Any advice on this matter would be appreciated. I have two children, ages 3 and 7. My 3 year old is in a federally funded preschool and her teacher is saying she needs to be coded now for elementary school. I know funding will get cut to this program if a certain number of kids aren\'t coded each year. I\'m torn between if she needs to be coded truly or if she\'s part of the quota. My seven year old\'s school tells us not to work with her outside of school. Yet they won\'t let her read at her actual level in school. It\'s a public school so all of her arts exploration she gets from my husband and myself. She dances, acts in community theatre, and explores different art mediums with me. (I was supposed to be a fine arts major with a minor in english lit. and writing. I took a year off after high school and fell in love with the fire service. So now I\'m a very safe stay at home mom. LOL) She used to play piano (still does sometimes.) but her teachers last year said it wasn\'t in her best interests. However, her music teacher at school still wants her to play. He says vocally and instrumentally, she\'s very strong. So, I have two opinions that I\'m torn between. One- that an arts education is unimportant and doesn\'t benefit her academics. And two- that any sort of art exposure is quite beneficial to academics. Any advice or links to sites would be great. Even just opinions. From the posts I\'ve seen, you all seem intelligent.
Take care and be safe.
coding won\'t hurt your 3 year old - but get your 7 year old the hell out of that school! i would seriously consider talking to someone who does human interest and education pieces for your home paper - we need to show what the funding crisis is doing to the potential of our children, they are our only future; you have a classic example here.
for your 7 year old\'s sake, get her into something enriching, even if it means you have to go back to work to afford it. the benefits of staying at home (especially when your 3 year old has already entered into an educational program) are not high enough to offset the damage being done to your kids.
check out Montessouri or Waldorf schools in your area, which may be less money than most private schools and they have generally good programs - some are excellent actually.
My husband and I looked into a Montesorri school three towns over and they only offer pre-K and kindergarten. Additionally, he doesn\'t want me to work as he wants me to be the largest influence on our children. He feels I have more invested, emotionally, physically, etc. than any one else would. And the school our little one is in is two mornings each week with her teacher coming to our home one hour each week. It\'s very difficult watching my older daughter struggle with the curriculum. Hopefully, I don\'t offend. If I do, my apologies. This is just my opinion. No Child Left Behind is doing a great disservice to some of our brightest children. It teaches to the averages and doesn\'t even really help the kids who have difficulty learning. And it does nothing for the kids who work higher than grade level. What were people thinking in November?
no child left behind is a crock - and with the new improved budget hacking it will be impossible for people to deny what\'s happening any longer.
all due respect to your husband - he needs to take a good look at what is going on with your children and make some adjustments. it would be an ideal thing if you could stay home all the time for the kids and for yourself if you\'re a creative person - but your children\'s education is suffering and will only get worse. you may be the most wonderful person in the world, but the fact is that the majority of your older child\'s time is spent in a school that is damaging her. soon, your youngest will have to follow suit unless you two make a few changes in your educational options and likely that will only come about through greater funding on your own part because the government doesn\'t give a tinker\'s damn about kids. they know rich kids will always get a good education and the way to keep the rest of the population under their thumb is to control their lives through poor education and financial strangulation.
One thing we\'re considering is home schooling for both. There are a ton of homeschoolers in our area and a lot of resources. However, my in-laws heard the federal government is looking to place restrictions on home schooling. My husband wants to homeschool through elementary and do middle and high school at an alternative school here and in Vermont. Has anyone else heard about these restrictions?
There seems to be an ingredient missing in the current discussion on " intelligent Education"..... namely , the child. We assume that the little "nippers " come into the world as a lump of clay to be molded and formed by committe.... Mom, Dad, and the educational institutions. Not so ! These rascals possess astounding potential that unfolds and developes in spite of us. We take too much credit and too much blame for the outcome. Several of my offspring thanked me later in life for leaving them the" hell alone." Of course, not one of them became a brain surgeon.. DOD
i haven\'t heard about any such restrictions - but it is well worth looking into. i know there are many kids who have benefited from homeschooling and many who do not.
DOD is right that we haven\'t brought up your child\'s preference, and i understand the young Dickerson\'s point of view, however, they were most likely the beneficiaries of a school system graced with many more enrichment programs such as music and art - i\'m of a similar vintage and when we came to the states not only did i have that sort of education available, my parents were encouraged to participate in my education, not told to not work with me outside of school. DOD, you\'re from an educating background so i am sure you understand the value of a system that doesn\'t shut a child\'s nature down.
vermont does have some good schools available - in fact i would highly recommend the Putney School if your child has interests and temperment to suit. my son went there for several programs in the summers, but they also have very good year round programs.
this article may be of interest on the subject of art and education: http://geocities.com/milesmathis/ghog.html
gkg, you are psychic! putney is my daughter\'s choice. she\'s VERY upset they don\'t have elementary there. we went there for a friend\'s graduation and she loved it. as far as her interests, she ultimately wants to become a schoolteacher. but, as she says, not the kind who tells kids not to work so hard. she likes to play with art in all its forms, she loves acting in theatre productions, she loves dance (mainly ballet), she loves skiing with her ski team, and she loves to go outside into the yard and just sit. she\'ll sit for an hour at a time. at first, she just closes her eyes and listens, then she\'ll look for the sounds and watch the animals, birds, insects, whatever. oh and star, she loves star, the horse she takes riding lessons on. her dream in life is to own star. she likes to write stories about everything you can imagine. she\'s amazing. she has her likes and dislikes about school. she likes being with the other children and interacting with other people. but she always says it\'s too easy. when it\'s too easy she daydreams and gets in trouble. when we brought up homeschooling, she liked the idea. her only worry was being around other kids, when, how, etc. if we went strictly academic, she would be homeschooled. but, she\'s so social we worry she would miss that piece.
homeschooling does sound great to keep her from hearing what she heard at school last year. they were discussing the election which we had explained but not discussed at length with her yet. when bush was brought up, she said \'i don\'t like him. he\'s a bad man.\' her teacher told her she couldn\'t say that about our president. she said that was how she felt and was sent to the principal. on the way out she told her teacher that bush was a bad man because he made her friend\'s daddy go to iraq and now he was hurt and her friend couldn\'t see him. so i got a call to go to school. i went in and told them i wouldn\'t punish her. they were so angry. i don\'t feel she should have used the tone she did but she felt strongly about and believed in what she was saying. i don\'t want that spirit broken or lost. i want her to always sneak her piggy bank out of the house because someone at school was hungry at lunchtime. sorry this is so long but she\'s so multifaceted you can\'t describe her in a few words. my husband calls her \'beautiful soul\' sometimes and you can kind of see why. she\'s very passionate about everything she does and will not do anything halfway.
feed her soul! she sounds delightful to me!!
i do worry about the socialization and the fact that in order to learn to care about and interact with others you have to be exposed to them.
explore your options as best you can and keep fighting the school - join the PTA if they have one, bring these things to the attention of other parents and try to build awareness among them of the damage that can be done by a school that refuses children the right to express a differing opinion.
in my day i went to a new school each year - not something i recommend but it gave me a broad basis of comparison for what was done back then - as you might guess i was very like your daughter in that i stood up for my opinion and it was often more left wing than my teachers\'. generally, what i got was not shut down, but told how i might voice the opinion more succinctly, more politely, or my favorite from a very conservative teacher -he outlined how to debate a topic from either side and recommended that when i got into higher grades i might join a debate team if it was available. at one school in jr high i did and i enjoyed it. the following year at high school we didn\'t have such a thing so i relished what i\'d had all the more.
well, we pulled her from that school last spring. she\'s in a different school in the district now. our only problem really is the curriculum. i guess they have to teach to the majority though. it\'s hard to imagine but when she was in kindergarten, i went in to volunteer in her classroom. it was the first week of school and her teacher asked me to read to this little boy. it turns out this six year old boy had never been read to before that week. his kindergarten teacher was the first person to read to him. the poor little beggar couldn\'t get enough of it and followed the lady around asking \'won\'t you do that again?\' to get anything done she had parent volunteers read to him. it\'s a sad story but funny in a joyful way. if you could have seen him. he\'d sit right on your lap and be transfixed. i couldn\'t imagine not reading to and with my kids. they expect it but to him it was pure joy. he moved away but i hope wherever he is, someone\'s reading him books. or maybe he learned himself. sorry, tangent. i do that.
reading is such a wonderful gift - i don\'t know why parents don\'t realize that. some i suppose "don\'t have time" or perhaps don\'t know how? i dunno.
reading is so key to opening a child\'s mind - to everything from music, through the sound of one\'s voice and the magic of words and imagery, to science through the marvels of spiders and make believe. my kids used to ask for books for Christmas, even when they got interested in other things - books still were at the top of the list.
if you have issues with the corriculum the only thing you can do is get active = try to bring the teachers and if need be the school boards up to date on what you think is in vital need for change. when you pick your issues and work diplomatically it really can make a difference to get active with the school.
yeah, the sad part is the teachers and school board want the changes and the city council won\'t fund them. they\'ll find out this november that a lot of taxpayers are unhappy with the current council. out of six councilors, five of them are probably going to go. there\'s one councilor who says flat out he will never support the schools because of something to do with a boiler forty years ago. LOL! don\'t ask me what happened. i don\'t have a clue, the current school board doesn\'t have a clue, and if you ask him, he hems and haws before saying \'well, something happened!\' LOL!
gkg, do you know about the music on the site?
gkg, i\'d love to visit more about this (and lots of other things!) but i have to go make dinner and supervise homework. take care and be safe! also feel free to email me, if you\'d like. :)
Any school that doesn\'t encourage parental involvement is doing something wrong! I also believe that the arts are a major part of learning and something that will stay with your kids throughout their lives. I feel blessed that I have my children in a public Montessori school. It\'s not perfect, they still have to take the horrible state tests put forth by "every child left behind" but their school is far better at dealing with testing than most others that i see. Down here in FL we
have a large home schooled population and it works very well. I haven\'t heard anything about problems for home schoolers and I doubt it could
ever be enforced, there are so many reasons people home school. I don\'t know what your personal options are but I would find a different school if possible and definitely continue with as much arts as possible.
Stuffy, I assume by posting the inquiry that you take seriously your children\'s future and realize how incredibly important it effects their future. Please DO take this seriously, because I believe it\'s more important than 99% realize.
To start, I HIGHLY recommend you check out the material of John Taylor Gatto. He was teacher of the year in New York 3 times before quitting out of frustration for how bad the compulsory educational system is (not just the public, but most of the private, too). His book is free online:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/index.htm - his most comprehensive book, free online... ;)
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history1.htm
Some audio speeches can be found online, as well:
http://www.radio4all.net/dl.php/johngottomixdown.mp3?file_id=15100&protocol=http&
http://www.abc.net.au/perth/stories/m955290.ram
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=search&nav=&session=&searchtext=gatto
The first audio link is a lecture given to homeschoolers if I recall correctly.
Check it out, and please let me know what you think. No matter what you decide, learn about the history of the American educational system (based off the Prussian model) and make the best choice you feel is right.
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PS - One last link, is a loaded 30min lecture given by a professor about marketing to children. It\'s DISGUSTING! For example, they have presonality associations to brand names now by the age of three! If you\'re interested, check it out.
http://www.radio4all.net/dl.php/91-1-20050309-juliet_schor.mp3?file_id=20801&protocol=http&
I don\'t have children yet, but please do let me know what you think...
- bhead51
Hey, it\'s been crazy here but wanted to post that my girl is settling in very well at her new school now. She found the art teacher and the music teacher and, as she puts it, they "get along". Her teacher is also older and more experienced than last year so she\'s much more supportive. She was stoked last week because she was chosen to demonstrate some art technique at the district wide education fair. She was the only one chosen from her class. She did a great job. Her confidence grows more each day. One way I see this is she finally cut her hair. The golden security blanket. She came home from school and said she wanted to give it to kids with no hair. So, Locks of Love will be receiving 13 inches of hair. I\'m happy to see her happy. And thanks for all the advice and opinions here. It was so kind of all of you. :)
Bhead51, thanks for the info. I will be checking it out tomorrow but I have to turn in now. It\'s almost midnight here and while I usually prowl all night, it was a rainy day and we splashed in a few too many puddles today. To all, try it! It never fails to make my kids and me laugh. Splash and splash while singing "Raindrops keep fallin\' on my head" or "Just singin\' and swingin\' in the rain". It\'ll even make the neighbors smile. I promise to check those links out tomorrow Bhead51. Thanks again! :)
hooorah for your daughter! i\'m very glad to know she\'s flourishing!!
jumping about in the rain is a marvelous antidote for many things. ;)
Unfortunately, I\'ve beat up my body enough that getting wet and cold is something I pay for days later. They had a blast, though. It\'s all good.