When I was barely 4 years old, my family went out to lunch and I looked up at the wall and said: "That sign says Buy More War Bonds Today."
Well, my mother, a teacher who believed no child should be pushed into learning early, was flabbergasted. Indeed, she had not even taught me my ABCs yet. She handed me the menu and asked if I could read it---which I did, easily even though I didn't know half of what I was reading meant.
This became a famous family story, since no one could figure out how I had learned to read. But as a result, I skipped first grade and started my school "career" in second grade.
Given the fact that I had not even yet learned anything about math and numbers, my first year in school in second grade was sort of a mixed blessing (great at reading, pretty bad at math.)
I'm writing this diary because I am now, as a grandmom, pretty worried about the way kids are being taught today. First of all, they start so early (pre-kindergarten,kindergarten, etc.) And every inch of they way, they are tested---not to find out what their particular talents are, but to see if they conform to some kind of national "norm."
As much as I hated math, I slogged through it with "B" grades until college, where when standing in line for a freshman placement test in math someone told me that if I scored high enough I would never have to take any college level math classes---ever.
With that kind of incentive, I went in and aced that test to the degree that I was advised to major in math by my journalism advisor.
"Look," I told him: "I love to read and I want to learn how to write as a career---and I totally hate math."
Well that was back in the days when they actually encouraged kids to follow their own particular star---instead of learning a standardized set of answers to a standardized set of test questions.
It absolutely enrages me that children are no longer given the leeway to discover what interests them. My grandson calls me daily to tell me he got an "A" on a set of questions but he isn't able yet (in 3rd grade) to tell me what his favorite subject is.
If any other grandparent agrees with me, I would love to hear from them. It seems to me that we had so much more freedom to chose what we wanted to be, back in the "good old days."