Children and Education - More of your feedback Danuta from Canada tells of the perils of learning too early and the wonders of an unhindered imagination. “My daughter is six and a half and is just grasping to read. However, when she looks at books, she sees the pictures and makes up wonderful stories - all from her imagination. A friend of hers was "pushed" to read early - at two and a half years old. Whenever her friend opened a book, she "robotically" read the words - and had NO idea what the story was about, nor did she express an interest in ANY book. In fact, she saw the books I gave to my daughter for her birthday and said "Oh books - I hate books". This was at the tender age of five. Ask any decent teacher in the school system. If they ask students to write a story - the ones "pushed" to read early are stuck...they can't do it. Others who have had the option to read at their leisure, will use their wonderful imagination. Remember, reading and writing is NOT linked to intelligence. Imagination is a gift - keep it with your child as long as you possibly can!” “Where is the next Shakespeare to come from? “ asks Linda from Florida. “Why do your representatives in government mistrust free thought...from a five year old? Just a viewpoint from "the colonies," but I don't believe that the Brits have been accused of being a wild and crazy bunch since the days of the Roman empire. So why do you need all these rules? Thomas Jefferson, a guy who was born on our side of the Pond, said that the government that governs Best, governs Least.” Cameron @aol opposes this government intervention in education. “I myself have worked in day care centres and I can't begin to stress the importance of freeplay and exploring a child's environment. Most child psychologists would agree that it is wrong to put pressure on children to read at such a young age, but yet the government overrides these expert opinions and does things the way it believes is right. It is like something out of George Orwell's novel "1984"; forming little robots out of young, creative and individual minds. It is nice to know that someone such as yourself feels this way.” Glen and Marilyn from the States have opted for “homeschooling”: “You hit my soft spot. It's not only England. The USA is doing it too. Our family is homeschooling and getting great results with our children. The most common attack is "Are they socialized?". Our kids develop relations with people of all ages, gender, etc. based on natural interests and opportunities. They help guide the direction of their own education and learn at their own rates regardless of comparisons. It is our answer to government interference of our personal freedom and growth.” Susan from “down under” believes kids should avoid the stresses of being pushed into a “mini adulthood”. “I mirror your thoughts about pushing education onto the under fives. I am an adult teacher of computing, slightly left brained, but I still do not consider taking childhood away from our children as appropriate. What do we hope to achieve by advancing our academic skills at such an early age? Our children will suffer from information overload and stress at early ages. There is so much more to life than what the academics consider as necessary survival skills. Children need to live their early lives as children, not mini adults with all the pressures sometimes associated with adulthood. We need to encourage our children to be in touch with their inner selves, to have time to daydream, create, experience the wonder of life and attune their intuition. I see many adults who are striving to find something that comes so naturally to our children, they feel they have missed out on that special something along the way. Unfortunately, they don't know what they are looking for or how to find it. Their lives are so full and structured and they do not take the time to listen. Other adults, myself included, often feel overburdened by the responsibilities and constraints of adulthood, and seek solace by meditating and getting in touch with ourselves. I can only hope that parents will not allow their egos to burden their children with structured education during their pre-school years, and rob them of the rights to be a child. Please find the following email forwarded to me by a scientist friend. Adult Resignation I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult. I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of an eight year old again. I want to go to Burger King and think that it's a four star restaurant. I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make ripples with rocks. I want to think M&Ms are better than money because you can eat them. I want to lie under a big oak tree and run a lemonade stand with my friends on a hot summer's day. I want to return to a time when life was simple. When all you knew were colors, multiplication tables, and nursery rhymes, but that didn't bother you, because you didn't know what you didn't know and you didn't care. All you knew was to be happy because you were blissfully unaware of all the things that should make you worried or upset. I want to think the world is fair. That everyone is honest and good. I want to believe that anything is possible. I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life and be overly excited by the little things again. I want to live simple again. I don't want my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, depressing news, how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the bank, doctor bills, gossip, illness, and loss of loved ones. I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, the imagination, mankind, and making angels in the snow. So....here's my checkbook and my car keys, my credit card bills and my 401K statements. I am officially resigning from adulthood. And if you want to discuss this further, you'll have to catch me first, cause, "Tag! You're it." “ From Cape Cod in Massachusetts, Jamey laments the loss of childhood in America. “I stand and applaud you from across the ocean for your stand on children. How literate are the 'adults' who do not seem to comprehend the word...CHILDREN!!! In America we have a huge problem with the resultant behavior of many people who were never 'allowed' to have a 'child'-hood... Most of them, from what I can see, are really pissed-off individuals! Their spirits 'know' they've been cheated and they don't know who to blame. Instead they blame the world as a whole. They are more like modern day cave people whose instincts are all centred on their own perceived survival needs. The beasts of the world who would threaten that survival in today’s urban and rural 'jungle' are other people. Gee, now isn't that a great start for a 'productive' society?! Learning is not only the creation of a system of mental files with facts, it is also an evolving experience of how to process those facts. Neither the universe nor the world are static. Therefore our ability to process information in a 'useful' manner is directly dependant on the development of our creative and instinctual abilities as well. Let the children be children and perhaps over time the adults will no longer be such a problem to each other! Or, as Suzanne Whaller (quoting Cicero) offered in your Inspirational Quotations section, "What society does to its children, so will its children do to society."“ Leslie Ann believes that education can stimulate the imagination. “The human mind is way more able than most people know. At the same time, educating does not have to be dull and robotic. For instance, there are creative and truly fun ways to encourage a child to learn how magnificent their minds really are for figuring things out and making things happen or simply to make sense of an easily confusing world. While doing a project comparing the Montessori style of teaching and another style more individually designed for learning, (and this was MANY years ago), my imagination opened up in an exhilarating way. For instance, if a young child is totally absorbed in car racing, learning can be adapted to how math and science are involved, as well as mechanics, time, physics and so on. They can do the learning with guidance and their own interest/excitement. Imagination lives on with the curious mind. I am a believer.” Peter from Hong Kong believes an early education might give European kids a “competitive edge.” “We have two daughters aged 10 and 11 who attend the leading Chinese school in Hong Kong. They have always learned under the guidelines now being proposed for the British schools. Most Europeans, I feel, would find it hard to believe the amount of cramming they have to endure and object to a school environment totally ruled by tests. Our children are perhaps less spontaneous than my sisters' children of same age in Denmark, but they do not appear to be less intuitive or creative than them. Depending upon subject they are ahead one year or more of Danish children and have a competitive edge. My view is that if Europe is to compete with Asia in the next century, it will, unfortunately, have to adopt the new guidelines.” Karin from South Africa tells how her son dabbled with adult behavior only to return to his favoured Dennis the Menace ways. “O boy! can I relate to your statement about children asking profound and often perplexing questions. My son is nearly seven and has entered the stage of "girlfriends" and "fancying" someone. What has transpired over the past weeks, after I recovered from my initial shock of my son having a "girlfriend", is that at that age it is very important for them to be friends with everyone and to be liked. Also that they often use adult terminology they've heard around, to express themselves. I recently had dinner with a very good (female) friend I hadn't seen for a while. My son seemed a bit puzzled I was going out with a "girl" and enquired if she was my "girlfriend". When I said yes, he spluttered "Ugh, mom" (and THAT attitude he did not pick up at home). What followed was a gentle chat with my offspring explaining the difference between a girlfriend as in "boyfriend and girlfriend", and a girlfriend as in "a friend that happens to be another girl". Another incident that had me initially perplexed and then smiling was when my son came home from school recently and announced cheerily that he "likes kissing". Now seven years old is really too young for that! I probed around a bit over the course of the afternoon and was told: "It's nice mom, just like when you kiss me, I really love it when you do that" (I often hug him for no particular reason and kiss him on the forehead). It transpired that he had planted a peck on a little girl's forehead as a sign of friendship. He reverted back to his usual Dennis the Menace behaviour that same afternoon when he expressed friendship for another little girl by kicking her on the shins. The way I see it, the message from our children is this : don't take the question at face value based on the adult or technical terminology used. Find the reason for the real question being asked or statement being made beneath the words being used, and comment in simple terms the child can understand.” Back