Originally Posted by HowlerKarma
Originally Posted by Bostonian
Originally Posted by KnittingMama
Interesting.

DD would have preferred more academic challenge in kindergarten. However, I know she would have much preferred to play with the many toys they had in the room, or play outside, or read books, or do arts-and-crafts, than sit and listen to the teacher go over the alphabet for the Nth time. Because at least she would have been exercising her imagination and social skills.

Formal academics (in my mind, at least) usually involves sitting still, being quiet, and listening for longer periods of time. Five year olds are often not ready for this. They need to move and talk and explore, not sit and listen all day.
Maybe the answer is that only a fraction of KG should be academic, but that the academic fraction should be at the right level for the children. There is no point in drilling a fluent reader in the alphabet or teaching a child who can count to 100 how to count to 10. This suggests readiness grouping even in KG, which is contrary to the philosophy of many educators.

Agreed.

Fluid ability grouping with regular shifts in placement to accommodate different learning modes, readiness levels, and rate of progress. Nothing wrong with that except in the practical implementation, which is complicated in a classroom with 25 individual, unique students.


This, exactly. I actually think many educators would like to provide more differentiation, but the practical difficulty in actually doing so in a real classroom makes it nearly impossible. I really believe many of the problems in schools today are brought on in large part by the political madness over testing, and linking teacher pay to testing, the often high number of students in a single classroom with a single teacher, and the fact that we simply don't pay teachers well enough to attract anyone who isn't into self-sacrifice.