5 ms·

our individual experiences are greatly different. I'm right next door to you in NJ, an hour train ride. I have a daughter now in 2nd grade, a son in public pr

our individual experiences are greatly different. I'm right next door to you in NJ, an hour train ride. I have a daughter now in 2nd grade, a son in public pre-k (special needs with autism), and a son in private pre-k. all three kids have absolutely learned a ton from pre-k. im always surprised at the things they know and talk about that i know they obviously learned there since i never taught it to them. both the public and private are very much in lined with your "its insect unit time" blurb above from my experience. to my children it has really kept them engaged. before i put my first kid into pre-k i said to my wife "well i don't care what they learn, i just want them to go and have fun and socialize" and she was the opposite and argued we should find a place that also emphasizes "kindergarten readiness" (whatever that is). as things would have it, she won. it was hard to argue against it since my parents didn't send me to pre-k or anything and i wasn't accepted into kindergarten my first go at it.

sixstringtheory 5y ago
I didn’t know there were qualifications beyond age and maybe the absence of a diagnosis. What else is there for public kindergarten?
- flatiron 5y ago
  in NJ kindergarten isn't mandated. so they can just nope you out of it. you would then either pay for private, get diagnosed with X to go into special needs kindergarten, or wait it out until 1st grade. i was put in special needs and was integrated the beginning of 4th grade. as far as the test i don't remember what they did for me. my daughter breezed through it like it was nothing and obviously it seemed very basic to me lol!
giantrobot 5y ago
I think your wife's position captures the most important education aspect of pre-K: socialization. If kids can learn to share, communicate needs, and get used to schedules that's a huge boost for vast numbers of kids before getting to real school. Just being away from their parents for a while is an important adaptation for school. Consider a child with either far younger siblings or no siblings dumped into Kindergarten. They may not have any helpful social skills. If they have to spend their time learning them they're not learning actual education topics. It doesn't matter if the pre-K time was spent on bullshit lessons about insects or whatever. So long as the kids get to socialize and get a safe and relatively structured environment they're going to be far better equipped for school.
ryanobjc 5y ago
I live in hippy dippy trippy California, and I think we have it right here: preschool is about teaching/practicing kids social play skills and emotional literacy. In the 'nuclear family' age, without a ton of kids to play with, it's important for children to socialize, and learn how to negotiate play successfully, without resorting to kicking and punching and so on. Learning to identify feelings, take actions on them, etc. It's a lifelong course, so it's not being 'solved' in pre-school. In terms of curricula, yeah there's some stuff, but sometimes that curricula is "play in the dirt" and "lets find bugs". It's also a coop pre-school, so I attend the classroom, which is very awesome.

sixstringtheory 5y ago

I didn’t know there were qualifications beyond age and maybe the absence of a diagnosis. What else is there for public kindergarten?

flatiron 5y ago
in NJ kindergarten isn't mandated. so they can just nope you out of it. you would then either pay for private, get diagnosed with X to go into special needs kindergarten, or wait it out until 1st grade. i was put in special needs and was integrated the beginning of 4th grade. as far as the test i don't remember what they did for me. my daughter breezed through it like it was nothing and obviously it seemed very basic to me lol!

giantrobot 5y ago

I think your wife's position captures the most important education aspect of pre-K: socialization. If kids can learn to share, communicate needs, and get used to schedules that's a huge boost for vast numbers of kids before getting to real school. Just being away from their parents for a while is an important adaptation for school. Consider a child with either far younger siblings or no siblings dumped into Kindergarten. They may not have any helpful social skills. If they have to spend their time learning them they're not learning actual education topics. It doesn't matter if the pre-K time was spent on bullshit lessons about insects or whatever. So long as the kids get to socialize and get a safe and relatively structured environment they're going to be far better equipped for school.

ryanobjc 5y ago

I live in hippy dippy trippy California, and I think we have it right here: preschool is about teaching/practicing kids social play skills and emotional literacy. In the 'nuclear family' age, without a ton of kids to play with, it's important for children to socialize, and learn how to negotiate play successfully, without resorting to kicking and punching and so on. Learning to identify feelings, take actions on them, etc. It's a lifelong course, so it's not being 'solved' in pre-school. In terms of curricula, yeah there's some stuff, but sometimes that curricula is "play in the dirt" and "lets find bugs". It's also a coop pre-school, so I attend the classroom, which is very awesome.