Babble Talk: Why Preschool is NOT a Scam
I’ve got to hand it to one of the moms who commented on Lisa Emmerich’s recent Bad Parent: Preschool Hysteria.
She managed to equate well-respected institutions of learning across the nation with something cooked up by Bernie Madoff.
Her exact words for what preschool amounts to in her book? “What a racket! I cannot believe you people pay someone to teach your child what you can teach them at home.”
Way to insult every mother and father who actually work outside the home and CAN’T teach their children at home. Not to mention those of us who are mindful enough of our own shortcomings that we don’t try to teach our kids at home; we put our kids into a program where we feel a certified teacher is providing a headstart for kindergarten while they get to have fun and interact with other children of the same age.
I am a huge proponent of the home schooling movement. But I’ve got to tell you, I can’t do it. Call me a bad parent, but my patience wears thin after the fifth time my daughter looks at me after I’ve asked a question and says “I don’t know. Tell me.”
Yes, I teach her little things, the “unschooling” method does have
merit in the fact that we count out the number of plates coming out of
the dishwasher, and she learned her shapes by identifying road signs
while we’re out riding around.
She knows her alphabet. She’ll recite the whole thing to a stranger at the grocery store. But at home, where she’s interacting with a mother with a very similar personality (we are, after all, mother and daughter), she opts for game playing. For pretending she needs help with simple tasks. When push comes to shove – she shoves back. And I’m PROUD of her for it. But it means that we are not meant to be in more than a mother and daughter role.
The issue of home schooling, plain and simple, is not that it doesn’t work but that it doesn’t work for everyone. Putting aside the fact that the majority of two-parent households in America include two working parents, a lot of parents are still uncomfortable with the idea of being their child’s primary source of education. Simply put – if we felt we could be teachers, many of us would have gone to school to be teachers.
I went to school to be a journalist. Faced with a room full of squirmy children, I can play games and sing silly songs. I don’t have the patience of Job that my daughter’s preschool teacher fortunately possesses. Nor do I have the early childhood development degree that she’s earned. I can’t get ten kids to sit around a table and draw the letter P and glue feathers to the page to make a parrot. My daughter loved making parrots.
I’m not convinced that kids need to be in a nursery school at two. We waited until my daughter hit three, and even then, we opted for a half-day program just two days a week. For us, it’s daycare – I work in a newspaper office while she’s at preschool. It’s also a place where she spends a fair portion of the time playing with other kids, learning about sharing and picking up on social cues from kids her own age. They’re there for social education more so than your traditional academic education at this age, and they’re fostering their independence in a safe setting. My daughter feels important learning outside of the home and telling me things – things she doesn’t think Mommy knows. At this age, I don’t think kids need much more than the basics, and preschool settings that are fairly laissez faire work best for all involved.
It works for us. We knew exactly what we were signing her up for, and why we needed to do it. If that’s a racket or a scam, I can only say I’ve bought it, hook, line and sinker. Oh, and my daughter? Has learned to stop resisting me when I suggest she was her hands after she uses the potty, found some best little buddies for playdates and draws the letter “P” like a champ.
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Alice, you sound so judgmental it’s scary. Do you want an award for moving to a smaller house, for homeschooling your kids, etc? Perhaps someone else is judging YOU for coming across as sanctimonious when they can’t afford to stay home. In this economy, some people have no other option. And even if they do, preschool can be a fun place for children to learn from other children, and to teach other children as well. I was a preschool teacher for years and loved it, loved my kids, loved seeing the amazing play they created with each other and with me. So are you saying they didn’t benefit from that experience? Maybe you’re the one convincing yourself that you’ve been sacrificing yourself for the benefit of your kids, when in reality it’s YOU who benefit more. Maybe you’re just afraid of exposing your children to outside influences. Maybe you get off on the idea of “doing it all,” and of being a martyr mom. Obviously, I don’t know you and I don’t know if any of that is true or not. But you see how someone can easily take what seems like the ‘right’ position to you and twist it all around so it seems wrong? Judge not lest ye be judged.
If we dont feel that we are good enough to taech our children to read or do simple math what is next? Will we hire chidl experts to potty train them or teach them to swim? Oh wait, people already do that. Every one wants to outsource parenting. Not that long ago parents kept their kids home in this country until they went to first grade. When I started first grade all of us knew how to read a bit, socialize with other humans and to do simple math. Our parents and grandparents taught us. I would rather my family and I raise my kids than paid strangers. Having a degree does not make them more qualified. Who know your kid best? I know LOTS of parents who work full time and homeschool. But many, like myself, took our maternity leave to heart and moved to a smaller home, work part time and home school our kids. I put their pre-school money in the bank for college so they dont have to go into debt someday borrowing for it themselves. Some of us make choices to benefit ourselves and some to benefit our kids. For me, my daughters and sons have no choice but to be homeschooled. They all have special needs that their overcrowded schools cannot properly address.
My children have all went to preschool. It really helped them prepare for the big K. They weren’t afraid of the bus. Weren’t afraid of their new school. While I still taught them the basics and expanded on what the preschool was doing, they learned a lot there.
My oldest is now 19 and I remember his first day of kindergarten like it was yesterday. His principal was worried. He would be the first child with autism attending his grade school. She didn’t know if he was going to freak out or cry when I left. We arrived and there were at least 5 screaming kindergarteners in the office. Matt just looked at me, shrugged and took his teacher’s hand and went to their room. I wouldn’t have had that with him if he hadn’t went to preschool.
I am a homeschooling mom to 4 kids and I will be the first to say that homeschooling is not for everyone.
I love it! I relish being there when my kids learn something new and my heart about popped when my daughter (unencouraged) incorporated last week’s history lesson in to her free play. I get a lot of personal fulfillment from teaching my kids myself.
On the other hand, my sister (who was a teacher for years) has no desire to teach her own child at home. While it has improved my relationship with my children, she feels that it would put extra strain on her relationship with her son. She knows (rightfully so) that she does not have the personality for it. So traditional school is a great option for her.
My view is that we need to allow parents to find the schooling situation that works best for them and their family. There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to education.
I don’t think preschool is a racket at all; little kids benefit enormously from the socialization and exposure to the more structured environment of school. What I call a racket is all the hysteria about getting your child into the “best” preschool. Four-year-old waiting lists, tuition that rivals a state college, snobbery about where little Octavia is learning to play with dough, it’s all obnoxious and has nothing to do with the kids, but is all about the status of the parents. There’s a reason why people who freak out hysterically about which preschool little Jacyn will be attending never shut up about it.
On the other hand, if people stop wasting money on status symbols like “the best” preschool, our economy is going to die a painful death.
I homeschool my 4.5 year old and will do the same for his sister. It works for our family, right now, but that doesn’t mean I think people who send their kids to preschool are being suckers.
Does a 2 year old NEED to be in a full-time school to function normally in society? Of course not.
Preschool is just another one of those things that’s good to have around if you need it, but shouldn’t be compulsory for every family.
It’s sad that the commenter couldn’t find a better way to express the way she feels about preschool. I was a preschool teacher for 6 years and now as a stay at home mom, I am grappling with the idea of sending my children to preschool. Yes, I get that children benefit from social interaction and all the other reasons to send your child to preschool. But I chose not work and we have a pretty tight budget as it is.
So I do spend some time figuring out how to get my child the same interactions. Parks are great places to sit back and allow your child to interact with other children (without too much planning ahead). There are free programs through the libraries and some bookstores that allow them to explore in an artistic way. And I am lucky enough to have family and friends who will trade days with me so I can shop without my children. Preschool is beneficial but not necessary and I hope that that is what the commenter meant.
My 3.5 year old has been in preschool since August – and she HAS learned things that she couldn’t possibly have learned at home… Namely how to deal with other kids her age, without Mom and Dad around, and how to mind and respect adults who are not family members.
Since I’m not planning on running a preschool out of my home, this is totally worth the $68 a month we pay for her to attend preschool twice a week.
Research indicates that less than 20 hours a week of outside-the-home care (whether daycare, preschool, or a sitter, or a combination of the 3) is actually beneficial to kids over age two.
“Restaurants? Such a scam. All you’re doing is paying someone to cook food you could just cook at home!”
It’s not *untrue*. It’s perfectly possible to get through life and never go out to eat. That doesn’t mean there’s no value in it at all or it’s a scam, though. Maybe you like to eat something you don’t know how to cook, or maybe you find it makes your life a little easier sometimes. It’s the same with preschool. There’s probably nothing that a preschool provides that the parent couldn’t provide him-or-herself with enough effort (arranging social opportunities, learning songs, and so on) but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with getting someone else involved.