After four long years, the State of Illinois finally figured out what kindergarten should know. I figured it out in five minutes myself by reading a book called "What your kindergarten Should Know", by E.D. Hirsh. It's a good book. I recommend it!
Meanwhile, here are Illinois' recommendations and what they mean to me (in parenthesis)
Language arts:
Read one syllable and high frequency words (memorize small words)
Explain past events with accurate detail (learn to tattle)
Math:
Estimate numbers of objects in as set (forget counting, just guess)
Represent data using concrete objects, pictures and graphs (whuh?)
Science:
Understand the purpose of recyling (tree-hugging 101)
describe the effects of forces of nature (make them afraid of storms)
Social Science:
Participate in voting as a way of making choices (learn to have your choices and decisions overridden by the group)
Understand that each of us belongs to a family and recognize that families vary (read the mandatory ("My Mommy is a Daddy" book)
SOCIAL/EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Demonstrate control of impulsive behavior (sit still and shut up)
Describe positive qualities of others (learn to suck up to others)
Heck, they learn most of this stuff while playing with the neighborhood kids.
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12 grade year of homeschooling, Finishing Strong
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1 comment:
Good post, Dreah. I clicked over to the article and was appalled to read that the state had defined 172 learning objectives. Yikes! Don't you love the way our dear government bureaucracy wants to micro-manage our lives? Of course, most of these "benchmarks" are probably common sense, like learning to sit still and not to hit one's neighbor. But I'm curious how many of the others are pure political correctness, of the "My Mommy is a Daddy" sort. The article didn't give a link to the full list, so I guess I'll browse around and see what I can find...
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