[y66]

Details Emerge on Obama’s Call to Extend Preschool



Universal pre-k is such a no brainer.

[PassedOut]

y66, on 2013-February-14, 14:12, said:

Universal pre-k is such a no brainer.

Aside from taking steps to prevent massive destruction, getting all kids off to a good educational start should be our highest priority, in my opinion. Pay for teachers -- pre-school and elementary -- should reflect that.

When our sons were growing up, we sent them all to Montessori school, but many parents have neither the resources nor the time to commit to make that (or an effective alternative) happen. Not being able to provide a suitable pre-school only puts their own kids behind, but also makes the US less productive over the long haul. Speaking of government spending as "investment" sometimes makes me cringe, but not when it advances education.

[chasetb]

Allowing more kids to get educated and at an earlier age is never a bad idea, and should have been started awhile ago.

Indoctrinating them with liberal ideas and that President Obama is the 'greatest' ever is very bad. Teach them facts and let them think for themselves, don't do their thinking for them. That's how the USA got into this mess.

* For the record, I am a 25 year old conservative libertarian (I am located in the upper right, closer to moderate then the edge, look it up because my dial-up isn't working too well) who DOES NOT watch Fox or any other major cable network, though if I were to watch it would probably be split somewhere between Fox, Headline News, and a little MSNBC. They are all bad, every politician currently in DC needs to be voted out, and strict limits need to be set on future terms.

[PassedOut]

chasetb, on 2013-February-14, 16:21, said:

Allowing more kids to get educated and at an earlier age is never a bad idea, and should have been started awhile ago.

Indoctrinating them with liberal ideas and that President Obama is the 'greatest' ever is very bad. Teach them facts and let them think for themselves, don't do their thinking for them. That's how the USA got into this mess.

I suspect that the template programs in Alabama, Georgia, and Oklahoma don't require teaching kids that "President Obama is the 'greatest' ever." I agree that kids should not be indoctrinated with anti-scientific notions and knee-jerk 'respect for authority' either. Just help the pre-school kids to learn to read, to do arithmentic, to make comparisons, and to play chess.

[kenberg]

It's tough to be a kid these days. Somewhere arounf this early age I learned to ice skate. An older kid let me hold on to his hockey stick while he pulled me around, until I learned how to do it on my own. I learned how to ride a bike. An older kid held me up and trotted along side me until I could stay up on my own. I learned not to throw sand at other kids. Then I went off to school. Kindergarten was half a day and we learned how to sing, draw, be quiet and nap. In first grade, when I was five, I learned to read. I was in a bar with my mother and I pointed to a sign: Me: "That says Merry Christmas". My mother: "You can read!" Me: "Sure, I learned in school.".

For some reason this doesn't work anymore. A pity.

Becky talked me into going with her to a Y program in weight reduction. It's fun, and we are losing weight, but there is all this peripheral jazz that drives me a little nuts. Anyway, it's set up like a competition (which is not my style for something like weight loss) and we get reports. Comparisons are made by calculating percentage of weight loss. Last week I lost 1.8 pounds and this was given as a 1.8% weight loss. I was the leader in the percentage weight loss rankings. I sent back an e-mail thanking them for this honor but pointing out that 1.8 pounds is a 1.8% loss only for a person weighing 100 pounds. An amusing feature was that another guy also lost 1.8 pounds and his percentage loss was given as about one-third of mine, from which we could infer that he is three times as heavy as I am. Actually I only lost 1.6 pounds but my current weight had to be subtracted from last week's weight and, as Barbie said, math is hard.
We are grouped into teams. They take the average of the weight loss percentages on each team. Ours was much larger than any of the individual percentages. Becky figured it out. He had added the percentages for the six people on our team but not divided by 6.
We are told in our written reports that we eat "to few vegetables". Not once, as a typo. Regularly.
And so on and so on and so on.

What has happened?? The guy writing these reports has his resume on the wall at the Y and it includes some college. He appears to be of normal intelligence and of pleasant disposition.

Pre-K may be a good idea. I am not sure that it is a good idea, but it might be fine. The post-K also seems to need some work.

I do think that when a substantial study shows that Head Start didn't have much lasting impact we should give this some thought. Maybe we can learn from the mistakes and do better, but we should very definitely approach this matter with an open mind. This means including the possibility that it doesn't help much. Maybe the John Birch Society (a nut case group of some years ago) was right and fluoride in the water supply is a government plot to turn us all into morons. How hard can it be to learn how to compute an average?