Schools -- they are a changing
Hi neighbors. Can you believe it is almost September? As the summer dims the school house lights go on -- and those out on the football and track fields.
Once school starts there is no end to the after hours activities for most students -- and their parents. If you have trouble keeping up with what's going on at your school, you might check the Internet to see if your school has a website. Chances are you will find a calendar of events posted there periodically. Kids are the only ones who can Google you know.
Children used to bring notes home about open house, PTA or PTO, band recitals, school plays, upcoming sports events, etc. In my time we carried them tucked into one of our school books. Nowadays they are likely crammed into a backpack or texted to themselves in some code only they can read.
Although most students today cannot comprehend how we old folks suffered through school without computers, laptops, Blackberrys, I-pods, tweets and Facebooks; we did manage to learn enough to survive and support our families from the "stone age" of the '60s to the 21st century.
I must admit I have no children still in the elementary or high school grades. My granddaughter is in the fourth grade this year.
As she has grown I've "rediscovered" school life and what is offered.
Most parents of young children may not realize it, but most of the grades have shifted up a notch. What we learned in kindergarten when my daughter and son were 5 years old, the children entering kindergarten must already know when they start. Hence the need for pre-school.
When I started kindergarten, it was just being offered for the first time. I don't remember much about it but playing with hard, tough modeling clay and watching various natural wonders through a Viewmaster. Not one of those battery operated ones you understand, the ones I used in kindergarten were heavy, black and you had to push the lever down to advance the film strip. There was story time and nap time and oh yes, milk and graham cracker time -- and that's about all I recall.
By the time my daughter started kindergarten in the '70s the Viewmasters were 3-D and there was more things to master before advancing to the first grade. Children had to learn their own address, their parents' names, how to print their own first and last names, how to tie a bow, (as in on their shoe laces), to recognize the primary colors, numbers and ABCs. Modeling clay gave way to Play-Doh. They started practicing phonics.
My son didn't attend kindergarten, but he did his school work at home. He had to work in workbooks, be able to count to 100, recognize and print his ABCs and sound out words.
With my granddaughter, Viewmasters were lighted, 3-D and self-advancing. She had to know all the things myself, my daughter and my son had learned in kindergarten before she could enter kindergarten!
Which brings us to the popular day care and pre-school scenarios. To digress a little; when I was growing up after World War II, the Soviet Union was the current "bad guy." I remember my parents discussing the horrible conditions in the USSR where all men and all women had to work. To keep everyone productive, children were taken as babies into government ran day cares and when they could walk, talk and sit still on command, into pre-schools. It was considered a horrible thing. Children raised by the state! Mothers working out of the home! It was almost as bad as the horrible English habit of sending children off to boarding schools. The whole Russian school and social system seemed ridiculous and somehow aimed at destroying the bond between parent and child.
Back to the topic -- day care and pre-schools are now considered necessities not just as a means to provide child care for working parents, but as a way to prepare the child to enter kindergarten.
Frankly, I don't know how babies, children or students assimilate all the information thrown at them from birth. When you think about it, since I entered kindergarten several decades have passed. Each of those decades held historic events and changes in culture and society.
Maybe the most important lesson we should teach our children is how to adjust and cope to the society that is constantly changing around them. Mom and Dad may not have to be home each night at supper if they are working to support their families. But it is definitely important for every child to know their parents have their family's best interests in mind, and encourage them to learn.