Preschool Options: Why The Type Of Early Education You Pick Might Not Matter

Preschool Options: Why The Type Of Early Education You Pick Might Not Matter

A One morning, my husband dragged himself out of bed at 5 a.m. and rode his bike to a nearby preschool. The school was empty but a sleepy line started forming outside the school’s doors -- he was the sixth person to join it. Eventually, my husband was invited inside, where he handed a stranger an application and a check for $50 and promptly left. So began our son’s preschool application process for the 2013/2014 academic year, 12 months in advance.

B It wouldn’t be New York if preschool admissions were easy. But upper-middle-class parents keep ranking schools and agonizing over which educational “philosophy” is right for their kid. The kids who truly need early education have parents who can’t afford it. Compared with kids who skip preschool, kids who attend usually have more well-to-do, encouraging parents who read and do puzzles with them at home. Children who don’t go to preschool are usually from more disadvantaged families, which means they watch lots of TV and are yelled at more than they are praised, which some researchers believe can stunt cognitive development.

C Research suggests that preschool only benefits children from these disadvantaged families (families below the poverty line, uneducated mothers, or racial minorities). The preschool acts as a kind of “equalizer,” ensuring that for at least a few hours a day, these kids get the same high-quality interaction with adults as more advantaged children do. In other words, a bad home situation becomes a much smaller problem when your kid goes to preschool; when you have a good home environment, preschool doesn’t really matter.

D So if preschool doesn’t really matter for advantaged kids, then the type of preschool matters even less. Waldorf, Montessori, Reggio Emilia, Catholic school? Some approaches may be a better fit for certain personalities: Waldorf schools, which teach through imitation and imagination and don’t ever give tests, might mesh well with artistic children; the Reggio Emilia approach is a project-based philosophy in which children spend days, weeks, or even months exploring a particular topic, like seashells; and the Montessori method teaches skills through the use of special manipulative materials, perhaps good for an engineer-to-be.

E So if you’re providing your child with a stimulating environment at home don’t stress about preschool. Instead, take to heart the words of social psychologist Richard Nisbett, co-director of the Culture and Cognition program at the University of Michigan. When I asked him how important it is to send your child to the best preschool, he told me that as far as he knows, “It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.”

Adjusted to (1)

drag – dokopat se, přemoci se

mesh – zapadat, hodit se

1) Read the article and match each of the headings to a paragraph.

1 Type of preschool isn’t important

2 Children who attend preschools don’t really need it

3 Preschool equalizes knowledge and skills

4 Our son’s application

5 Which preschool to choose?

2) Read the article and answer the questions.

1 How do upper-middle-class parents from New York apply for preschools?

2 Who really needs to attend a preschool? Why?

3 What does the article say about disadvantaged families and their upbringing?

4 What types of preschools are mentioned? How are they compared?

5 Who is Richard Nisbett? What does he say?

3) Explain the following words and phrases.

1 application

2 preschool admissions

3 families below the poverty line

4 manipulative materials

5 stimulating environment

4) Answer the following questions.

What types of preschools do you know? What is their education philosophy? Describe Czech educational preschool system. What rights do children with special educational needs have? What possibilities do disadvantaged preschoolers in the Czech Republic have?

Video:

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Tips, sources of information:

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Source:

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WENNER MOYER, Melinda. Preschool Options: Why The Type Of Early Education You Pick Might Not Matter. Huffington Post [online]. 2013 [cit. 2015-09-22]. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/20/preschool-options_n_2516420.html

Beat inequality with preschool

Beat inequality with preschool

A Arguably the most important and innovative idea proposed by President Obama in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night was his call for high-quality, universal pre-school education.

B “Every dollar we invest in high-quality early childhood education can save more than seven dollars later on, by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime,” Obama said. “In states that make it a priority to educate our youngest children…, studies show students grow up more likely to read and do math at grade level, graduate high school, hold a job, form more stable families of their own.”

C He’s right. Most Americans would be surprised to learn that the United States now does worse in terms of social mobility than many European countries – especially those in Scandinavia – as well as Canada. What does this mean in practice? It means that a poor child born in the United States is much more likely to remain poor than one born in Canada or Denmark.

D The Pew Charitable Trust’s Economic Mobility Project found last year, for example, that “more than 40 percent of Americans raised in the poorest family background remain stuck there as adults, and 70 percent remain below the middle.” OECD research, meanwhile, found that while “at least 40 percent of the economic advantage that high-earnings fathers have over low-earnings fathers is transmitted to their sons,” the comparable figure for Nordic countries, Canada and Australia was less than 20 percent.

E The main reason for this, I believe, is that many of the countries with higher mobility invest a great deal in children of all backgrounds, early in their lives, in terms of daycare, nutrition and education. And what the research increasingly shows is that if a child has missed out in the first few years of life in terms of nutrition, in terms of attention that adults pay to them, in terms of cognitive stimulation, then it is very difficult for them to catch up because they have been so disadvantaged – some of them neurologically. Countries with strong programs for the very young, in contrast, tend to have an advantage.

Adjusted to (1)

arguably – zřejmě

boost – oživení

remain stuck – uvíznout

1) Read the article and match each of the headings to a paragraph.

1 Call for equal preschool education

2 Economic research

3 Countries which invest more have an advantage

4 Investment into preschool education is convenient

5 Many poor children remain poor as adults in the US

2) Read the article and answer the questions.

1 What is Obama’s opinion?

2 Why is equal preschool education important??

3 What is the situation of poor children in the US like?

4 What did the economic research find out?

5 How can be the situation changed?

3) Explain the following words and phrases.

1 universal pre-school education

2 reducing violent crime

3 high-earnings fathers

4 children of all backgrounds

5 disadvantaged

4) Answer the following questions.

Why is preschool education important? Who are economically disabled children? What is segregation of children? What are problems of economically and socially handicapped? What does Czech government do for equal education?

Video:

https://goo.gl/jZlCff

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Tips, sources of information:

http://goo.gl/EtbKYb

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Source:

(1)

ZAKARIA, Fareed. Fareed Zakaria: Beat inequality with preschool. CNN News [online]. 2013 [cit. 2015-09-22]. Available at: http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2013/02/18/fareed-zakaria-beat-inequality-with-preschool/

Magic unfolds at preschool in retirement home

A Filmmaker Evan Briggs had spent a long time thinking about aging in America, our relationship to the elderly and how dysfunctional it seemed. “What is it about our value system that makes it so these people don’t really have a place here anymore after a certain age? Why are we OK with that?” she thought. “There is so much wisdom and life experience that our elderly members of society have that we're just not availing ourselves of, and that just seems like a huge loss.”

B When she learned there was a preschool in her town set inside a retirement home, where the residents and the children interacted on a daily basis, she knew she wanted to film a documentary there. Briggs spent the 2012-13 school year filming three days a week at the Intergenerational Learning Center for children 6 weeks to 5 years old inside Providence Mount St. Vincent, a retirement home for about 400 adults in West Seattle. Her first feature-length film, “Present Perfect,” explores “the very real experience of aging in America – both growing up and growing old.”

C The five-minute trailer, which was released in early June as part of a crowdfunding campaign, is filled with loving and life-affirming interactions between the little ones and the elderly residents. A little boy named Max patiently repeats his name as a hard-of-hearing resident keeps getting it wrong. A resident reaches down and strokes a toddler’s hair.

D Intergenerational programs exist at approximately 500 long-term care facilities, senior centers and other facilities across the country. The Seattle day-care center, now nearly 25 years old, was developed to enhance the sense of community in the long-term care facility, said director Marie Hoover. “It was clear to the leadership, at the time, that creating the feeling of ‘a village’ was going to require the addition of children along with a robust plan to bring the two age groups together,” Hoover said.

E This week, Briggs set a new stretch goal of $100,000, which she says would allow her to finish the film without seeking additional funding sources. “It’s so exciting to me that the idea is resonating. It’s just the most amazing surprise,” she said. She imagined people are responding to the film’s implicit message of hope. “Look at this simple thing that’s being done, and there’s no reason this can’t be replicated everywhere.” Since the trailer was released, the Seattle school has had a huge response from local families looking to enroll in the program, and inquiries from people around the world who would like to know how to create the intergenerational model in their own community.

Adjusted to (1)

avail – využívat

crowdfunding – společné financování

1) Read the article and match each of the headings to a paragraph.

1 Film trailer

2 Evan Briggs’ initial thoughts

3 Impact of the film

4 Intergenerational program

5 Spending a year in Providence Mount St. Vincent

2) Read the article and answer the questions.

1 What were Evan Briggs’ initial thoughts?

2 Where did she start making her film?

3 What was the trailer about?

4 Why are new intergenerational centres opened?

5 What is the impact of the film?

3) Explain the following words and phrases.

1 relationship to the elderly

2 Intergenerational Learning Center for children

3 life-affirming interactions

4 long-term care facilities

5 to enroll in the program

4) Answer the following questions.

What is a care home? What new skills do children get through interaction with seniors? What is social intelligence? How are seniors stimulated by children? Is there a similar program in the Czech Republic?

Video:

http://goo.gl/Nt2Bj9

https://goo.gl/azPJYh

https://goo.gl/2ePS5k

https://goo.gl/sEYpXZ

Tips, sources of information:

http://goo.gl/IkmeLQ

http://goo.gl/TjAAHR

Source:

(1)

SASHIN, Daphne. Magic unfolds at preschool in retirement home. CNN News [online]. 2014 [cit. 2015-09-22]. Available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/19/living/preschool-nursing-home-seattle/