Fascinating stuff! As an educator, I've always been an advocate for letting kids do as much on their own as possible, but my experience has been that parents are highly resistant to that. As a parent (my son is only 6, but still), there is massive pressure to "prepare" your child for the future. I've read a hell of a lot of research on child learning and development, but even so there have been moments when I've had massive second thoughts about whether or not we were doing the right thing.
The big thing we did that was differently from the mainstream was that our son never went to any sort of preschool. (And it's strange to think that is unusual these days, isn't it?) We were lucky enough to be able to have a parent at home with him almost all of his preschool years (and we had a part-time nanny for a few the other times), so outside of swimming lessons and a weekly Gymboree-type class, he basically spent the first six years of his life just playing. Sometimes with other kids, sometimes alone, and sometimes with an adult. The three of us spent the year he was five traveling, and so he didn't start kindergarten until halfway through the year. It was his first experience with school, and after a few weeks of adjustment, he was fine.
Overall, he's had this incredibly free early childhood, and he used it to play and learn and do so many things, all of it driven by his own interests. I actually shed some tears when he finally went to school because I realized that the days of spending hours making models of the solar system or drawing giant murals of bacteria were over. He wasn't going to get that kind of time to just do his own thing again.
I should say that he goes to a really great school and so far I'm very pleased with it. And he likes it, which is important. If he stops liking it or finds it stifling, I would have no problem pulling him out to homeschool.
But anyway, yes, all of this really resonates with me. Thanks for posting those linked articles!
Edit: A friend just shared this article (http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2013/11/26/ctq_walker.html) with me about an American teacher working in Finland. Very interesting, and in line with what you've posted above.
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The big thing we did that was differently from the mainstream was that our son never went to any sort of preschool. (And it's strange to think that is unusual these days, isn't it?) We were lucky enough to be able to have a parent at home with him almost all of his preschool years (and we had a part-time nanny for a few the other times), so outside of swimming lessons and a weekly Gymboree-type class, he basically spent the first six years of his life just playing. Sometimes with other kids, sometimes alone, and sometimes with an adult. The three of us spent the year he was five traveling, and so he didn't start kindergarten until halfway through the year. It was his first experience with school, and after a few weeks of adjustment, he was fine.
Overall, he's had this incredibly free early childhood, and he used it to play and learn and do so many things, all of it driven by his own interests. I actually shed some tears when he finally went to school because I realized that the days of spending hours making models of the solar system or drawing giant murals of bacteria were over. He wasn't going to get that kind of time to just do his own thing again.
I should say that he goes to a really great school and so far I'm very pleased with it. And he likes it, which is important. If he stops liking it or finds it stifling, I would have no problem pulling him out to homeschool.
But anyway, yes, all of this really resonates with me. Thanks for posting those linked articles!
Edit: A friend just shared this article (http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2013/11/26/ctq_walker.html) with me about an American teacher working in Finland. Very interesting, and in line with what you've posted above.