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I'm not saying it's a problem, just that you're gonna tend to have similar kids in a clump. That clump is gonna have some people ahead and some behind it. But t

I'm not saying it's a problem, just that you're gonna tend to have similar kids in a clump. That clump is gonna have some people ahead and some behind it. But the clump is gonna move at some sort of pace. > so no, plus or minus a year does not matter even for a 3 year old kid. Anyone who has kids is going to disagree with this.

em-bee 5y ago
i have kids. the age difference matters for the development of each individual kid, but it us rather useless as a measure to compare the development of different kids. in the first few years, the development of each kid is so different that no two kids of the same age are alike. you can have a four year old with the maturity of a two year old, or a three year old going on five. a wider age range allows children with the same level of maturity to play together regardless of the individual age. also younger kids learn from older kids with allows them to mature faster. this difference in maturity continues, but as the kids are older it just matters less, because the material being taught in school does not depend on the level of maturity but only on what they already learned regardless of how mature they are.
- lordnacho 5y ago
  This I can agree with. I benefited a lot from having older cousins around. At the moment I have a kid who is asking me about chemistry, and I can't just wait 5 years for him to get to that age where they teach people specifically chemistry (as opposed to general science). There's no reason I can't tell a 9 year old about valencies and that kind of thing, so why does school wait with it?
  - em-bee 5y ago
    i think once you go beyond the basics of math, reading and writing, the problem is to order all the remaining material into some sort of sequence, but it matters less what the actual sequence is. you could start with chemistry earlier, and anyone homeschooling may do just that, but this is going back to the exact problem that started this sub-thread: schools being designed to teach everyone at the same pace.
  - brimble 5y ago
    > There's no reason I can't tell a 9 year old about valencies and that kind of thing, so why does school wait with it? Not enough staff (teachers) to differentiate instruction that finely. A lot of stuff sounds like a great idea until you're looking at a classroom of 18-28 students and everyone else around you is trying to deal with a similar-sized class of their own. Special-ed kids might get help down to having one entire adult just to help and follow around that single kid all day (!) but there's no stomach for spending that kind of money to help kids who are ahead, or to reduce class sizes so regular classroom teachers can realistically do a better job of differentiation. Best most places get are very-part-time gifted programs.
gwd 5y ago
If GP meant "there's no difference", they're certainly wrong; a four-year-old is obviously 33% more advanced than a 3-year-old. But the question here was about socialization -- can a 3-year-old and a 4-year-old satisfy one another's needs for peer socialization? Is a 4-year-old who socializes with 3-year-olds and 5-year-olds but no other 4-year-olds being socially deprived somehow? I think the answer there is clearly "yes" and "no", respectively.
- em-bee 5y ago
  a four-year-old is obviously 33% more advanced than a 3-year-old that would require that all children develop at exactly the same pace which is simply not happening like that. see my other comment. i do agree with the socialization.

em-bee 5y ago

i have kids. the age difference matters for the development of each individual kid, but it us rather useless as a measure to compare the development of different kids. in the first few years, the development of each kid is so different that no two kids of the same age are alike. you can have a four year old with the maturity of a two year old, or a three year old going on five. a wider age range allows children with the same level of maturity to play together regardless of the individual age. also younger kids learn from older kids with allows them to mature faster. this difference in maturity continues, but as the kids are older it just matters less, because the material being taught in school does not depend on the level of maturity but only on what they already learned regardless of how mature they are.

lordnacho 5y ago
This I can agree with. I benefited a lot from having older cousins around. At the moment I have a kid who is asking me about chemistry, and I can't just wait 5 years for him to get to that age where they teach people specifically chemistry (as opposed to general science). There's no reason I can't tell a 9 year old about valencies and that kind of thing, so why does school wait with it?
- em-bee 5y ago
  i think once you go beyond the basics of math, reading and writing, the problem is to order all the remaining material into some sort of sequence, but it matters less what the actual sequence is. you could start with chemistry earlier, and anyone homeschooling may do just that, but this is going back to the exact problem that started this sub-thread: schools being designed to teach everyone at the same pace.
- brimble 5y ago
  > There's no reason I can't tell a 9 year old about valencies and that kind of thing, so why does school wait with it? Not enough staff (teachers) to differentiate instruction that finely. A lot of stuff sounds like a great idea until you're looking at a classroom of 18-28 students and everyone else around you is trying to deal with a similar-sized class of their own. Special-ed kids might get help down to having one entire adult just to help and follow around that single kid all day (!) but there's no stomach for spending that kind of money to help kids who are ahead, or to reduce class sizes so regular classroom teachers can realistically do a better job of differentiation. Best most places get are very-part-time gifted programs.

gwd 5y ago

If GP meant "there's no difference", they're certainly wrong; a four-year-old is obviously 33% more advanced than a 3-year-old. But the question here was about socialization -- can a 3-year-old and a 4-year-old satisfy one another's needs for peer socialization? Is a 4-year-old who socializes with 3-year-olds and 5-year-olds but no other 4-year-olds being socially deprived somehow? I think the answer there is clearly "yes" and "no", respectively.

em-bee 5y ago
a four-year-old is obviously 33% more advanced than a 3-year-old that would require that all children develop at exactly the same pace which is simply not happening like that. see my other comment. i do agree with the socialization.