https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...ch-reveals-long-term-harm-state-pre-k-program Really interesting, the German and Tennessee results.
By the time I was in high school, I was burned out. Up until my sophomore year, I had straight As and a 4.0 across the board. Then I crashed, because I was exhausted (and some family stuff at home was causing serious issues). I was tired, too tired to keep going. I remember a friend of mine having the same pattern as myself: gifted and talented enrichment programs, straight As, over-achiever, presidential academic awards, and in his senior year he tried to commit suicide. It was too much for him. I was lucky my burnout just consisted of me not doing my work. So I think it can be too much.
I’d mostly agree with the Germans on this. Kindergarten is, or should be, an introduction to schooling. Socializing. Getting the kinder accustomed to the whole “going to school” thing. Yeah, you can have them sing the ABC song and learn to count, but not load them up with lessons and homework.
yeah, even with the intermittent lockdowns here, junior kindergarten has been good for the boy. He had a few meltdowns the first couple of days, but has acclimatized and the progress in areas like articulating thought, feelings, and needs has been notable.
I seldom did any homework back in the 70's but still aced every exam. Had a pretty high GPA throughout most of my school years. Then, those losers who studied for hours and did every bit of homework but couldn't pass a test became teachers and got themselves on the schoolboard and now homework is more heavily weighed than test scores. The problem is that people who couldn't pass tests back in the 70s are now controlling our education system.
As the OP suggests, it's the academic grind and the pressure to perform on standardized tests that's unhealthy. A casual learning and social experience is still appropriate. Let kids be kids.
Even for it's notoriously competitive school culture, Japan doesn't send kids home with homework until grade 3 or 4 and places more emphasis on preparing kids how to work together. A good part of it is how adults push gifted kids into that track ad few parents allow the kids to be anything else or even consider the fact that a gifted kid can in fact struggle on certain subjects. I was always pretty good at school apart from Physics, but there were gifted kids who struggled with reading, and some who struggled with math and they'd be accused of laziness just because they could have every other subject. Honestly, I'm of the opinion that getting labeled as gifted before grade nine just does kids more ham than good because the people around them see that about a kid and absolutely nothing else.
Yep. It's funny, but in my junior year, my GPA dropped to 2.1, which should have set off alarm bells to school administrators. Instead, no one talked to me about anything. My home life was going terribly, and so my parents didn't notice. They never really pushed me (except what most parents normally do, you know, "do your homework," "I better see that D come up to at least a C," etc), because I was easy maintenance. I didn't act out, I didn't create trouble, I just quietly stopped doing my work because I was exhausted. I was fried. By the time I was 18, I had spent 14 years in school. I'd had enough. Now, my senior year, I rallied and brought my GPA up to a 3.35, but of course by then it didn't matter. I wasn't going to college anyway, as the one scholarship given out was given to the 4.0 kid who had a shit ton of after school credit.
This has particular policy implications for Head Start and universal pre-K vs universal daycare. The science indicates toward the last rather than the first two, unless Head Start is less academically oriented than I think it is.
I don't think any of those have homework or assignments. They just work on social/emotional development, pre-numeracy and pre-reading skills.
Not really part of this discussion, but it did remind me of something that happened when I was in first grade. This absolute cunt of a teacher I had decided to be all super bitch about some assignment I had, she said I didn't do it, I did. She misplaced it. She was telling me that she was going to get all my privileges taken away, TV, playtime, toys, bicycle. I told I didn't have a bicycle, I had a tricycle. She lost it at that, she had me sit in the corner to think about what I just said. All I could think is she's stupid saying a had a bicycle when I had a tricycle and why would she get mad at being wrong. Fuck that cunt. I did run into her after finishing school, she recognized me and said something snarky to me. I responded by asking her if she was still a cunt.
My son didn't have homework in Pre-K (Private Institution) or Kindergarten (Public School). But, he did have rather intense homework in first and second grades, which I thought was pointless because it's the parents doing it. Helping with basic math and vocabulary is one thing. But, Power Point presentations? In second grade? Come on, give me a break.
"Academics" I suppose has a more subtle meaning pre-1st grade. Not necessarily homework (though I did have have something like homework in Kindergarten (if we brought in anything written for show and tell, we had to have read it)), but alphabet and number writing practice was definitely a regular feature. Learning Spanish, too. Some of it I think in retrospect was useful, but I'm pretty sure the early Spanish lessons let me up for failure at it and my eventual switch to French in middle school.
I sympathize. When I was in 1st grade, I didn't answer a question to my teacher's satisfaction, and my teacher grabbed me by the ear and called me "retard" and "brain dead." My mom just about committed a murder that day (I miss you mom).
So what you are saying is the reason @Federal Farmer , @Uncle Albert , and @Paladin are as stupid as they are is because someone gave them homework when they were in nursery school? As funny as that idea is, I am going to have to recognize this study has not fully countered for the influence of differing education systems.
