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ok, first preschool thread: im kind of horrified by how even at this early an age, so much of the innocuous, wholesome activities are preparing kids for the jail-like school system to come https://t.co/MSOwSenLXe
the singalongs are cute, and intended to help kids get used to listening to an adult quietly for 20 minutes at a time. that's why when kids don't, we emphasise they sit facing the adult, and not speak out of turn
the various creative stations, like painting, and writing, and crafts, are intended to help them focus for longer. right now they drift between then as they might, but in kindergarten a teacher might assign them to stations for 20 minutes at a time
in the preschool i went to, it was mostly ad hoc group play. adults might teach kids games. here it was mostly individual, creative expression, and story time and singalongs. everything was ascribed a sort of a gesture to self improvement. it was kind of awesome
i don't know. it's actually really wholesome, and sensible. i think i was just taken aback at the sudden realisation all of these kids are expected to go into a system where they will sit all day in the most mobile age of their lives with the same autonomy as a factory worker
even though the preschool itself was really wholesome and play-centered and child autonomy-centered, i had the sudden horror of realising it was, in the way people talked about it, inflected backwards by the system almost all the children would go in
it's radicalising for me when i see children started this young this way to realise when it starts shifting. like there really is a path that doesn't quite stop being like this https://t.co/orQwg8dHTQ
@AskYatharth I feel like my heart couldn't handle being around so many kids and knowing exactly what is going to happen to them in the next 10, 15 (and beyond because unsurprisingly work is like that too) years of their life. It's like the "people who know" meme