Monakhos

Why do people think that repeating kindergarten is such a bad thing? People seem to act like it is the end of the world for the child repeating kindergarten and that he or she will never be able to succeed in life. I went to a United Way meeting (a mandatory meeting at my job) today, and for the second time (I went last year as well) I heard them campaign against the tragedy of children having to repeat kindergarten.

Why am I miffed about this? I repeated kindergarten. After the first year, I transferred schools and went on to first grade. About a quarter of the way through the year, the teacher and my parents decided that I wasn’t ready for first grade and would be better off if I took another year of kindergarten.

What was the problem? Was there something wrong with me? No. Nothing was the problem. I just wasn’t ready for first grade. My birthday falls late in the year (September) and so, while I was the correct age (number) to move up a grade, I just wasn’t old enough. Did it hurt me to repeat kindergarten? Not at all! I graduated 4th in my class, had a full scholarship through college, graduated in four years, and now hold a pretty good job relating to my degree. Where did repeating kindergarten hurt me? I don’t think it did.

In addition to this, my mother spent years teaching a class called “transition.” It was a class for kids just like me. It was a full day of school. The first half was spent with the rest of the kindergarten children and the second half was spent learning more advanced things. Many of the children my mom taught graduated in the top of their classes. Come to think of it, I think my friend who took this class graduated as valedictorian of my graduating class. Why is this? They had an extra year to mature before they were thrust into grade school.

My mother was constantly faced with parents who thought it was the end of the world if their children repeated kindergarten. The fact of the matter is that it isn’t! In fact, I can think of more cases where it hurt the child to force them into first grade before they were ready.

So there is my rant. I’ll step off my soapbox now. United Way, why don’t you do some research and stop promoting these asinine fairy tales.

Time has a good photo essay named God and Dollars on the gospel of prosperity. It mostly focuses on a few Christian leaders from the past and present. While this does not happen exclusively in Christian circles, I guess it is the variety we are most familiar with here. I don’t know whether some of the people mentioned in the essay really belong with the rest of the crowd, but I guess from the outside it appears to be the same old speech. Time (not the magazine—the actual principle of the matter of seconds counting) will tell.

I heard an interesting story yesterday on NPR about a young blogger from Philadelphia who writes on all things Catholic. His site is really remarkable with a ton of posts each day on pretty much anything that is hapening in the church. Listen to the NPR story and visit his site, Whispers in the Loggia.

Sitting—
Shaking off body and mind—
I am.

The straight and narrow—
Wide as the universe
Thin as a hair