Carole (
June 3, 2008)
We put too many demands on our kids as it is! I have sent my children to daycare and they were successfully intregated into JK and SK. But schools have gotten away from what 4 and 5 year olds need. The teacher/child ratios are too large to give the little ones direct care and when did it become taboo to let them have a nap during their busy days? We expect our children to grow up fast enough! The funds need to be directed to parents so they can decide if they will stay home with their children or pay someone in a more age appropriate setting to care for them. |
Maureen (
June 3, 2008)
Has anyone even considered the cost of providing teachers/teachers' aides for this ludicrous idea!
Expecting four and five year olds to get on a bus at 8:00 am., function at school for six hours, and return home at 4:15 p.m. or later, is beyond laughable. Stimulation should always be part of a family's responsibility. When did it become the sole responsibilty of schools to nurture those we chose to bring into the world? |
Mike (
June 3, 2008)
Full time daycare is what it amounts to. Our children will spend 16 years (with University) in an institution full time. Escaping that for a few days a week is important. It is just easier than implementing a national daycare program. What is really needed is an incentive to keep Mom or Dad at home with the kids for a few years. And valuing our child care workers beyond 4 bucks an hour per child. |
Brad (
June 3, 2008)
All this does is accelerate the growing-up of our children. Let kids be kids - stop over-scheduling them and making them keep up with the Jones' and thinking that that is the only way to get through life. Send kids outside to play and use their imaginations. Just because parents need to have 'perfect' children and are buying into the idea that over-stimulating kids with every lesson, sport and hobby known to man is the way to produce a well-rounded child doesn't mean that it's beneficial or even good for the child. Childhood depression, obesity, eating disorders and peer issues (including bullying, and drug use) are at all-time highs. Do our kids really need the government and us, as their moral compasses and guides, to add more fuel to the pressure-cooker of their already over-taxed lives? NO. |
Bradey (June 3, 2008) (
June 3, 2008)
As a stay at home mother of three boys, I cannot imagine having to send my three or four year old to school five days a week. God help the teachers who have to maintain the attention level of a PRESCHOOLER (because this is what they are considered to be) for eight hours a day, in a class of twenty. How cost effective is this going to be to the provincial government when they have to augment or re-train all of their teaching staff to be more linguistically oriented, only to have the supposed benefits wear off, or be deemed negligible by age eight or nine. That seems like a colossal waste of tax dollars as well as valuable teaching time. Also, what happens to funding for daycare centres, childcare benefits, etc.? Those of us who choose to give up an alternate income are already giving up subsidized childcare benefits. I am not ready to give up my children five days a week , too. |
sf (
May 31, 2008)
No, for goodness sake don't do that to our children too! It's tough enough at JK & SK ages to concentrate in a classroom environment. Besides, the first years of school should be fun & relaxed - it makes better students in later years as grade 1 introduces homework & busy times with friends. |
Jodi (
May 30, 2008)
I, as a teacher, think it is ridiculous. My children are this age and I do not want them in school all day, five days a week! That is why I send them to a loving babysitter, nothing against daycare centres. Children spend enough time in school. At three or four years of age they still need to be able to have a little freedom, wear their pyjamas all day if they want, have cuddle days and have more play time. I do not feel that it is the school boards job to babysit them 5 days a week. As a parent I am more than happy to pay for good childcare for the 2 or 3 days a week that my child will not be in school. By going only a couple days in JK and SK I think that it shows the importance of school and listening and following the rules. It also makes it fun. In our house school is a place that our 4 year old gets to go on Tuesday and Thursday, not has to go and so far she likes it and is doing well, being very good and learning lots. She also really likes it! How is that going to be when she has to go there 5 days a week next year or her little sister in a couple years? I don't want to be negative, but it is probably not going to be the same. |
Richard (
May 29, 2008)
Full time "junior kindergarten" is not school - it's daycare, just ask those who have taught it. How sad a statement is it that we're willing to put a 4-year-old in full time schooling. Our parents and grandparents would consider it unthinkable, yet many families today simply rationalize it as their kids are in daycare anyway, might as well get an education while they're at it. When did parenting become so inconvenient? |
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