Originally Posted by nannyde:
I would bet you that experienced teachers will tell you that the biggest hindrence to them doing their job is the behavior of the parents, the behavior of the kids, how tired the kids are, how poorly they eat, how adult dependent they are for their moment to moment happiness, how they are expected to teach kids to read words, write letters, count, identify numbers, etc. but they can't get to it because they are spending the majority of their time trying to just get the kids to mind them.
Our crisis now isn't early education, it's early behavior, early health, early sleep, early exercise, and early respect.
We need to redifine what is really important for birth to five and the abc's and 123's need to put on the back burner. We need to get back to the notion that little kids need to eat healthy meals, need to be outside and get exercise, they need to do what the adults tell them to do, they need to be respectful, they need to have SELF control and be the masters of their own self esteem that is wrought from hard work and actual good behavior, they need SLEEP that is decided upon by the adults not themselves, and they need to make their own happiness through their own play. Preschool is what happens BEFORE they go to school. These are the things that need to be done with kids before they go to school.
BINGO!!!!!