The end of childhood

Prep courses ready kids for kindergarten

• Almost all researchers are critical of lessons that require children to sit at desks, complete worksheets or memorize words. They say hands-on learning and learning through play are the way to go -- for example, play-acting stories, singing rhymes, assembling puzzles.

  Sylvan insists it does that. "We don't want to supplant childhood," which is why the company doesn't accept 3-year-olds, says Richard Bavaria, Sylvan's chief academic officer.

I've already written about this, but I guess raising kids at home isn't new, thrilling, or income-generating so it doesn't make the papers.

Comments

[Valerie]

Just a follow-up re: the need for kids to jump on the educational treadmill as early in their lives as possible.

Today's overscheduled kids need time to do nothing, experts say
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/living/12112657.htm
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The result: more high achievers who can stick to a schedule but may have a hard time thinking outside the box.

"What we see here at Duke and many elite universities is kids consulting their calendars every half-hour because they always have to be at a different place," he said. "How much critical learning, how much reflective thought is going into that life?"

The casualty, he said, can be happiness.

"There is a danger that you do things simply to get yourself to the next stage, and you fail to appreciate the worth of what you are doing now. Then the next stage becomes a launching pad to the one after that. It's an endless cycle."
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[Beverly]

Ahhh...the economic nothingness of being a stay-at-home parent. THAT'S what it all boils down to. You're just sitting around playing with blocks and going cukoo because you don't have any innnnterrrrestink adults to talk to, so, you have no worth. You are not being productive, you are not contributing. You are a possible liability as HOW MANY stories are their about mothers offing their children?? Or not wathching their children?? Or their children offing each other??

Sorry, went off the deep end. But I think you have nailed it that economics is behind much of the askance looks given to a parent who stays home.