But pushing kids who really don't want to be in school to sit there all day is a waste.
Often, kids start school before they have the readiness to sit and listen for long periods.
That is another thing I noticed in Europe. At least where we lived when my children started school, they had already had 3 years of half-day kindergarten at taxpayer expense. And then they were tested on their intellectual maturity -- not whether they knew the alphabet or could write their name, but what kind of picture they could draw.
Experts can assess the readiness of a child for school by looking at the child's drawing. I believe firmly that it works at least well enough to avoid pushing children at the wrong time.
Also, I was told to make sure that my children did NOT LEARN TO READ -- not learn to read (negative emphasized) before they started school. The school taught the children at a steady, slow, low-stress pace. My oldest started school in September and could read a simple book by Christmas. Of course, she had heard lots of stories by that time and was excited to learn to read for herself.
We could learn a lot from school systems around the world. And one is to let kids who really do not want to sit in a classroom all day explore the real world. If we helped each child learn the basic math and language skills and did it slowly and patiently, then children who wanted to take advantage of the flexibility of our system could do so when they were ready.
But the fact remains that we are comparing our apples with the oranges in other countries in many cases.
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