detectors that she might get by... or they might try to force Ritalin on her. I don't know what the state of the indoctrination centers is down there, but if it was me, I'd be doing everything I could to see that she went elsewhere. Heck, if you need me to come down and run a bake sale, I'll do it.
I look at it this way. When I'm old enough to retire, she'll be old enough to run for President... and I want the best President we can get. Call it enlightened self-interest.
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Date: 2004-08-14 10:51 pm (UTC)But maybe the whole business is at the roots of how my life turned out.
So, yeah, be careful. Look to what choices you have. Because this is maybe the most important choice you'll have next year. Makes even Presidential elections a bit trivial.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-15 09:48 am (UTC)FWIW, the differene between having it be a disaster and an incredibly enriching experience depends on how the school experience is "framed" in her mind.
My daughter just finished a year of public school kindergarten in the same state as you (we're in Port Townsned, which is probably rather different in "feel"). By far *MOST* of the work of they year had nothing to do with being able to read, although reading is certainly encouraged. Most of the work involved learning to fit in with a group, to sit still in the sit-still activities and to do whatever activity was required for the activity times. A lot of work was put into learning to be part of groups, to do things that aren't "what I want right now" but rather, "what the class wants".
What DD found hardest, I think, was that the activity blocks were about 10-15 minutes long. Her attention span is more in the hour-or-two range (as a reasonable block of activity) so she eneded up very frustrated when she was interrupted at what felt to her like the very beginning of a time-block.
Another important issue covered in Kindergarten is "dealing with people who are very different".
There were wonderful parts of the year, don't get me wrong. And my daughter loved-loved-loved her teacher. But there were two things that bothered me: first, she started throwing about four tantrums a day, every day. Second, she entirely lost interest in playing with friends and refused all play-dates.
About the tantrums: she'd always been high strung, but this was ridiculous (and horrible). And it was in response to such unreasonable demands as wearing shoes or brushing teeth. We even went to a parenting class, hoping to find some solution (Love and Logic... ...it helped us discuss some differences in our parenting style and gave us some good laughs, but didn't change a thing about the tantrums). Once a policeman showed up at our door while she was screaming and hollering: the neighbors called 911, because they thought our daugher was in serious trouble. (We don't hit our children. Ever. We asked the officer in and introduced him to still-screaming daughter...) and once a neighbor came into our back yard to see for herself why she was screaming. It was rather mortifying.
The absolute lack of desire to play with other kids was also a big problem. My guess is that she's an introvert, like the rest of us, and just had ENOUGH of being around other people with the full-day schedule.
Both issues ceased completely on the day school was out. We have seen NO tantrums since June 9th (yes, I'm counting) and she has been delighted to play with other kids.
And finally, my response to all this has been to sign her up for an "alternative, most-of-the-study-happening-at-home" school program. I think the school she would have gone to is an excellent one, but I just won't risk her going through another year of tantrums and no-social-life.
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Date: 2004-08-15 10:36 am (UTC)Kouryou-chan just doesn't learn that way, and we realized that early on. Right now the preschool that she is going to (well, that she went to from January through June last year, and will go again in September...she isn't eligible for state-sponsored Kindergarten until September of 2005) is a private Montessori school, and she is thriving there. She has learned a lot there already, about how to interact with other children, managing her time, working in groups and alone, etc.
Unfortunately, even though this school is inexpensive as private schools go (it was put together by a bunch of parents), it is *still* more expensive even now, with her going half-time, then we can really afford. And it will be even more so when she goes full-time in 2005. We're not sure we can do it. Thus our worries about public school.
Because it's not just the idea of her going to public schools which, for the most part (not to bash alternative public schools which have tried, successfully, different methods), are Victorian hold-overs. But it's also that Kouryou-chan has already had a taste of a much better method that works very well for her, and I am terrified of the day that we have to send her to a public school such as this and watch her face as she realizes that this is all there is. Because I can see what happened to you happening to us. She *will* resent it.
She likes the freedom to learn at her own pace...she'll go in spurts, sometimes being uninterested in learning anything, then wanting to learn huge amounts of things in a short period of time. I want her to learn at the pace that works for her...not at the pace that works for a school board.
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Date: 2004-08-15 11:47 am (UTC)That is *exactly* what happened to my son. He eventually was diagnosed as having Asperger's Syndrome - what reality does that have? Could it be that what we saw was "merely" extreme withdrawal from an environment that bored him right out of the bounds of normal? This wasn't in the US, so I could not pull him out and find a better framework for him. In fact, it was only when I *did* manage to bring him here (custody; long story) when he was 11 that his symptoms vanished, more or less.
If the whole "learning how to do things the school's way" isn't important to you (and some parents find it very important; you just don't strike me as one of those), you'll find that homeschooling has grown and changed very much, over the years. It costs about the same as a private school, in terms of the soul-input one has to put into it, but the products of such an education are better at being social and far more in touch with their wants, needs, interests, and eventually, selves. That - or the not-quite-homeschooling-but-darned-near-it option that I chose - ends up nicer for the parents, too. It feels entirely different, having a six- or seven- or ten-year old learning at home than having the same kids or their younger, needier selves, at home under the guise of vacation. (Guise? yeah; they don't learn to entertain themselves and therefore often hang like millstones around the parents' necks. I have a hunch that you're not one of THOSE parents, either...)
How do we say "your family is in my prayers" in a New Age way? whatever, that's what I mean.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-15 12:56 pm (UTC)Greetings, troll...
Date: 2004-08-16 04:03 pm (UTC)Hmm...there's a few assumptions you've made here. First, you seem to have assumed that Elf doesn't want to send his older daughter to a private school. Actually, he would like to send Yamaarashi-chan to private school as well as Kouryou-chan if he could, and if he could afford to.
Your second assumption is that Elf has the right to decide what school Yamaarashi-chan goes to. He doesn't. According to the parenting plan, he and her mother have joint-decision making rights with regards to educational decisions. However, in practice what it usually comes down to is that her mother makes decisions, and Elf gets to say afterwards whether he's happy or not (usually without much affect.) Further, the school that Yamaarashi-chan currently goes to her mother decided upon, without Elf's input (there's much more on that, but I won't go into it.) Therefore, Elf *cannot* treat Yamaarashi-chan equal to Kouryou-chan. Yamaarashi-chan's mother is not Kouryou-chan's mother. Yamaarashi-chan's mother's opinion and ideas about what she wants her daughter to do (how much she is willing to pay for it) are vastly different from mine. And Elf's rights with respect to decisions regarding Yamaarashi-chan are different from his rights with respect to decisions regarding Kouryou-chan. Perhaps you should educate yourself a little further by reading a few books about the differences in raising children that live in two different households...like I have.
Elf's "grousing", as you put it, about Yamaarashi-chan's school has to do with his (and my) irritation about a particular religion being subtly taught to children under the guise of culture, because so many modern cultures don't understand that ancient cultures melded their religions as part of their cultures...you can't teach one without teaching the other. It bothered us that she would say that she could go to Bear and ask Him to take her troubles away and they would go away. All one would have to do would be to remove the bear skin she was standing in front of and replace it with a cross and the affect would be the same...but the response from people would be vastly different. And as for "frequent"...well, if you'd like to go back through his journal and show just how often you think "frequent" is, I'd be delighted to find out. I, however, have a life.
Are there any other accusatory comments you would like to say, Troll? Or perhaps you'd like to reveal who you are?
no subject
Date: 2004-08-15 11:33 pm (UTC)