GoBigEd

Wednesday, March 04, 2009


Another Piece of Evidence
That Scribbling and Doodling
Beat Taxpayer-Provided Preschool

Footnote to the rant I just posted against additional taxpayer-provided pre-k programs:

The first thing I noticed in the picture posted with this article below was the crummy way the person was holding the pencil. See? All wrong. You can't write very well or fast with that pencil grip. And when you can't form letters well or quickly, you can't RECOGNIZE them well or quickly when they appear before you in printed text. Hence: dyslexia . . . dysgraphia . . . attention deficit disorder / hyperactivity. . . .

The second thing I noticed, though, was the scientific proof that what seems to be "aimless" scribbling and doodling is a actually a clear benefit to thinking skills . . . concentration . . . attention . . . learning.

Once again, reality is debunking the notion that taxpayers need to be providing free pre-kindergarten programs for little kids in school. Noooooo, we don't. They'd be much, much better off scribbling and doodling and playing on their own, at home, for the most part, during early childhood.

And I believe the workaholic-style, programmed pre-k is contributing immensely to our problems with kids labeled as having "Attention Deficit Disorder / Hyperactivity."

So we're not only being asked to pay for still more "free" pre-k in our public schools that doesn't work and actually hampers the vast majority of the kids in their academic progress . . . but that taxpayer-provided free pre-k is actually setting up MORE kids to have LEARNING DISABILITIES!!!!!

In these taxpayer-provided "free" pre-k programs and early primary classrooms, kids are NOT being taught good pencil-handling and handwriting skills. They are NOT being encouraged to scribble and doodle when they are itty bitty, since those are so cheap and you don't need a college graduate supervising such "lowly" little-kid activities.

Therefore, by doing stuff that's far more expensive than is needed and actually distorts little kids' early academic experiences, we are wasting tax dollars, dumbing down learning, and socking ourselves with a giant attention problem.

Remember: we humans are multisensory. The non-handwriting, non-phonics crowd that has charge of our public school system is literally handicapping our kids by ignoring that fact.

Take a look:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1882127,00.html

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Comments:
Well bravissimo, Susan! There ARE two sides to the important issue of early childhood education! One wouldn't know it, however, from the mainstream media, including the Omaha World-Herald. The liberal educational establishment certainly rarely presents the other side of this issue. The mainstream media should interview you if they want to present both sides of this issue to the public, which is what good journalists are supposed to do.
 
As an inveterate lifetime doodler, I was overjoyed to read this article. I always thought my doodling was just another bad habit, like pencil chewing. (Any research on pencil chewing? Maybe it's a GOOD thing.)

Thank you for publicizing some of the arcane and well suppressed agruments against government pre-schools. Another argument against them might be found in the Huxley novel "Brave New World". The children in that novel are "educated" (brainwashed) from infancy by the overweening government. Do we want our government to have control of our children's minds from the age of three or four through college? I'll pass on that scenario, thank you.
 
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