Unkotare
Diamond Member
- Aug 16, 2011
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I sense a terminal case of "charter school" envy here. Just because it doesn't fit the developmental models that your ed school pushed and the unions insist on..
It's a kick start for kids who CAN capitalize on the extra stimulation and does no HARM at that age for kids who aren't motivated by their early success..
As "they" say... Don't knock it til you've tried it and documented the results. And if there's one thing that American needs --- it IS results..
WTF is HEADSTART and PRE-K if NOT attempts to "jump-start" their little cranial engines?
Here's something to ponder: many European schools achieve way over and above our American schools and they don't even think of teaching "academics" until kids are seven years old. Let alone having them do horrid academic feats like memorize the Gettysburg address at five years old. (!!!)
Wanna know why? They know the research, and aren't into impressing dull brained parents.
But the reaction FROM the parents (dull brained or not) is REINFORCEMENT for achieving competency in using the TOOLS of learning.. You don't teach a carpenter apprentice to build the WHOLE house or cabinets. They learn to saw, paint, measure, sand before they even understand how the results are expected to look.. Nobody is getting fooled here. BUT -- I'm a fan of sneaking in a bit of tools learning and making it rewarding..
This whole thread has been about how five year olds memorizing a text as meaningless to them as the Gettysburg Address is less than impressive. As a "tool of learning" it does nothing other than display that young children have a quick propensity to memorize. That's it.
I think you just made my point.. It IS impressive to teach memorization in Kindergarten or 1st Grade to that ability.. And it puts them FAR ahead of kids who don't get challenged to do it.. Same thing could be accomplished for sorting animals into mammals, reptiles, birds, insects for instance. Or recognizing short excepts of songs or books that they've had read to them.
Basic tool training.. It's ain't useless...
Sorting is thinking. It is making meaning. You must understand what makes a mammal to put an animal in the "mammal" pile.
Memorizing is basic recall and nothing more.
Big, huge difference. Not to say that memorization is completely useless. But that you say the "same thing" could be accomplished, I'm sorry, is just wrong.
This discussion can be taken too far in either direction.
There is a well known tale in linguistic circles of a Frenchman who memorized a German dictionary, but when he proudly traveled to Germany found he could not speak the language at all.
On the other hand, I have some students who have never attended any school or received any formal education, and sometimes a student will literally have no concept of even trying to recall data in the manner necessary for academic work.
So, just memorizing things is of limited value for real learning, but effective recall is one of the cognitive functions that must be engaged in order to learn.
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