The main thing with kids is to keep them alive | Hacker News Reader

The main thing with kids is to keep them alive

freddiedeboer.substack.com

66 pointspaulpauper28 comments

This is a very important point.

I live in NYC; our older child went through the DoE Pre-K program. The teachers were great and fun, but there was so much emphasis on things like "pre-literacy" and attempts to make it into a curriculum-based education (masked in a Reggio Emilia philosophy of "playing to learn" -- it was like bad improv -- "what do you kids want to learn about" -- "did I hear someone say insects? What do you know, we have an insect unit all ready to go!"). We got negative feedback from the teachers and administrators about keeping our kids home when we could -- "they won't understand what's happening to the project they started on Wednesday if they don't come in on Friday".

It was because of that that it was a negative experience -- this article nails it. It should just be childcare, which is great and necessary across all income levels! We are lucky enough to be able to afford a non-DoE program for our second child, and we were much happier with that.

our individual experiences are greatly different. I'm right next door to you in NJ, an hour train ride. I have a daughter now in 2nd grade, a son in public pre-k (special needs with autism), and a son in private pre-k. all three kids have absolutely learned a ton from pre-k. im always surprised at the things they know and talk about that i know they obviously learned there since i never taught it to them. both the public and private are very much in lined with your "its insect unit time" blurb above from my experience. to my children it has really kept them engaged.

before i put my first kid into pre-k i said to my wife "well i don't care what they learn, i just want them to go and have fun and socialize" and she was the opposite and argued we should find a place that also emphasizes "kindergarten readiness" (whatever that is). as things would have it, she won. it was hard to argue against it since my parents didn't send me to pre-k or anything and i wasn't accepted into kindergarten my first go at it.

I didn’t know there were qualifications beyond age and maybe the absence of a diagnosis. What else is there for public kindergarten?

in NJ kindergarten isn't mandated. so they can just nope you out of it. you would then either pay for private, get diagnosed with X to go into special needs kindergarten, or wait it out until 1st grade. i was put in special needs and was integrated the beginning of 4th grade.

as far as the test i don't remember what they did for me. my daughter breezed through it like it was nothing and obviously it seemed very basic to me lol!

I think your wife's position captures the most important education aspect of pre-K: socialization. If kids can learn to share, communicate needs, and get used to schedules that's a huge boost for vast numbers of kids before getting to real school. Just being away from their parents for a while is an important adaptation for school.

Consider a child with either far younger siblings or no siblings dumped into Kindergarten. They may not have any helpful social skills. If they have to spend their time learning them they're not learning actual education topics.

It doesn't matter if the pre-K time was spent on bullshit lessons about insects or whatever. So long as the kids get to socialize and get a safe and relatively structured environment they're going to be far better equipped for school.

I live in hippy dippy trippy California, and I think we have it right here: preschool is about teaching/practicing kids social play skills and emotional literacy.

In the 'nuclear family' age, without a ton of kids to play with, it's important for children to socialize, and learn how to negotiate play successfully, without resorting to kicking and punching and so on. Learning to identify feelings, take actions on them, etc. It's a lifelong course, so it's not being 'solved' in pre-school.

In terms of curricula, yeah there's some stuff, but sometimes that curricula is "play in the dirt" and "lets find bugs".

It's also a coop pre-school, so I attend the classroom, which is very awesome.

> live in NYC; our older child went through the DoE Pre-K program. The teachers were great and fun, but there was so much emphasis on things like "pre-literacy" and attempts to make it into a curriculum-based education

Public funded pre-K (and TK) is a mostly safety net program to mitigate the educational disadvantage that children whose don't have a hone environment with parents with a high level of educational attainment, etc., face.

safety net for education or for safety? One of the main points of the article is that the supposed educational benefits are probably not even real.

It's bizarre anyone ever thought they would be. It's like trying to build a house and a foundation at the same time. We eagerly cram data into toddlers and then try to make high school teachers socialize the poorly-behaved in the most ass-backward scheme imaginable.

> One of the main points of the article is that the supposed educational benefits are probably not even real.

Well, that's a claim it makes and relies on to an extent, sure. Of course, the support cited for that is a piece of educational research that the author low-key admits is neutralized by subsequent ed research, but where the author would like us to disregard the subsequent ed research because “as with all ed research, it can say what you want it to.”

The main thrust of the article, though, is against licensure on the basis that it drives up cost, as if licensure isn't an issue for non-curricular daycare (and as if much of the licensure requirements for pre-K weren't centered around the safety part of their job.)

>>The teachers were great and fun [...]

Isn't this sufficiently enough for pre-K childcare? If pre-K caregivers are able to make the program both fun and educational, I can't help but feel that this is extra gravy on top for a parent.

Perhaps part of the issue is that "educational" is interpreted differently by families. For example, before the age of 5 (when children enter the K-12 system) some children have difficulty holding a pencil, so having more time working with pencils, crayons and scissors (!!) to improve motor skills could fall under the "educational" category during pre-K.

>>We got negative feedback from the teachers and administrators about keeping our kids home when we could -- "they won't understand what's happening to the project they started on Wednesday if they don't come in on Friday".

If one of the proported benefits of a "warm, safe and stimulating" environment happens to be socialization and instilling a sense of group belonging, then this sort of feedback might make sense. Having said this, I can also emphasize when teachers may not necessarily deliver the message in the clearest manner to parents.

Idk. We sent our daughter to pre-K to a educationally-focused place, and for her I would have welcomed all forms of rigor as early a point as possible. If [when] we were spending time with her we'd be doing that, and sending her to a babysitting program wouldn't be quite the same.

I'm sympathetic to the author's arguments about licensing, although I think some level of licensure with child care is probably inevitable. If I were being honest, even though I'm licensing-skeptical, education and child care is one area where I think I'd look for it. Maybe not from individual teachers/staff, but for the program as a whole?

I guess my sense is kids will learn a lot on their own, but they're not in a vacuum. They can't really learn what they're not exposed to.

Earlier this year we had 3 children in daycare. From a budgeting perspective, US policy doesn't make sense for parents. Once children are in school, cost of childcare reduces dramatically. But before then, you're on your own. I would definitely support policy that helps offset the cost of early childcare.

We’re a dual engineer couple, but still only pay 400 EUR/mo for 8-9 hour/day daycare for our 1 year old, and it would be a bit less if we had more than one kid, and a lot less if we were significantly under Germany’s median household income level or only wanted half days.

I want for my fellow Americans what I enjoy here. Every kid should be able to have a parent at home with them their first year.

A banal headline followed by an article that stems from the assumption that infants and toddlers are not ready to learn yields an anti-policy position on daycare-with-curriculum.

How about: daycare, when strictly necessary, should have several priorities beyond failing to kill children that address the most important aspects of child development, excluding screentime and including but not limited to: Human interaction (peer and authority) Nutrition Play Naps Stories

Also, that use of wonky was wonky, by definition.

I feel like you're saying the same thing as the author? The things you've listed are daycare, not school... And the author's point is that we shouldn't make it more difficult for children to be in daycare-like settings by requiring that those settings be more like school.

I mean this article just leans into all the hunches that people have about kids.

My friend who is a school councilor (eg: therapist at school, not a 'career advisor') for elementary school, says its very obvious which kindergarden kids have preschool and which do not. And it's not all about learning about letters or whatever, it's also about emotional literacy and learning how to play with others and how to navigate a large group setting. These are all skills kids need to learn, some learn them fast, others less so.

I generally agree that we shouldn't be turning pre-school into some form of collegiate prep, but I also think that by focusing on academics as 'learning' we also forget about all the other things kids need to learn. Like how to operate their bodies (eg: running, jumping, bikes, scooters, play structures, all things they may not have a lot at home), how to handle feelings, negotiate play with peers, how to participate in large group activities (circle time), and much more. These are all foundational skills. Yes they can learn them in kindergarden as well, but frankly as a parent, I like that my kid has socialization and honestly we have a few hours without him!

I really don't understand how the author is saying "child care should not require a license" and "the primary role is to keep children safe" in the same sentence. If anything should require proof of competence it's keeping children safe.

Obviously there are different models of getting licensed and it definitely shouldn't work like it does in some technical industries (pay a bucket of money to a for-profit company and take an online quiz), but nobody outside the US would be insane enough to do that anyways.

There's a big difference though between requiring a license, and requiring that every childcare provider has a college education (like is required of teachers). Keeping a child safe is not effortless, but it's also not that hard, it can be done easily with the same diligence you'd expect of someone working at like, a fast food restaurant.

I mostly disagree, I would like ECE to offer both a career for those that pursue it and a certain level of professionalism that I would not expect out of essentially a babysitter.

But, what's more important here is that, as it is currently, many fast food restaurants both require less and pay significantly more than ECE. The idea that this is simply a licensing problem is just incorrect.

Perhaps a level of professionalism that you would expect from someone working at a fast food restaurant? The fact that fast food restaurants can require less and pay more than ECE makes it sound exactly like a licensing problem. As a father of 4, I think a person cannot possibly be professional enough to be super effective at teaching anything to 30 kids at a time, but anyone with a bit of diligence and a few basic techniques can teach something to a handful of kids at a time, so I'd lean towards getting a lot more people into the field while relaxing education/licensing requirements.

But besides that, it sounds like there are just a lot more people who are attracted to ECE as a career, so the powers that be can pay less while demanding more education. That's a harder problem to solve.

>Perhaps a level of professionalism that you would expect from someone working at a fast food restaurant?

Uh, no. That's why I disagreed initially... I certainly don't have the same expectation of professionalism from someone handing me a burger and fries as compared with someone taking care of my kids for hours everyday (or multiple days a week).

>The fact that fast food restaurants can require less and pay more than ECE makes it sound exactly like a licensing problem.

Uh, also no? The article discusses this... Removing licensing requirements generally drives down wages... And, since wages are the primary problem already, how could this possibly be a licensing problem?

>As a father of 4, I think a person cannot possibly be professional enough to be super effective at teaching anything to 30 kids at a time, but anyone with a bit of diligence and a few basic techniques can teach something to a handful of kids at a time, so I'd lean towards getting a lot more people into the field while relaxing education/licensing requirements.

Even ignoring education, I expect more from simply an interaction and safety perspective for those that would care for my kids than from, for example, a fast food restaurant worker.

>But besides that, it sounds like there are just a lot more people who are attracted to ECE as a career, so the powers that be can pay less while demanding more education. That's a harder problem to solve.

Well the actual problem is that there is an enormous ECE worker shortage... Because of wages (and that it's a relatively difficult job compared with, for example, working in fast food)... Which is the entire problem... Which isn't going to be solved by removing licensing requirements (i.e. wages are not going to go up with fewer/no licensing requirements)...

I don't mind the article, but one of the main points links a study from 2017 on school safety. Schools have become less safe since 2017. Since 2017, school shootings in the USA have skyrocketed [1].

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/971473/number-k-12-schoo...

Looks like they have doubled or tripled? Schools are still safe in absolute terms, shootings are a very small number.

My big problem with licensure/curriculum standards are that they create a pipeline for the Pearson's of the world to siphon public dollars in the name of "teaching". School boards concerned with choosing a standards-conforming textbook never got in trouble for choosing Pearson.

But constant testing and metrics seems to be what a lot of parents want, in my experience as a parent.

Parents wanting something doesn't make them correct

>But constant testing and metrics seems to be what a lot of parents want //

Why?

My guess is socialization. The people I have in mind have found above average success in life and probably got good grades themselves. They have internalized the "fact" that education = worksheets + tests + grades. And this is the lens through which they manage their children's education.

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