Preschool???

[Safiel]

Just thought I would pass this little gem along that I saw on another site. Glad to know I am not the only one who opposes the modern notion of formal education.

June 14, 2009

The evils of preschooling

Posted by Ryan W. McMaken on June 14, 2009 08:34 PM

My wife, an expert in early childhood education, is some kind of libertarian genius. Although she has read very little in the way of libertarian theory, she has come to thoroughly libertarian conclusions simply by studying how the brains of small children work. It turns out that children are rational beings who should not be coerced and hounded every second of their waking lives. Indeed, children have an innate sense of the importance of learning and the importance of justice. Unfortunately, most adults beat these impulses out of children as soon as they can. Besides, a free spirited individualist of a child is harder to control, so it’s all the better that we ship them off to school where they can be taught to obey, and where they can be taught that learning is an onerous task that is to completed when demanded by some unbearable schoolmarm.

Here’s an interesting tidbit from Naomi Aldort which states the obvious. Namely, that preschool is thoroughly unnecessary and (like most formal schooling) is harmful to the overall education of the child.

Incidentally, if you ever want to see me fly off the handle, just start in about how children don’t pay their elders enough “respect” or that “kids these days” are more rotten than during the good ‘ol days. I’m sure you’ll see that vein on the side of my forehead really start to stand out. In my experience, most adults get all the respect they deserve, which is to say, virtually none at all.

But more on that some other other time. I can already feel that vein throbbing.

[Gunslinger]

I'm not sure what this is saying.

Do you advocate children running amok and misbehaving, using preschool as grounds to support some "get in line and do what you're told" type of function?

Don't get me wrong, I think preschool is a joke but behavioral issues need to be addressed immediately.

I would think there is a large difference between being disciplining a child and letting the child grow up not knowing anything about consequence for actions.

[Safiel]

I'm not sure what this is saying.

Do you advocate children running amok and misbehaving, using preschool as grounds to support some "get in line and do what you're told" type of function?

Don't get me wrong, I think preschool is a joke but behavioral issues need to be addressed immediately.

I would think there is a large difference between being disciplining a child and letting the child grow up not knowing anything about consequence for actions.

That is not what the gentleman is getting at, but to be fair, it would be easy for a non libertarian to make that mistake.

What he is getting at is that formal education seeks to break down a child's natural individuality in favor or peer based compliance. Which in later life will make that individual more compliant to the wishes of the state. They don't want free thinkers, in other words. Free thinkers are dangerous. They are the ones that have been known to start revolutions.

[Wilhelm Scream]

I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure that I'm following, either. Is the author of that piece suggesting that all children are born with an ingrained sense of justice? A sense of justice that is then unlearned by the early education system?

[Czhorat]

What he is getting at is that formal education seeks to break down a child's natural individuality in favor or peer based compliance. Which in later life will make that individual more compliant to the wishes of the state. They don't want free thinkers, in other words. Free thinkers are dangerous. They are the ones that have been known to start revolutions.

It seems to me that socialization outside of the family can actually increase the independence of a child with very strong-willed parents. It gives a chance to spend time with a new set of peers as well as exposure to adults outside the child's family. One could argue that later in life this would make the individual more able to adjust to new social situations, including employment in which a certain level of respect for authority is a desired trait.

As the OP cites no sources and says very little beyond "preschool is bad", I don't see much to discuss here, except to say that anyone who believes a child to have an "innate sense of justice" has never been around a toddler; very young children do NOT tend to see the needs or rights of others, and think everything they want is theirs. "Justice" seems to be a learned trait.

[angelicmadrigal]

Don't get me wrong, I think preschool is a joke but behavioral issues need to be addressed immediately.



Excuse me? I really resent you calling my job a joke. First off, where the hell do you get off demeaning someone elses profession?

To bottom line is some parents are too busy or just plain don't want to take the task of getting their child ready for Kindergarten. You may not know this but Kindergarten today is NOT the Kindergarten of 10 years ago. They expect you to know your numbers (1-20), letters,shapes, beginning letter sounds, etc. They also like a child to begin learning some common every day words by sight (for example School or Stop). You'd be surprised how many children come into our preschool at 4 or 5 who have NONE of even the beginning skills necessary for Kindergarten.

If you're going to homeschool your child you can let them go at whatever pace they want, they can still be doing letter recognition in Kindergarten. However, if you're sending them to traditional school you're hampering them and causing them to be behind the rest of their peers. You may well find your child sent to "remedial" classes, when there is nothing wrong with your child's learning, just they have not been taught the material.

Again, preschool is there for the parents who simply don't have time or the desire to teach and socialize their children during the week.


As far as the OPs source article, that person sounds like they just took some of the philosophies of Montessori education and bastardized the hell out of it, without understanding the entire approach as a whole.

[TheRealBigDaddy]

I have to agree with Angelic...

My wife is finishing up her Master's degree in Reading, but this past semester had a long term sub position in a public preschool.

Preschool is essential around here where there is a lot of poverty. If it weren't for the preschool, those kids wouldn't have a chance once they start kindergarten. It allows them to interact with kids there own age and learn some basics that otherwise, with their parents, they wouldn't have learned.

[angelicmadrigal]

As the OP cites no sources and says very little beyond "preschool is bad", I don't see much to discuss here, except to say that anyone who believes a child to have an "innate sense of justice" has never been around a toddler; very young children do NOT tend to see the needs or rights of others, and think everything they want is theirs. "Justice" seems to be a learned trait.


Most young children act as though THEIR needs come first. Think about it all through infancy (by necessity) children are taught that THEY are the center of the family unit, and have adults catering to their needs. Anyone who doesn't think a child engrains that in their mind is delusional.

In my observation it isn't until a child hits the 5 or 6 range until they insist on fairness and start to begin to understand what fair is. Mostly because at 2 and 3 they just don't have the life experience to truly understand what fair is. Now, that being said very young children DO notice if another child gets something and they do not, but that's less out of an insistance for equitability than it is a child's own desire to have something they want.

[Czhorat]

Most young children act as though THEIR needs come first. Think about it all through infancy (by necessity) children are taught that THEY are the center of the family unit, and have adults catering to their needs. Anyone who doesn't think a child engrains that in their mind is delusional.

That was my point exactly, even if I didn't state it as eloquently. I was responding to the OP's comment about young childrens' "innate sense of justice" which, according to my observations and admittedly limitted knowledge of developmental psychology (my spouse knows more and agrees with me), simply does not exist.

[angelicmadrigal]

I have to agree with Angelic...

My wife is finishing up her Master's degree in Reading, but this past semester had a long term sub position in a public preschool.

Preschool is essential around here where there is a lot of poverty. If it weren't for the preschool, those kids wouldn't have a chance once they start kindergarten. It allows them to interact with kids there own age and learn some basics that otherwise, with their parents, they wouldn't have learned.

Right, if the parents have the time and want to put in the work of teaching and socializing their children that makes preschool unneeded. However, a lot of parents now a days work full time and do not have the time or energy to devote to the DAILY task of getting a child ready for Kindergarten.

Another thing I deal with a lot is children from non english speaking homes. For those children it is ESSENTIAL that they be emersed in the language as early as possible, and if English is not spoken in the home (and a tutor is not provided) they are being set back far more than the average child.


I teach at a Montessori school so it's a little different than traditional preschool. We provide the materials and activities for the children to do, but they for the most part freely choose them. However, once a child is about 4 we start evaluating what they need as far as Kindergarten readiness skills and spend about an hour a day (four 15 minute blocks)working on those skills. All activities and games in a Montessori classroom are ordered according to their subject matter or type of skill they work on: Practical Life, Sensorial, Mathematics, Language, Culture and Science (This shelf also includes geography), and Art. We also keep a book corner as a quite place for children to go or to have a story read.

Examples of activities frm each area:

Practical Life: dressing frames (tying, buttoning, snaps, zippers, buckles), sewing cards

Sensorial: puzzles, textured tiles for matching, geo-board with rubber bands

Mathmatics: counting games, the 100 board with tiles, number sheets to trace

Language: "What's Wrong" cards, sandpaper letters, metal insets,

Culture, Science: sandpaper globe,multinational resin figures to match to cards, sink or float activity

Art: pasting activity, rubbing templates, paper cutting, crayons and colored pencils and paper for free drawing, play dough

[angelicmadrigal]

That was my point exactly, even if I didn't state it as eloquently. I was responding to the OP's comment about young childrens' "innate sense of justice" which, according to my observations and admittedly limitted knowledge of developmental psychology (my spouse knows more and agrees with me), simply does not exist.

That's actaully one of the things I was talking about when I said I think the person basically took some of the tenents from Montessori. That actually is one of the things in Montessori I don't necessarily agree with. I think young children recognize inequality and for the most part do not like when they are on the negitive recieving end of the inequality, but most really young children don't seem to care too overmuch when they are on the good receiving end of the inequality. There are exceptions, but in most cases I don't think children under 3 or 4 REALLY understand in a very poinant way what fairness and justice is. Not to mention it's a hard ideal to pin down for instance let's look at Justice and Fairness from the standpoint of a child and a toy:

2 children want to play with the same toy. The child that had it first may say to you "that is not fair, I had it first". Which he may be right, why should he have to give up a toy to another person when he got it first. On the other hand it is a COMMUNITY toy and should be shared equally among all the children who wish to play with it, so the other child may see he has every right to his "turn", and he could make a valid point there as well. That's the problem, children look at what is "fair" in regards to their own wants and needs, not the ideal of fairness or justice.

[khigh]

That's actaully one of the things I was talking about when I said I think the person basically took some of the tenents from Montessori. That actually is one of the things in Montessori I don't necessarily agree with. I think young children recognize inequality and for the most part do not like when they are on the negitive recieving end of the inequality, but most really young children don't seem to care too overmuch when they are on the good receiving end of the inequality. There are exceptions, but in most cases I don't think children under 3 or 4 REALLY understand in a very poinant way what fairness and justice is. Not to mention it's a hard ideal to pin down for instance let's look at Justice and Fairness from the standpoint of a child and a toy:

2 children want to play with the same toy. The child that had it first may say to you "that is not fair, I had it first". Which he may be right, why should he have to give up a toy to another person when he got it first. On the other hand it is a COMMUNITY toy and should be shared equally among all the children who wish to play with it, so the other child may see he has every right to his "turn", and he could make a valid point there as well. That's the problem, children look at what is "fair" in regards to their own wants and needs, not the ideal of fairness or justice.

So, when an almost 2 year old child offers to share half of her cookie with you? What is that called? How about when they willingly give up a toy to another child that is crying? I see both of those daily in a child that is not even 2. Do you call it a sense of fairness or something else?

[angelicmadrigal]

So, when an almost 2 year old child offers to share half of her cookie with you? What is that called? How about when they willingly give up a toy to another child that is crying? I see both of those daily in a child that is not even 2. Do you call it a sense of fairness or something else?

I consider that kindness, which you have to have to understand fairness. When a child shares with another person (or comforts another child) I don't believe it's out of any sense of fairness as adults would understand fairness. But you'll find in children it isn't a constant thing either, you can finda chld being very kind and generous one day and incredibly selfish the next. So to me it isn't so much that children are innately tied to one ideal or another, they just do what at the time seems the best course of actions. I'm not saying children are incapable of feeling empathy for another person, or don't have the desire to make another person happy, what I am saying is the ideal of fairness and justice is more complicated than just sharing or empathizing with someone else.

Hell, I've observed children as young as a year and half being very sweet and kind to each other. Children are still learning those skills: empathy and kindess. You can't move on to more complicated things like fair vs unfair until you have a good grasp on those early skills.

[Czhorat]

Good points, Angelic.

This conversation speaks to another reason I support public school in general and pre-K particularly: schools are taught by trained, professional teachers and curricula are designed by trained professionals. I'll be the first to agree that there are plenty of incompentent teachers out there, but there is a knowledge base and skill set that the average parent just doesn't have. I no more believe myself to be competant to teach my child than I feel compentant to perform medicine.

[Safiel]

Interesting that Montessori has been mentioned a couple of times.

A reply on the other blog site to the original post goes like this:

June 15, 2009

Re: The evils of preschooling

Posted by Stephan Kinsella on June 15, 2009 08:51 AM

Ryan–you’re right that “Montessori, unlike Dewey or the other anti-individualist educators, actually liked children and thought they had intrinsic value. For her, the purpose of education was not to make people “productive” or good taxpayers or good wage slaves or whatever”–and that “most government educators violently hate Montessori.” In fact Montessori usually is hated both because it’s different, and because it’s private. It’s widely misunderstood; people ignorantly say that it has “no structure,” etc. I’ve grown to love the Montessori approach. My post Out of the Mouths of Babes pointed out its wonderful pro-peace approach to dispute resolution. And of course the state and statists hate Montessori’s “citizen of the world” approach which emphasizes our common humanity instead of our nationality.

<here there was an omitted picture of a couple of children at a Montessori Peace Table>

Montessori children using the Peace Table to discuss a conflict and come to resolution prior to resuming activities.

[Safiel]

Reply to fairness vs. justice, as mentioned by several posters on this thread.

Obviously a sense of justice is not developed in young toddlers or young children. But generally, left to their own devices they develop such a sense of justice during their childhood. And they tend to come to value justice over fairness. Modern education, however, tends to emphasize fairness over justice, which of course would condition students to accept the many unjust acts of the modern state. The state wishes its citizens to pliantly accept fairness over just which would of course make them blindly accepting of wealth distribution, ad naseum.

My home schooled children all have that innate sense of justice and know that life is not fair, cannot be fair and should not be fair. Justice should prevail.

[Safiel]

Good points, Angelic.

This conversation speaks to another reason I support public school in general and pre-K particularly: schools are taught by trained, professional teachers and curricula are designed by trained professionals. I'll be the first to agree that there are plenty of incompentent teachers out there, but there is a knowledge base and skill set that the average parent just doesn't have. I no more believe myself to be competant to teach my child than I feel compentant to perform medicine.

None of us are totally competent on every subject. Yet that is not a bar to home school.

The method I used with my kids was essentially an eclectic approach, with the kids totally in charge of their education, once they mastered reading. After that point, my role was simply facilitating and mentoring. We were involved in a home school co-op, which allowed them to consult with their home school peers on the rare occasion that they reached an impasse on something. I would give them insights on historical events and literature, subjects where I am very strong. My wife did the same role for math and science. But generally, most consultation came from their peers.

The point being, that there are home school methods available that do not require educational "competence."

The Robinson Curriculum and Accelerated Achievement Curriculum are of this nature and the closest to my own approach. The nice thing is that the reading lists can be modified to your own satisfaction.

[angelicmadrigal]

None of us are totally competent on every subject. Yet that is not a bar to home school.


For me it isn't a matter of competence it's a matter of willingness on the part of the parents to do the work and invest the time it takes to educate their child. Homeschooling parents obviously do not have that issue, but many other parents do, and that is why they choose other people to educate their children.

[angelicmadrigal]

Interesting that Montessori has been mentioned a couple of times.



It doesn't surprise me that it has.

Honestly, I haven't found people all that hostile to the Montessori approach in talking with other teachers. You just have to present it in the right way.