This summer I will have a five year old. I can hardly believe it myself, but my little buddy Caleb will be five. Because of this, the question keeps coming up..."Are you starting kindergarten with him?" To which I reply, "Have you met Caleb?"
Caleb is a smart kid. He's smart in his own right, and he also picks up a lot from his big sister. He is eager to learn new things, and enjoys being read to. He's known the alphabet for years. He can count pretty high and he also does addition in his head with M&M's, without ever being taught ("Mommy can you give me two more so I have seven? Cause five and two more makes seven") He can locate our state on the map. He also impressed me by memorizing the entire Lord's prayer at Bible study.But he's also very small for his age. He doesn't always talk clearly. He is just now starting to color. I can't think of anything crueler than making him sit at the table and try to write something with a pencil.
Which brings me to my point. Being smart doesn't always mean being ready. And by forcing something before it's ready, you run the risk of stunting it. I really believe that a large majority of the kids in remedial classes in public school are not any less intelligent or even able than their peers- I believe they were forced to start schooling before they were ready. If they were given the chance to wait until they were ready, they would have been considered on par with their peers.
A lot of my feelings on the topic of readiness come from teaching preschool. Before I had kids I wanted nothing more than a career in Early Childhood Education. I firmly believed in great preschools and getting kids "ready for kindergarten". But while I was teaching, I saw things happening that I knew in my gut were wrong. Kids crying every morning, all year, because they didn't want to leave mom. Four year old boys trying so hard to hold a pencil in their fist and scrawl their names until they were near tears. Getting my fingers nipped while I tried to hold papers for three year olds to cut with safety scissors, hacking away in any direction. And the perpetually worried parents- is he "behind?" will she be ready for kindergarten? These kids were not dumb, but they couldn't handle this stuff yet. They just weren't ready. They weren't supposed to be!
Then I took an awesome college course taught by a professor who also ran a Montessori school. It (well, she) totally changed my view on education, and in retrospect, laid the foundation for our family homeschooling. She talked about kids learning through play, learning from the world around them. About how play IS their work, about how playing pretend is actually a pre-reading skill, about how stacking blocks is math and emptying cups in the bathtub is science. It led me to view a child's development as the building blocks of their education. Even with Gracie, who is eight now, a lot of my focus in more on development than content. The content will always be there for you to learn. But you have to be ready to receive it.
So no, Caleb will not be starting kindergarten. He won't even be starting preschool (isn't it all pre-school?) He will be playing until his heart's content, and probably learning more than I could ever teach him.
