Trinity,
While I agree that locking all children into an age-based developmental path is misguided, I do feel that some guidance is appropriate with respect to permitting a child to pursue knowledge for which they may be intellectually ready, but perhaps not emotionally ready. So if I have understood you correctly, we may differ on this point. Nonetheless, your overarching point of making sure we have an understanding of the teacher's perspectives on these issues is much appreciated.
this was a difficult point for me to express. On one hand, I didn't allow my son to watch Disney Feature Films until age 5, when eveyone else thought I was crazy, so I very much support the idea of emotional readiness as a seperate issue from academic readingess. OTOH, I tried to advance this question to see you were going to run into the kind of "cookbook thinking" that says - Harry Potter is too intense for children under the age of 8. This 4 year old boy came to school with this innapropriate book tucked under his arm. I am the teacher, and I KNOW that this is damaging, so I will make a rule that none of the preschool kids are allowed to read HP in my classroom. Nevermind that the parents must be aware of what their child is reading - I know better. I'm not saying that you should let your child read HP at age 4, maybe only 20% of the 4 year olds who have the capasity to read HP would be ready emotionally - but as a parent I would like a little respect. And I certianly don't like my kid being singled out for that kind of attention without a quiet little chat with me on the side. If the teacher was trying to protect some other advanced 4 year old who wasnt' emotionally ready, I would calmly explain the HP stays home, but my experience is that this isn't how folks handle things, in general. Sad to say.
