what happens after preschool...??!!

[MySunshine]

ok so I understand the great benefit of Shichida method, Domans Montessori and all those trainings.. but what do you parents plan to do after all that ? send your child to a private school? homeschool or to public school?
My sister in law sent her son to public school after 2 years of montessori courses, My nephew is breezing through all his classes and complained of being bored.. My sister in law couldnt send him to private school because of financial reasons. Persoanlly I would feel little unmotivated if I was facing the same predicament. Just wondering what do you plan to do after giving your child the right start??

[sofic]

Now that my son is almost 2 1/2 I have begun asking the same question. I am also worried that my son won't be challenged enough.  I realize that when we teach early we become very attuned with how our children learn and that it is a difficult thing to expect another person (especially if they have to teach several children) to be able to give the individualized attention required to continually challenge our children.  I believe that rings true regardless of whether the school is public or private. This may be too much of a generalization but  from what I have heard and read, it appears that whether the school is public or private, those that struggle in class will get the most attention since they are behind and need to get caught up,  and then of course there are the ones that fall into the actual lesson plan to worry about, and then finally if there is enough time and energy left after getting everyone up to speed, the ones that are further ahead may be introduced to  actual "new material".  However, will they be introduced to these new materials in a way that fits the "style" of learning that our children have been accustomed to.  From what I hear in this forum, it appears that many children have become so attune to their individualized learning styles that they are able to absorb new and more challenging materials at an increasingly fast pace.  The style and pace that these children are accustomed to  is a result of the one on one attention that they are able to get at home, it has to be difficult to  replicate that in a school environment. Because of this and many other arguments that I have heard on the subject, I am leaning towards homeschooling.  I say leaning because by the grace of God, I will be able to execute my plans.  One never knows what tomorrow brings but that will be the plan if all goes well. 

I realize that not everyone has the option to homeschool, so the next best thing would be for your sister to speak to the teacher about the need to challenge her child more, the teacher needs to be aware of his abilities to tackle new materials.  Your sister will need to stay on top of the teacher even at the expense of being seen as a "pain".  After all,  I don't know about the rest of you, but I remember when I was in school, the children whose parents were always on top of everything seemed to receive the most attention.  With that said, your sister will  need to supplement his schooling at home to keep challenging him and keep him at pace with his potential.

[PY]

You know, I was just talking about this topic with my husband, this is the big question?what now??Some children who already know how to read and have more skills than regular other children in public schools get bored and lose motivation to go to school?
We are planing to send my daughter to a private school here in town where they have 9 children for class, but of course you need to pay lots of money.
But my daughter in only 2 years old, she still has 3 years to go, that can change, maybe our financial situation now won't be the same in three years, I can't tell, but we are making since now a plan for her education.
Educating your child is not cheap, offering a good education costs money here and everywhere in the world is the same.
In case we wouldn't have the private school option I think I will try to find out(wish I already know) which one is the best public school on town and try to send her there, once she cames back to the house from school I will try to keep working with her at the house, keep guiding her. I wouldn't give all the work to the teacher.
I think the fundation of education cames from home, no matter the school your daughter goes to.

[laughingwater]

I learnt to read when I was 2 and was very bored when I started school and I don't want my daughters to be in the same situation. The public schools in my area are considered to be good, but they do focus their resources on the kids that are struggling. My choices are to either home school, or go back to working full time so that I can afford a private school. There are so many variables, I really don't know which option we will choose when we get there.

[MySunshine]

Sounds like home school is a great option, but do you worry that with homeschooling, your kids might not get enough interactions in order for them to develope good social skills?

I have read little bit about the life of Winifred sackville jr. (Daughter of Winifred d'Estcourte Sackville Stoner, she wrote the book on Natural education). Although she was a child prodigy of poem/ rhymes. Her personal life did not see the same success as her intellectual life.

I believe that people relations is a big part of being successful in life, to able to developed healthy relationships take skills and a lot of practice.
What do you think about that? any input are welcome

[sofic]

I don't worry much about that right now because I have close family with children of similar age. Actually about 3 of them are within 6 months and 4 are  1-4 years older.  We have 1-2 hr playdates at least twice every  week with these cousins.  I also believe in taking my son to participate in several activities.  We are fortunate to live in an area that has many outlets for young children.  Everything is very close by.  We have about 3 town libraries with great children  rooms within 15 minutes of us.  You always find a few children playing anytime of the day.  Also we have a Bounce play gym within minutes and we bring him there about twice a week to not only get great physical play but interaction with different age groups. We have 3 children's museums in a 20 mile radius and  I try to take him to one at least once a week.  He actually seems a bit more social than most children his age and is really outgoing with adults and tries to talk up a storm to them.  I am one of those parents who feels that my objective  regarding socialization is not that my son has to "socialize"  "well"  with kids his own age.  I am more concerned about making sure that he is prepared to socialize well at a more mature level than just with kids his own age.  I really don't feel that he will have a socializing problem, especially if his early signs are any indication.  I feel that the early educational exposure has given him a lot of confidence and high self esteem where he is highly capable of socializing well with others and going out of his way to do so.  I will be more concerned with reinforcing  family bonding, and self confidence  to further strengthen his abilities for outward self expression.  I feel that confidence to be able to  express himself regardless of the environment will be that much more rewarding for his long term personal and social success. Of course I will always keep an open mind and try to change any approach I have based on what observe in my son and his needs.  There are plenty of homeschooling groups in my area as well that participate in many outings together.  I may try a few and see how we mesh and go from there.  I am always eager to expose my son to a variety of environments and situations and I hope that this will  more than compensate for the lack of  "socialization" that many feel  homeschoolers are  deprived of.

[LDSMom]

A friend of mine who is unmarried was talking to me about the importance of educating your children when they are young, this opened up a door where I could talk to her about all of the things I was doing with my son, and how popular programs like YBCR are. I think there are a ton of people ordering this program, or doing their own program because now they've heard about it and are curious like I was.

We also talked about the kids who's parents don't teach them and want to leave everything up to the schools and how hard it is for those kids. 

What I think will happen is the gap between the two groups will get wider and wider, meaning you will have a bunch of kids coming into school knowing how to read, their shapes, basic math, etc, and the other group who don't even know their ABC's.  I think the schools will be forced to either separate them into different reading, math, etc classes based on skill level, or find some type of program that works.  They can't have half of their students sitting there bored, while just teaching the one half.  One of the charter schools in my area does reading and math this way, based on skill level and not on age. Then the rest of the learning is done with their own age group. I hope this is a trend that continues and filters into the public schools.  I don't plan on sending my child to this particular school because they don't have a dual immersion program, so I am hoping that the challenge of learning in 2 languages in his school will be enough  for my child. 

[TheyCan]

LDSMom - Interesting!  However,  I would guess that the groups would appear to be divided by social class and I don't think those organizing public schools like that too much....  This reminds me of something I read (might have been in The Well-Trained Mind??), where there was a preschool in the author's town that taught children to read and the local elementry schools were upset at the gaps in incoming children.  Apparently the county got the preschool to stop teaching reading!  Pretty sad!  Public schools are in a tough spot of trying to balance so many things. 

[Tanikit]

My husband and I go back to work next month (he's been without a job for quite some time) and so my daughter must go into a school and I am worried about it. She will go to a school where she can play a lot, but she is already well ahead of most of the kids I have met with regard to her vocabulary and she is starting to read books, knows her shapes and colours and has done for ages.

She is booked into grade 000 for 2010 and I am worried she will be bored. They only start teaching the alphabet in grade 0 (age 6) and she has already known it since she was 18 months old. I would really like to homeschool her and hope if I have another baby that I will be able to.

[Tamsyn]

I approached this issue backwards.  I was homeschooled, and was always planning on homeschooling my children.  When I became a mother I wondered, "what happens before preschool?"  I found Doman and then forums like this one, and am grateful that I can give my children a head start.  We will definitely be homeschooling, and we'll just progress from where we are.

[DadDude]

We are planning to (continue to) homeschool our little boy (now 3 yrs 9 mos).  I realize this isn't an option for some people.

But I just can't imagine putting him into a school after 5 years of preparation with us.  By then he'll be reading above the sixth grade level (I estimate he's at the fifth grade level now), and able to comprehend texts, with help, like Charlotte's Web and The Trumpet of the Swan.  If he continues on as he has been, he'll be doing 2nd or 3rd grade math.  If we were to put him in a school, I'm sure it would be a bizarre and alienating experience for him--he's being carefully taught things he has known for years, surrounded by children who don't know them.

It would also be wrenching to be taught a lot and paid lots of attention and given love for years, by Papa and Mama, and then at age 5-6 to go off to a group of strange kids for hours a day under a teacher whose attention is hugely divided and who does not especially love him.  As John Taylor Gatto argues in Dumbing Us Down, many of us don’t seem to realize just how traumatic an experience this is.  Children feel abandoned, and we have to tell them--and ourselves--that this is "natural" and just a part of growing up.  In fact, when put in school, children "learn" to march in lock-step, as it were part of a police state, from 7:30 until 3 every day, as parts of cogs in a machine, cut off from the more natural ebb and flow of life and of individual decisions.  What happens for many kids then is that, over the years of their schooling they come to feel alienated from their parents and much of what their parents stand for, and they throw their sympathies in with the people they spend most of their time with, their peer group.  This might not be such a problem if youth culture were consistent with a healthy home life and strong morals--but it isn’t, not anymore.  Since the 60s or so, youth culture has mostly been all about being "cool" and fitting in, and this means doing risky (or just stupid) things your parents disapprove of.  Is that how you want your children to be socialized?  Not me.

Also, just to give you an idea of how things are with us, when we get in the car, he requests to "name that tune" which is now our general description of listening to any classical music.  When some working guys were doing some work in our house, they were listening to some rock & country music, and Henry asked (and I am not making this up), "Why do they listen to that?"  And Mama asked, "Don't you like it?" and he said, "No" and he went on to elaborate that he likes Mozart and Mendelssohn and others like that.  Similarly, he thinks nothing of using various bits of knowledge (hat tip to Doman here) that we've given him.  We were talking about airplanes and terrorism the other day (inspired by reading a page of "OPD"--the Oxford Picture Dictionary), and he said, "What if a bad man, like Adolph Hitler, were to get on the plane and try to hurt everyone on board?"  Not that he knows the significance of Hitler or anything, but we actually think it's right and natural that he should ask such a question.  If he were treated unusually or like a freak for making free use of his knowledge, that would be a terrible thing, I think.  But that's how it would be if he were in almost any school, public or private--around kids his age, he would be weird, and around his teachers, he would be a "problem" because he would require special attention.  He would sense he was different, weird, and he would come to define himself that way.  This happens with a lot of bright kids, who feel alienated in school systems that do not meet their needs.  That's how I felt about my schooling, and if anything we can expect it to be worse for Henry today.

For a healthier self-image and more natural relations with others--in other words, precisely for better socialization--it will be far better if he does not experience the negative peer pressure that would come from being "the smart kid" in a classroom of kids who were not given his advantages in their early years.  I want him to grow up thinking that using the vocabulary that comes naturally to him (as a result of his education), making references to things understood by better educated people, and so forth, is perfectly normal and acceptable.  As far as "getting out there" and making friends and such, we’ll be doing regular activities and things that will get him acquainted with the neighborhood kids and making friends.  So he won’t be a shut-in or recluse.  And because he won’t be socializing mainly with kids exactly his own age, and instead will be taught be me and his Mama, he’ll be better able to relate to everyone and to adults.  That’s the experience many people who homeschool report.

[wenjonggal]

I am doing phonics and other reading work in English at home with my son, as well as Chinese, partially because I don’t want him to get too behind when he goes to school... he will be schooled in public schools here in Montreal, in French, which is his third language if you count that he was born in China, started learning English at home at age 2 when adopted, and French starting with me a bit, and more now that he is in daycare several days a week starting age 3.

He has a preference for English, and now his French is his second strongest language since I am not a native mandarin speaker. So his native language has become his worst.

When he enters school in French, he will be learning to read and spell words that are not the first that will come to his mind when he thinks of phonetics or associations to images. So I want to start him off on a good foot by having a firm understanding of what reading is, what phonetics are, using English, his dominant language. So that when he has to start learning that “eille” “ez” “er” are all French ways of spelling the same thing, he can concentrate on that, and not on being confronted for the first time with the IDEA of reading, of letter to sound correspondence.

I truly believe he won’t be bored or be ahead of the other kids (except that he will be multilingual... when they start English in school it will be “dog,that is the english word for un chien” ! and he’ll already be reading in english). I think the French will challenge him, and I couldn’t do as good a job as the school in teaching him to read and write in French. I’ll continue the English and Mandarin at home.

[DrPrimo]

hello all:
i've been reading this thread with interest and feel that once they leave the fabulous learning environment we've given our children, we must continue it.  and i don't mean home schooling (although not for us, i think it's great.. don't get me wrong).
i think we need to treat the subjects, like math and language, like we would learning an instrument or a dance lesson.  if your child is really good at math and is now bored in kindergarten/1st grade then get him a tutor after school to continue his growth.  let his teachers know what you're doing and that when he's done with his assignment in class he'll be doing his own thing until the rest of the class is done.  i think school is there for kids to learn to be together.  i wouldn't necessarily trust my child's education to the public schools.  continue to take the initiative!
here in LA we have several private schools that are geared towards children who are ahead of the game.  yes, it's an expensive option but between  my time and the amount of $$ i spend on materials, taking classes, reading books, etc.  by 1st grade it would be worth it to me.
when the time i right i fully intend to hire some undergrad from the math dept. at a local college and tutor my daughter so she can keep learning.  i'm sure i'll probably do the same for the sciences, english, etc.  wherever she is not being challenged i'll just get a tutor for that subject.
food for thought.
ciao,
dr. primo

[wenjonggal]

I think continuing your child's education per their interests at home is a great idea...  I was always into drawing, so had afterschool drawing lessons and at one point a university grad student who came in to give me lessons and assignments. I think it is a great idea to keep the school in the loop and suggest that your child do their personal assignments in the required subject time slot when they have finished the assigned schoolwork ahead of other students.

One of my best teachers in math (I was very good at math) always asked who had no problems at all with the questions, and who just didn't get it after problems were talked about in class, and matched us up one on one. That way the students who understood it and were bored got to "teach" the students who needed extra attention. We all loved it: the students who were behind didn't get lost, it didn't hold up the class and they weren't the focus of attention as everyone listened to their inability to "get it". The students who were ahead loved being asked by the teacher for their knowledge, and it was a real challenge to actually have to explain to someone else what comes to you so easily. And it made friends of the best students and the most challenged ones, as we worked together. A very smart teacher.

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