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Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Education: TV & Preschool, Preschool & TV

Here I am. Here I am, blinking a little bit from my telephone blitz of yesterday morning. As always I seem to have miscalculated my mission somewhat since only two of the schools I had to call for applications had the "redial mania" requirement. I'm impressed that my phone held up as well as it did, grateful that my husband could pitch in and am even more pleased that I didn't have to ask for help from anyone else.

This wasn't what I was facing, but the New York Sun (no, no I don't really read it, someone pointed me at it and because I'm a glutton for punishment, I had to check it out) ran one of those silly "human interest" pieces yesterday just to make all New Yorkers look like morons.

My task isn't over. I have several more schools to contact so I'll be hitting "redial" a lot more at strategic moments for the rest of the month.

While I was punching buttons, a New York Times article caught my eye because it seemed to explain why my kid will absolutely not look at a television for more than two seconds (and then only if there are images of water or helicopters on it).

Note that I don't mind this at all. I don't really want Felix watching TV, and this only is in my mind because of the whole question of travel, and how everyone agrees that offering some visual entertainment makes trips easier on everyone.

But my kid won't acknowledge the screen at all. And it seems that at Felix's age, it isn't so unreasonable. Felix is younger than the group that was studied, but apparently toddlers are more receptive to video information is "they consider the person on the screen to be someone they can talk to." This goes some way towards explaining why kids do not become bilingual from constant exposure to foreign language movies. (My dentist told me a friend of his hoped his children would learn one of the Chinese dialects, I can't recall which one, in this manner. I'm sure they saw some fabulous pictures, even if they didn't learn much Chinese.) The type of show that is apparently most successful in stimulating toddlers' attention and being actually "educational" is something like Blue's Clues (which I have not seen, so I don't know if it is bearable or not).

It is an interesting article, and if the studies actually prove at all accurate, there will probably be a wash of new interactive toddler programming hitting airwaves soon enough.

But I just got a call from a little nice sounding nursery school saying: "Well, we'll send you an application, but I have to warn you that there's almost no hope of getting your child into our school next year. It's just very competitive."

And now I must find those cookies I wasn't going to eat and redouble my efforts.

posted by Elise at 10:38 AM

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5 Comments:

Stacy said...

Wow. It must be hard to live in a place that's so competitive. And I thought DC was bad! If it's any consolation, I kept my son out of pre-school when he was two. I don't think two-year-olds are ready for school yet. Instead, we took a bunch of classes together (gymboree type stuff), went on trips, joined a play group. I haven't regretted it at all. The outsized paranoia of the ruling class always fascinates me (and makes me neurotic-- if they're so afraid and desperate, shouldn't I be, too?) It's almost as if they need their children to "perform" in order for their children to be acceptable to them, and that's really tragic. I can't imagine the environment in those schools is very conducive to the healthy growth of little kids, anyways, if the kids can't be free to be themselves with all of the difficulut messiness that involves at this age. Anyways, I just wanted to say that I really enjoy your blog. You are so smart and such a refreshingly independent thinker.

9/06/2006 5:55 PM

Elise said...

Many thanks. All those thoughts are completely reasonable. The question of how old a child should be to go to school is interesting. Many of the most traditional preschools don't take children who are younger than two years and seven months - and then for two sessions (morning or afternoon) a week and in that sense I don't think it is so wildly different from the classes people take with young children. But other schools with other philosophies have longer days or take younger kids, etc. So everything really does require quite a lot of research to see what fits your plan (and the age of your child). I should say that I am mystified by all of this since I am forced to think about school for next year. I can't plan a meal for two nights from now.

9/07/2006 5:40 AM

Anonymous said...

Our local Waldorf school, where my daughter just started preschool, doesn't accept children under 3, and they must be potty trained as well. It is great. I don't think earlier is necessarily better, although I do think that kids at around 2 years of age enjoy being around other children, whether or not they interact and play with them or not. Our school also has a total media ban until 5th grade, no TV at all. We sold ours before she was born,a ndhaven't missed it at all. I would encourage anyone to go tv-free with kids. I enjoy your writing, especially the etiquette section, a great deal.

9/07/2006 8:48 AM

Anonymous said...

Blues Clues is one of the less annoying children's shows I've seen. Felix probably isn't quite ready for it yet, but if the 4 year old I babysat is any indicator, he will enjoy it. It is quite interactive. The host always asks you questions, then waits a somewhat appropriate amount of time before saying "Oh, a clue!" or whatever the answer was.

9/09/2006 4:40 AM

Anonymous said...

My daughter--who turned 3 mere days after the Sept. 1 deadline for preschool--is in one of those twice-a-week classes that you describe. It's just an hour and a half, and I think it's the perfect transition between being with me all the time and eventually going to preschool next year. What I really like is that most of the "games" are clearly designed to teach them skills they'll need in preschool--following instructions, sitting in a circle, solving conflicts without fighting, etc. My daughter adores it.

9/09/2006 11:52 AM

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