Love this: "the potential for harm to a child's disposition to learn by inappropriate acceleration."
Clearly, inappropriate holding back has no potential for harm whatsoever, right? They did not even attempt to have their criteria sound balanced.
Tigerle, isn't that amazing? Selective wording, for sure, I suppose one would need something like that to ward off the parents whose child arrived in early Sept. and who now absolutely has to wait a year more for school that those who were able to be born just a wee bit sooner.
There are also references to the "research" about how younger children can be harmed by trying to keep up with older ones. Hmm. I've not come across that research yet. Could it be that children could be harmed if their educational needs aren't met at their level (i.e. no ability grouping) regardless of age, and it's just convenient to blame age?
Oddly enough, our children have flourished in mixed age classrooms starting at very young ages (Montessori and project-based programs). I know that is a sample of two, but having seen more than a hundred kids in the programs go through that experience, I don't think that they were being harmed by "trying to keep up" with older children.
Are these kindergarten curriculums of the 21st century really all that difficult? I keep seeing that claim, but am starting to question whether it is just fluff.
