Play to Learn

First off I never understood why most places (the US) spell the word ‘KindergarTen’! Whats a ‘garten’? Then I see places in Trinidad adopting the spelling and I get irritated. Please correct me if I am missing something and the word is really supposed to be kindergarten because for the life of me…

Nehow so the past couple weeks mummylicous and daddylicous have been stressing and giving themselves migraines over this whole play to learn/ kindergarden thing. Small man is currently at what is called a Play to Learn Day Care (PTLD). Probably every day someone asks me ‘So what school is he at? Is he at school yet?’ and when I say ‘Well it’s a play to learn day care where he’s supposed to stay until he begins Primary school’ they look at me like I am some sort of negligent mommy. Little do they know how sick we are with it, but are we sick enough, that’s the question?

So we started thinking the other day that while we have no evidence to prove that kids who can read/write/spell/sing/speak in Spanish and French are more advanced than any other kids, we also have no evidence that kids from play to learn day cares are at any advantage or disadvantage either. We just doh know. We can’t go to the PTLD and do a poll of the past 5 years and draw graphs comparing it to the other kindergardens that are rigid and find the percentage of kids from each that make it to ‘good’ primary schools and then ‘good’ secondary schools. To hear the teachers and owners of each of these places, they have the right equation, they know what they’re doing, you’re child is better off with them. Of course he is, you’re charging me $700 bucks a month.

The theory behind PTLD is that kids at such a young age should not be forced to do much academically, that through playtime, exploring their environment and social interaction they will learn all they need to know in order to thrive in Primary School. They believe that 3 and 4 year olds do not need to learn to write novels and read The Iliad before primary school. And that when they get to Primary School they will be just as quick as the other kids, their minds will be just as open and they will learn at the same rate as any other child, so let them play and explore while they can. There is however the other side of the coin where your child is sent to Kindergarden (some more rigid than others), they learn the entire first primer, write all their letters, sound and recognize all sorts of words and numbers and are whiz kids by the time they begin primary school.

Our options currently are:

1. Leave him at the PTLD and see if he will be ready to start school next year (at 4yrs old about to turn 5 soon after school starts)
2. Leave him at the PTLD and don’t start him in school until he’s 5 (about to turn 6)
3. Send him to rigid Kindergarden where he will get sent home with homework and be reading and writing like a pro in a years time
4. Send him to not so rigid Kindergarden where he has to wear a uniform, doesn’t get to watch Sesame Street everyday, does a little bit of everything but its really still school at the end of the day.

Every option has its pros and its cons. Option 1 puts us in the position where he may not be ready for school next year because believe it or not certain Primary schools have an ‘evaluation’ almost a year before (this December) before they decide if your child can register for the school.. With Option 2 he will be one of the older kids in the class which might not matter anymore but back in the day, the younger kids had a second ‘chance’ at common entrance. Option 3, he learns to read and write before primary school and is more advanced on entry. This option worries me a bit because I wonder if this is one where the parents do it for themselves. To have the opportunity to tell people that ‘JD can read and he’s only 2, ‘JD knows all his number to 50, he’s writing AND counting in Spanish’. Option 4 might just be pushing him before he’s ready, and if its anything I’ve learned about this child, he does nothing until he’s good and ready. He’s a smart little boy, tell him something once and he remembers it but when he doesn’t want to, he’s long gone onto something else more interesting. There are kids who thrive on learning their alphabet and reciting their numbers and learning how to add and subtract (I was like that), he is not one of those. He’s more of an auditory learner. He can tell you his bedtime stories or sing his nursery rhymes because I do that every night, or repeat a conversation someone had with him AND he loves to play, we taught him how to count in Spanish from going up and down the stairs with him, but only when he was ready :S

It sounds like I’ve made up my mind right? Not so much. Its so hard to have to think about these things for a 3 year old and above all, we as parents don’t want to do the ‘wrong’ thing :S We don’t want to not give him the opportunity to go to one of these schools because we thought it would be too much. Suppose it isn’t? Suppose it is? Dr. Bratt says send him to school at 7yrs old. Dr. Bratt also told me to stop working when I had a hard time pumping my milk in the bathroom at work when I first started back working. Dr. Bratt is a bit of a radical and while he was joking at the time he still believes that we are pushing kids way too hard from too young right now. He says ‘That’s what they do in Sweden where the education system is top notch! The kids play to learn til they’re 7! Yuh will burn out the child!’. Whats quite sad is that there are a ton of parents who are not worrying about these things, they just don’t care, they barely realize its time for Junior to head to school! I know we will eventually follow our gut and weigh our choices and be confident with our decision but geez man.