For a kid, 5 days is a long time. For a 5 year old kid, a 5 day school week is the equivalent of a 30 year old working for 30 days straight, then imagine you have a 12 day vacation. That's how time felt, and why those first few hours of Saturday morning were so cherished, it signaled the beginning of a weekend of possibilities.
Perhaps things are screwed up a bit more fundamentally if we're sending 5 yr olds to school. Or maybe it's not about the education, maybe everyone needs the government-funded daycare. It amazes (and frightens, just a little) me that you talk about it casually as if it should be the norm.
I don’t know, I went to school at 3 and I turned out fine. Same for my kids. It’s good to be with other children at that age.
> It amazes (and frightens, just a little) me that you talk about it casually as if it should be the norm.
It is the norm here. If anything, 5 is quite old to start school. The alternative is one of the parents giving up their career because the vast majority of people cannot afford full-time day care.
But there’s not only that. At that age children need stimulating environments and learn a lot, fast by being with others in a secure environment. You really see the difference between those who started at 3 and those who started at 6 in terms of cognitive, social, and motor development.
This anecdote is not just as problematic as most anecdotes, I think it is more so. The point of public education is allegedly not that "kids turn out fine" (whatever that means), but that they receive a minimum education. If you got 4 years more than me, was there 4 years' more worth of advantage bestowed upon you? If you merely approximated my level of education, then it would seem the government wasted 4 years worth of resources on you. Multiplied times every student in the nation, this is absolutely enormous. And that's not even counting the potential for psychological damage... you might be fine, slightly more resilient than some, but others might be suffering from any number of disorders that can't easily be traced back to early schooling. Less time to form family bonds, less time getting a more informal education, etc.
>It is the norm here. If anything, 5 is quite old to start school.
It wasn't the norm until quite recently. Even in the 1980s, it was not the norm. That you think it is a norm shows just how much such a policy can distort an entire population's perceptions.
>At that age children need stimulating environments and learn a lot, fast by being with others in a secure environment.
Such you are told. You assume it must be true. And yet, student performance at all age levels continues to decline, even as they're sent to school younger every decade.
>You really see the difference between those who started at 3 and those who started at 6 in terms of cognitive, social, and motor development.
The numbers don't support your claim.
This not an anecdote. Most European countries I know have mandatory school starting from 5 or 6, with the possibility of attending pre-primary school (with names that vary across countries) from 2 or 3, which most people tend to do for the reasons I mentioned. This worked for hundreds of millions of children, not just me.
> The point of public education is allegedly not that "kids turn out fine" (whatever that means), but that they receive a minimum education.
The point was that going to school before 5 was horrible. It’s not. A lot of kids do it and it works.
> If you got 4 years more than me, was there 4 years' more worth of advantage bestowed upon you?
You should take that chip off your shoulder. You are reading too much from what I wrote. I did not make a claim of superiority.
> If you merely approximated my level of education, then it would seem the government wasted 4 years worth of resources on you.
If you go down that path any public education is a waste of resources. The state (not the government) invested in my personal development and the ability of both my parents to remain in the workforce, if you really must think in monetary terms.
> And that's not even counting the potential for psychological damage
Right, prove it then. As I mentioned, this is the norm in many European countries, in which children do not seem to have much more psychological issues than in the US, for example.
> It wasn't the norm until quite recently. Even in the 1980s, it was not the norm. That you think it is a norm shows just how much such a policy can distort an entire population's perceptions.
You are way off. The law establishing public school for 3 years old children was voted in 1881 here. It became the norm when women had to enter the workforce and population concentration in cities weakened family links. This was way before 1980.
> Such you are told. You assume it must be true. And yet, student performance at all age levels continues to decline, even as they're sent to school younger every decade.
Amazing. It’s as if there were many factors at play.
> The numbers don't support your claim.
Which numbers do not?
I'd say a year now feels about as long as 3 months did c. 10 years old. Summer rolls around and I blink and it's already getting too cold for the beach again.
People come up with various reasons for it, with a popular explanation being novelty or something, but I've had a bunch of very novel years and it never seemed to make a difference. It's just a little faster every year.
Kinda depressing to think that, by subjective perception of time, I'm likely already in the last 20% or so of my life.
...and to sell toys to those kids while you weren't watching, of course. ;)