We have had our two kids, now 12 and 9, in private prgsseorive schools (including preschool) all their lives and haven’t regretted it for one moment.At the beginning, we were not sure exactly what to expect, thinking that just maybe our children would be a little behind public school children for awhile. After all, they don’t do worksheets, don’t take quizzes or tests, don’t get grades, and don’t get much or (untll grade 4) any homework. Instead they work, always collaboratively never competitively, on various projects, from writing poems to playing math games to building art projects to doing science experiments. In other words, they are for the most part (no school is perfect) having a blast in school, and we have to literally force them to stay home when they are sick.Our initial doubts turned out to be more than unfounded. Our daughter Sophia, now in 6th grade, who has loved reading and writing, is now writing her first novel. Not because anyone, much less her parents, put her up to it, but because she’s truly inspired by the books (in the fantasy genre) she reads and, well, because she loves to write.The reason we credit her prgsseorive schooling for this development is NOT that SCHOOL turned her into a good writer. It didn’t. There are too many other kids who are not writers (more on that in a moment). But school DID NOT interfere with her natural talent and passion for writing. She was never required to read anything she didn’t like to read, i.e., the kids choose their own books. She was never graded up or down for her work. And, perhaps, most importantly, she didn’t have a heavy load of meaningless homework to take up her last positive energy of the day. Instead, Sophia would typically come home, read a book of her choosing for several hours, play the piano for a bit (another passion), draw some pictures (yet another passion), and THEN start writing on her stories and, most recently, her novel.Our son Nicholas is a completely different child. His world revolves around animals, mostly herps (reptiles and amphibians). We go out in the field at least once a week to look for snakes, lizards, frogs, toads or salamanders, and by now he knows more about herps than 99.9% of adults. He is also a very passionate and quite accomplished wildlife photographer, with hundreds of really quite impressive shots to his credit.The thing is that neither my wife or I are wildlife photographers, much less did we know anything about reptiles or amphibians (nor, for that matter, are we professional writers). Yes, we’d go out into nature quite a bit and indirectly encourage that sort of thing, but probably not much or any more than other nature-loving parents. Nicholas simply picked up an old camera one day (in fact, we thought it didn’t work anymore) and started taking pictures of lizards in the front yard.The reason I credit his prgsseorive schooling, again, is that school encouraged him to pursue his talents and passions. It never sent the message that herping or photography was somehow less important than math and writing. The opposite was true. His teachers encouraged him to show his pictures in class, providing a semi-public forum for his work. He is known by all as the reptile guy and that suits him just fine. Also, like Sophia, he had and has no homework to compete for his energy and time. When he comes home, he usually is headed straight out the front door.Some of you are probably wondering at this point, Well, but can your son also read and write? Can your daughter do math and science? That’s a fair question. Without going into detail, I will say that they can hold their own against kids in traditional school. Sophia, for example, scored quite well on the so-called ISEE test, a test for admission to independent private middle schools. While Nicholas’s strengths are different from those of Sophia – he s more of a math and science person – we no longer doubt that he will, or rather would, score just fine too.For here is the kicker: Sophia insisted on taking the ISEE over our objections. We don’t really want her (or Nicholas) to go to a middle school that requires the ISEE because such a school, in our opinion, has its priorities screwed up. But since Sophia was adamant about taking the test (because most her friends were taking it), we let her go ahead. Yes, that’s how weird our family is – the kids ask to be ALLOWED to take hard standardized multiple-choice test, and the parents object and try to discourage them.I am running out of space, but let me end with these words of encouragement for those of you who are considering prgsseorive schooling: Don’t let people tell you that prgsseorive school doesn’t work – and not just at the pre-school level. It works just fine if you understand how it works and allow things to happen. Trust your children!
We have had our two kids, now 12 and 9, in private prgsseorive schools (including preschool) all their lives and haven’t regretted it for one moment.At the beginning, we were not sure exactly what to expect, thinking that just maybe our children would be a little behind public school children for awhile. After all, they don’t do worksheets, don’t take quizzes or tests, don’t get grades, and don’t get much or (untll grade 4) any homework. Instead they work, always collaboratively never competitively, on various projects, from writing poems to playing math games to building art projects to doing science experiments. In other words, they are for the most part (no school is perfect) having a blast in school, and we have to literally force them to stay home when they are sick.Our initial doubts turned out to be more than unfounded. Our daughter Sophia, now in 6th grade, who has loved reading and writing, is now writing her first novel. Not because anyone, much less her parents, put her up to it, but because she’s truly inspired by the books (in the fantasy genre) she reads and, well, because she loves to write.The reason we credit her prgsseorive schooling for this development is NOT that SCHOOL turned her into a good writer. It didn’t. There are too many other kids who are not writers (more on that in a moment). But school DID NOT interfere with her natural talent and passion for writing. She was never required to read anything she didn’t like to read, i.e., the kids choose their own books. She was never graded up or down for her work. And, perhaps, most importantly, she didn’t have a heavy load of meaningless homework to take up her last positive energy of the day. Instead, Sophia would typically come home, read a book of her choosing for several hours, play the piano for a bit (another passion), draw some pictures (yet another passion), and THEN start writing on her stories and, most recently, her novel.Our son Nicholas is a completely different child. His world revolves around animals, mostly herps (reptiles and amphibians). We go out in the field at least once a week to look for snakes, lizards, frogs, toads or salamanders, and by now he knows more about herps than 99.9% of adults. He is also a very passionate and quite accomplished wildlife photographer, with hundreds of really quite impressive shots to his credit.The thing is that neither my wife or I are wildlife photographers, much less did we know anything about reptiles or amphibians (nor, for that matter, are we professional writers). Yes, we’d go out into nature quite a bit and indirectly encourage that sort of thing, but probably not much or any more than other nature-loving parents. Nicholas simply picked up an old camera one day (in fact, we thought it didn’t work anymore) and started taking pictures of lizards in the front yard.The reason I credit his prgsseorive schooling, again, is that school encouraged him to pursue his talents and passions. It never sent the message that herping or photography was somehow less important than math and writing. The opposite was true. His teachers encouraged him to show his pictures in class, providing a semi-public forum for his work. He is known by all as the reptile guy and that suits him just fine. Also, like Sophia, he had and has no homework to compete for his energy and time. When he comes home, he usually is headed straight out the front door.Some of you are probably wondering at this point, Well, but can your son also read and write? Can your daughter do math and science? That’s a fair question. Without going into detail, I will say that they can hold their own against kids in traditional school. Sophia, for example, scored quite well on the so-called ISEE test, a test for admission to independent private middle schools. While Nicholas’s strengths are different from those of Sophia – he s more of a math and science person – we no longer doubt that he will, or rather would, score just fine too.For here is the kicker: Sophia insisted on taking the ISEE over our objections. We don’t really want her (or Nicholas) to go to a middle school that requires the ISEE because such a school, in our opinion, has its priorities screwed up. But since Sophia was adamant about taking the test (because most her friends were taking it), we let her go ahead. Yes, that’s how weird our family is – the kids ask to be ALLOWED to take hard standardized multiple-choice test, and the parents object and try to discourage them.I am running out of space, but let me end with these words of encouragement for those of you who are considering prgsseorive schooling: Don’t let people tell you that prgsseorive school doesn’t work – and not just at the pre-school level. It works just fine if you understand how it works and allow things to happen. Trust your children!