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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

That is completely and utterly factually untrue.

It's also tremendously disrespectful to kindergarten teachers who work hard to create an environment where the students learn and develop. It's a harder job than you might think.

You also might be interested it's not just kindergarten that's important, but also pre-K that shows significant and measurable life improvements, hence the current push for universal pre-K.

(Of course I'm referring to in-person kindergarten and pre-K where tons of data exists on this.)

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I'm familiar with the difficulty of 'teaching' kindergarten - giving dozens of children an engaging environment at the same time is extremely difficult, and I have a great deal of respect for kindergarten 'teachers'. My wife is employed in a similar role (in a mixed-age setting).

You're conflating 'enabling development' with teaching. One of those things is important at age 5-6, and the other is not - it's difficult to stop children from learning things at that age. There are not 'skills' that need to be imparted before 1st grade, there are behavioral examples that need to be set in a social context.

> That is completely and utterly factually untrue.

You certainly seem certain.. if you study the topic at a bit more length that will go away.

Perhaps you should speak with your wife and her coworkers more. They do in fact teach factual things in kinder. Last month, my kid was learning about black history and discrimination, for example. They also spend a great deal of time actively developing a baseline level of reading skills.

Sure these are things that a kid that goes to the library will probably already have had exposure to, but the thing is that not all kids are at that level.

> if you study the topic at a bit more length that will go away

I have many years of experience both in teaching and in educational policy and technology across K-12 and higher ed. In this particular case, I don't think I need to study it more but thanks. :)

> There are not 'skills' that need to be imparted before 1st grade

Again, that's false. There are absolutely skills and knowledge related to reading and numbers, for instance, that are explicitly taught and practiced and which determine an expected baseline for entering first grade.

I don't know where you'd get the idea that there aren't concrete educational standards for kindergarten.

I learned simple reading, basic math, how to read a clock, and various life and social skills in kindergarten. There's certainly a lot of active teaching going on at the kindergarten level, although I can't speak for all schools.

Without kindergarten, I would've been way behind when I entered first grade. There was a presumption of foundational knowledge on day one there.

Are you having a bad day or something?

This is a relatively recent thing. I didn't learn any of the things that my children had to learn in Kindergarten.

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