2426 Early childhood "training", and unfair attacks.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

There are early education packages advertised on tv. They show three year-olds (or younger) "reading at the third grade level" through the use of flash cards, or naming states on a map and their capitals, and so on.

They disturb me. They disturb me because those packages are teaching facts, things, specific skills. That's ok, but not in my opinion what should be taught at that age. It's rote, it's memorization.

What we should teach a toddler is how to learn and how to think efficiently. How to notice things, how to determine what is important to a problem and what's not, how to analyze and synthesize. Logical thinking. How to figure things out, and enjoy doing it. I think that's much more important than lists of facts.

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I don't understand why so many people beat up on Rosie O'Donnell. Ok, she had some political views many people didn't like, and ok, she was strident about them, and ok, she changed the feel of The View during her tenure. So if you want to say you don't agree with her, and you're tired of hearing her, and she's not a good talk show host, well, ok that's fair.

But I guess that's not enough for a lot of people. They have to also attack her morals, her weight, her appearance, her lifestyle, her very being. They have to completely destroy her. She has good parts, like her philanthropy, but except for Sunday Morning's profile this morning, nobody gives her credit for the good, and that's not fair.

It's not just Rosie. I see it often on a smaller local scale, and I have never understood it.
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