"Let him go and come freely, let him touch real things, and combine his impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round table while a sweet-voiced teacher suggests that he build a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of coloured paper, or plant straw trees in bead flower-pots. Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experiences." (pg. 196)
I was re-reading some of Miss Mason's writings on the early years and this one particularly stood out. It is so basic and yes so polar opposite of what we as a society are taught to believe. Parents are getting their little ones into preschool earlier and earlier.... some for academics, others because they feel their 3 year old is "advanced" or "accelerated" (I hear these alot!), and yet others for the socialization factor. Parents are pushed into placing their kids in preschool and in turn, the young children are forced into learning a plethora of things that a preschooler doesn't need to know. A young child should learn from their environment. A young child should be free to discover and make connections and observations on his own. Rather than memorizing random facts about the weather, he should be outside watching the storm roll in and see the lightening strike the hillside. That is something he will carry with him far more than he will looking at a cloud on a classroom wall in the weather station.
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