First Whisper
In the car, on the way to a dentist appointment, I happened to catch some of Eliot Spitzer’s State of the State Address. He said some things that were interesting, some ideas, legislation proposed, etc. But what really got me to focus was this quote,
You can’t change the world by whispering.
This is one point on which I completely disagree with him. And I’ll hazard to guess that anyone who’s had to deal with a toddler’s tantrum would be on my side. There are many times when whispering brings about a faster and more positive change than shouting. To that end, I hereby claim my space on this blog as Whisperer.
Another disagreement I have with Mr. Spitzer’s address, to no surprise, is in his plans for education reform. He said:
We know that more time in the classroom - in the form of longer school days, a longer school year, and after-school programs - also makes a difference.
Actually, I would agree that those things DO make a difference, but I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily positive. But let me continue, in Spitzer’s own words:
We must focus on that period in a child’s life that is developmentally the most critical - from birth to five years old.
Okay. Good. I would actually extend that to seven, but perhaps that’s my Waldorf education training getting ahead of me.
Within four years, we should make pre-kindergarten available to every four-year-old in New York.
Ye Gads!!!! Did he just say that? PRE-kindergarten?!? So children will need to go to pre-kindergarten, to prepare them for kindergarten, which they in turn need to go to in order to prepare them for elementary school? Why don’t we just strap the children to desks from birth?
I was expecting him to say something to the effect that we need to support our children at this first stage of their lives by providing quality health care, safer environments, incentives for parents to spend more time at home with their children, and such.
Young children do not need to be force fed information in order to succeed in Spitzer’s “Innovation Economy.” They need to be loved, they need to be nourished, they need to be protected, they need to play, they need proper sleep. But most of all, children need time to be children. Gosh, what could our children do - to what levels could they succeed - if we prepare them for the real world by allowing them to grow up at their own pace and in their own time, instead of at the pace of the longer school day, extended school year, and after-school programs?
By the way, you can read the entire transcript of Governor Spitzer’s speech here.
Be Human,
Julia
