Blue Man Group School Scrutinized As Parents Say Kids Can't Read

Parents Forum
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<p>“A literate, well-educated individual, like any undertaking that requires a lot of step-by-step building, needs a strong foundation to support the stuff that comes later. If education in grades K through 3 is so inconsequential why even have it?”</p>

<p>good question. I don’t think one does. Most of it is school mythology. I have worked with hundreds and hundreds of parents and children who don’t think so. I’ve got two kids, one who completed graduated school (with her B.A. and M.S.) in four years, the other in her 5th year of her Ph.D. program, who had absolutely none of that. They have six languages between them.</p>

<p>And there are very, very successful schools that have been going for more than 40 years, that have sent students on to the nation’s best colleges and universities, “structured” that way - and yes, the children decide the curriculum, and, in fact, even hire the teachers (without the parents involved in that whatsoever.) Check out Sudbury Valley Schools.</p>

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<p>In the early years in Japan’s elementary schools, kids spend far more time on art, music, playing and even cleaning their own school (yes, that’s a tradition there) than in reading and doing math problems. </p>

<p>Clearly, the Japanese discovered that you CAN have a mellow first few years in school and still turn out highly accomplished students by the end of high school.</p>

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<p>In Norway (supposedly home of the most successful schools) they don’t teach reading, or “reading readiness”, or “phonics” or “alphabet” before age 7.</p>

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<p>Same in many other northern/central European countries - all of which produce more accomplished students than the US.</p>

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<p>I don’t understand why the New York Post would criticize poor readers–that’s its future market segment.</p>

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<p>I’m a big believer in following kids’ leads in the early years. I think that most kids naturally know what they need to know and stretch themselves, and that if we trust them, while also surrounding them with resources, both in the form of knowledgeable adults, and things like books, and art supplies, and musical instruments, they’ll find their way.</p>

<p>Having said that, I think that if you follow this approach you need to take a long term view, and not expect kids to be marching along in lock step with the public school, or in this case elite private school kids. Kids who are directing their own learning are likely to jump from subject to subject, showing dramatic growth in one area while neglecting another. I think of my own child, who wasn’t educated in this manner, he went to public school because I needed to work, who spent about 4 weeks the summer he was 7 obsessed with the game monopoly. By the end of those 4 weeks he had gone from sort of understanding single digit addition and subtraction, to mastering 4 digit place value, adding and subtracting 3 digit numbers with regrouping in his head, being able to divide numbers in half (so he could figure out how much a property mortgaged for), etc . . . Of course during those same 4 weeks the only reading he learned was things like “Community Chest”. If I’d let him learn like that all the time, I’d imagine that there would have been similar months when he was all about Harry Potter, and jumped 3 years in reading levels while working his way through the books, or decided that all he cared about was bugs and learned a huge amount about life cycles. But would that bug month have happened during the same grade when “life cycles” appear in the standards? Would he have been “on grade level” before the Harry Potter jump? Probably not. </p>

<p>I’d need to see the Blue School before I’d decide whether I’d send my own kid, but in general, I think that you can’t judge schools that give a lot of freedom with a yardstick designed for kids in adult directed curricula.</p>

<p>I would also say that Montessori schools don’t really belong in the same category as the Blue School. Montessori schools, in my experience, do direct kids learning a great deal. They do so by limiting what kids are allowed to use or do, and how they are supposed to use or do those things, with the result being that kids do end up choosing the academic tasks that the Montessori people value. I think that’s fine, but it’s really no less pushy than a teacher saying “Now it’s time to take out your reading book”.</p>

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<p>There’s your problem. Just because they bought their way to the top of the google search doesn’t mean they’re an accurate source of news. Honestly I don’t know why people keep sharing around their stories. </p>

<p>We’ve clearly established that the school is not as ridiculous as the article makes it seem, but 32,000?! What are they doing, taking out student loans for kindergarten?!</p>

<p>Also, I was in a Montessori school from Kindergarten to second grade and found it extremely beneficial, when I transitioned to regular classrooms I was actually ahead of other students. If I ever have kids I’d absolutely consider sending them to one, but not for $32K!!</p>

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<p>Many private elementary school around here charge 28 - 30K. People jump through all sorts of hoops such as having their 3 year old tutored for the entrance exams, for the privilege of paying that money. It doesn’t surprise me that the rates for NYC are even higher.</p>

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<p>I’m with mini – a structured approach to primary school is not necessary.</p>

<p>How many kids learn to read in school anyway? I know mine didn’t.</p>

<p>My older child was in a Montessori school where serious reading instruction began in Kindergarten. One of the girl’s was already a strong reader. My D was having difficulties and becoming frustrated because she was used to being “smart.” I consulted a friend who was a primary teacher who showed me an English approach; I used it and she learned in one day.</p>

<p>However, her difficulties alerted me to a potential problem. I had her eyes tested, and although her vision was acute, she had a tracking problem with using her eyes together. She had eye training and quickly became a voracious reader. </p>

<p>My three year old S was fascinated by my teaching D to read and he learned the same day. He read fluently at 3. However, he no longer reads very much. Despite winning the English award at his school twice (middle school and high school) he has ADD and just doesn’t enjoy reading that much. He’s a budding art historian who loves looking at art.</p>

<p>My mom says I taught myself to read at 18 months from matching names of products in commercials to their boxes in the supermarket. I recognized the lettering and then expanded my “vocabulary” and by two could read.</p>

<p>Three people for whom which school we attended didn’t really matter at all.</p>

<p>Many studies show the basis of a reader is a lot of VERBAL interaction with a parent or caretaker in infancy and toddlerhood, especially conversations of depth and duration.</p>

<p>I don’t know anything of this school, but barring LD’s or dyslexia (actually an LD I guess) I wonder if the disgruntled parents had such busy lives that they were falling short in this area.</p>

<p>My worked too hard out of the house to be able to home school my kids, and when they were older enough to have a say they said they loved going to school. Fine. However following mini’s lead I will say that the most academically capable kids of I know of were home schooled.</p>

<p>Most things that are learned we teach ourselves. Where does the motivation come from? A complex question, but the earliest we teach kids that motivation has to come from within the more successful people they’ll be.</p>

<p>I wonder if the Blue Man Group school is trying to impart that idea, even if they’re not always successful in doing it.</p>

<p>Many of the kids who were very compliant and eager to meet the expectations of teachers in primary school are not the most successful adults, though of course some of them are.</p>

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Thats priceless, Hunt!</p>

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<p>Davidssabb–don’t move to NYC (where the Blue School is located) 32K actually falls a bit below the average for private non-parochial schools. Most NYC schools are starting at over 35K and then they hit you up for additional “capital improvements” etc. fundraisers. You’d be lucky to get away with your initial tuition payment. FWIW, the NY Post tends to jump all over anything that smacks of less than traditional teaching. The kids in question are all in the early grades (no high-schoolers here). Many kids don’t read fluently before 2nd grade. Many do. It’s a developmental issue that can’t be force-fed. What is worse is the competition among NYC parents for those fast-track nursery schools that are supposedly pipelines into HYP. These parents are tutoring kids for the entrance exams (at age 3!). And to listen to some NYC parents, every kid scores in the 98th percentile (god forbid if s/he doesn’t) If your kid hasn’t taken up fencing or squash by age 6, it’s all over. To be honest I find the attitude of Blue School kind of refreshing at a time when if your 1st grader doesn’t have Harry Potter tucked under his arm, you–and your kid–are losers</p>

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<p>WTH? Helen has posted the same weird stuff 9 times on different threads today.</p>