Oh lawd - 2 year olds going to school?

Did you hear about the new 'research' that says that children as young as two should be getting an education or else they will fall behind? The study was all over the news yesterday (link to National post below).

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11...ars-old-study/

This is the kind of stuff that just boggles my mind because I run a good daycare and we try to talk about ABCs, practice counting and concentrate on Kindergarten readiness for the older kids but seriously? I cannot sit half my day teaching children like a school and it does seem like parents are starting to expect more and more of that.

I can do crafts, outdoor time, healthy food but sometimes there is a struggle just to squeeze circle and art time in. Some days fly by and I cannot imagine committing myself to teaching more than day to day opportunities and time permitting. Is it so wrong to play as a toddler?

Imagine if this was really going to get funded and we would suddenly have no kids to care for after age 2? Just silly

You know in the Netherlands, Sweden etc, countries that typically out score the west on standardized tests do not start school until age 5/6 and have a play based curriculum?

Gah! kids need to be kids!

That was on our news and I did a google search for info and could not believe what some of the sites were saying. I got the impression it was a fancy round about way of pushing the universal daycare plan where the government controlled everything and everyone. Add in the one year maternity leave - which I have heard rumours about discussions of pushing it to two years and we become redundant as home daycare providers. Until kids are social and stop the parallel play what is the point of being in a room of 20 other kids.

Yes it sort of seems like the main goal is to get subsidized or publicly funded, licensed daycare in place.
I can see advantages to a program like that for working parents but they should just be honest and say that is their initiative rather than saying that the child will fall behind if they don't start at age 2.

As a stay at home mom I had a lot of issues even sending my 4 year old to JK every other day - I am so glad I missed the full day, every day because I felt that I was losing them so early. I can't imagine wanting to send a 2 year old away rather than bonding with them or having time with them at home. I can understand that working moms (outside the home) don't have a choice but there are parents who are stay at home and who do want to spend the time with their children while they can.

I wonder how far this study will go and whether they will really contemplate legislating something for this.

What it is is the greedy education sector. They want to find a way to put all of there teachers in a job. Think about it most of the universities now mandate that you need a degree of some sort for the most basic 2 year collage programs. They did it to the nursing & quite a few health care programs and now they are doing it to 2-year collage programs, such as food and beverage management. Give me a break!

They are making it harder and harder for people to change careers etc…

What’s next starting a course on teaching your kids how to play! Give me a freaking break!

Completely stupid. Fall behind what??? I mourn the way things used to be when we were kids. I think it's so sad the way our culture is going as far as the expectations we have for our children. They are overstructured. In my not-so-humble opinion, this just propagates dependent, insecure children who don't know how to use their imaginations or do anything without being led by the hand. It honestly makes me want to cry.

Funny thing is that no teacher will want to change a roomful of 2 year old diapers.........I wonder if they thought of that? lol

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Originally Posted by Spixie33

Funny thing is that no teacher will want to change a roomful of 2 year old diapers.........I wonder if they thought of that? lol

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Sooo stinking true! I'm sure they will have a person they will pay like minimum wage to do that job!

Hello,

I believe that there has been a misunderstanding around the 'early years learning plan'. If you check out the ECEBC website all the details of the plan are online. It should benefit all family childcare providers and bring us closer to the surrounding community where we live. I fully endorse this plan as it would implement higher earning wages for ECE's in the field of childcare and encourage continuing education so there is a standard minimum for our field. This will help give our field the image of being professionals (which is what we are) :)

Each province has different rules for home daycare. Ontario does not have licensed providers. It has some licensed agencies that contract with providers but we do not access government programs directly nor does the government control any aspect of our daycare except the number of children limitation. We are just dealing with the loss of the age 3 1/2 and up to full day junior kindergarten leaving only 3 and under for home daycare providers. Now that will be even more reduced to caring for only children for one year till they can start "school". Because we are not licensed they will be sent to daycare centres for school. Only the ECE workers in a daycare centre will get any wage benefits. A trained ECE that chooses to have a home daycare does not count for anything more than the mom who stays home with her own baby and opens a home daycare.

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Originally Posted by mamaof4

You know in the Netherlands, Sweden etc, countries that typically out score the west on standardized tests do not start school until age 5/6 and have a play based curriculum?

Gah! kids need to be kids!

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Don't these countries also offer free post secondary education? At least Sweden or Switzerland?
These countries obviously know whats important to their ppl and the future.

Actually even in other parts of Canada other than Ontario, kids start kindergarten at five and only half days, then full days at 6. I heard that in Sweden they don't start until 8. Now the French schools here in Ontario have a half day program for 3 year olds (free), so really they are starting two years earlier than in BC where my oldest son was born and started school.

So my kids went to school at 3 1/2 and of course I received the dreaded call at the beginning of november "maybe your child should take JK over again". OMG I was beside myself and of course have disliked the teacher ever since. BUT my point is teachers in JK expect the kids to know 60-80% roughly of their alphabet not to mention recognize their numbers 1-5 by Nov. Oh and my kids could not use scissors.OMG . So speaking from experience I guess we would need to blame the standards because there are very high expectations these days of the children. I learned the hard way that they need to know their stuff BEFORE they go to school. Why do we have teachers?
Now I feel as a daycare provider this is part of my job to teach these necessary skills so they are school ready. I wish my kids had started school the next year and just maybe it would not be such a struggle for them.

And that is the problem with education. What was the kindergarten program is now the JK program and as you say preschools - including us for our older kids are now expected to abandon the freeplay and exploration of daycare in favour of school readiness. Just when do kids get to be kids. Then they turn around and there was an article in the paper this morning about kids in school not liking to read. Can't blame them when they can't read without being asked to draw about it or write about it or find all the letter "a" on the page. We "look" at books several times a day just for the sake of looking. I use a rolling wooden bookshelf for transitions - they sit and look at books while we take turns for diaper changes before and after nap etc. We use a book to introduce all of the lessons and the last two I sent off to JK both received praise from the teacher for knowing the importance of reading. If only they could leave it at that at least a bit longer. Who cares if the author left a dangling participle at the end of the sentence if it works to further the plot.

Nifer, yes they do. And the childcare is very cheap compare to the other countries. In my native country we also start going to school when we are late 5 or 6.