So, I went to check the mail a few minutes ago, and wrapped around the stack of weekly coupon circulars was the weekly free paper sent out by the local news agency. They send this thing out every week and they try to make it look like a real newspaper, but it’s really just a bunch of advertisements jazzed up with a semi-serious-looking news article or two. You know: your basic junk mail designed to get you to run on out and rack up more debt on the credit cards. It’s the American way, baby. Spend spend spend! I usually just toss the thing out without even looking at it. But today, the top headline was:
“IN PRAISE OF PRE-KINDERGARTEN”
Gave me a bit of a double-take. I actually gasped out loud. Then I sat down and read the article, and it doesn’t really say anything new. It’s the usual bullshit that people are tossing around at expensive luncheons these days, in support of the new drive towards state-regulated, mandatory public or private preschool.
I live in Pennsylvania where the mandatory schooling age is actually 8. People that send their kids to regular school don’t wait until 8, of course. They start ‘em at kindergarten just like everyone else. But for us homeschoolers, it’s kinda nice to have that high mandatory starting age, because that means we don’t have to report until our kids are 8 years old. And since Pennsylvania has one of the strictest homeschooling regulation processes in the nation, it’s kinda nice not to have to start jumping through all those hoops until the kids are older.
But for those devoted to profiting from mass public education, that high mandatory age is quite a detriment, especially when espousing the benefits of mandatory preschool. So, there’s this nearly constant battle these days to lower that age, so as to get a hold of the kids and start processing them through the system as early as possible. And the system is designed to do only two very special things: 1. classify your kid into a pre-approved social construct (preferably into some sort of special-education-required group that needs expensive medication and lots of IEPs) and 2. turn them into a docile workforce that wants only to spend their hard-earned minimal wage on useless crap from Wal-Mart.
Okay. Just don’t get me started on Wal-Mart. Seriously.
So, here’s a fascinating quote from the guy who gave the speech at the expensive luncheon:
At a time of global competition, workers rely on “brain over brawn” in using technology and pre-kindergarten is a proven way to ensure an educated workforce.
Now, let’s just stop and look at this sentence a second time. Read it again, and ask yourself, what is this guy actually trying to say? If I deconstruct it, I come up with this:
“Because we like cheap stuff, we have to farm out the making of cheap toys to places like China where it’s not against the law to exploit people, so American workers really can’t count on getting jobs that require physical strength or mindless repetitive factory assembly work, so we need to put all the kids in preschool and teach them all how to use computers so that they will be educated.”
That’s the best I can come up with. And I’m sure I’ve flubbed it somehow. But I just don’t think it’s possible to really make sense out of that sentence. Because the problem is that our system of mass public education was designed to output large quantities of people who could work in factories doing mindless repetitive assembly work, or people whose primary work was manual labor.
Starting the kids earlier in the same flawed system and preparing them for an industry that just doesn’t exist in this country anymore isn’t going to fix anything.
Sounds to me like this guy is a product of our public education system.
Doesn’t that just make you feel great?
First, I didn’t realize you were a fellow Pennsylvanian–yeah, PA homeschool laws SUCK! And since I use the Tutor provision I have to keep a wary eye on the news lest they suddenly decide that I, a certified teacher, don’t have the right to teach my own kids even though I am allowed to teach anyone elses. Erm. Anyway.
So. It gives me pause as well, in fact makes me VERY, VERY nervous. I am praising the Lord I am in a school district that has tons of homeschoolers and who, so far, has not given anyone any trouble, all though we aren’t far from school districts that have. And your point about the pre-kindergarten scam, yup, agreed.
The thing is, as a former teacher and special ed teacher who paid attention in class–children who learn to read at 4 and children who don’t read until 9 seldom can be told apart at age 14. The idea that the sooner the better is silly–children NEED to learn at their own pace and forcing them into a school setting earlier actually keeps them from loving learning as they grow older–self starters are often self-starters because they have NOT been pushed but allowed to find what they love and learn it.
What jumps off the page for me is this part: pre-kindergarten is a proven way to ensure an educated workforce.
Proven by whom? Proven where? Proven when? PROVEN? People love to use words like that. I am not aware of any studies PROVING that early education in an institution ensures an educated workforce.
Workforce is also an interesting choice of words. Usually we citizens like to think of ourselves as an educated republic…. more than a workforce…. but you covered that angle already. blech…
articles like that seriously make me wish for the good old days when I was young and hanging out at my grandma’s house that had a lavender toilet seat.
and lots of LOL!
You know what’s really weird?
I have a couple friends who teach in public schools, and many of the kids in my after school group have parents who teach.
All of them think that kids should not be in school until they’re at least six. My dad used to say that kids should be out playing until they’re 10, and he taught school, too.
There was a bill in the legislature this last session to lower compulsory ed age to 5. It failed, but not by a very large margin.
I just can’t understand how a thinking individual believes that small children should be institutionalized.
Ummmm…..
What a shining example of the school system he is. That’s the best I do at saying something nice. LOL
Unfortunately I thinks some parents really look forward to sending their kids to school,so they don’t have such high daycare bills-I think that’s where these things get a groundswell of support. We need to move toward one income families again and then we’ d’ see less parents voting for this sort of thing. It’s a quality of life decision but I think the better QOL overall is to keep your kids at home with you as long as possible-and I’m the breadwinner in my family but my husband and I both felt that our kids s/b raised by us.
We had a similar thing in our local news and it was about more computers for preschoolers so they wouldn’t be “behind” when they started school. WHAT???? How can you be behind when you haven’t even started and I think you covered this in another post…