not really about kindergarten

As Glitter will be starting Kindergarten this year, I read the blog post of a well respected homeschooling mom about kindergarten.

It was a beautiful, poetic piece with lots of insights. I found myself nodding along with her on many points. Childhood should not be rushed. Children learn best from from doing real things with caring adults in a child friendly environment.

There were some points where we did things differently, but I felt I understood her point of view.

Then I got to the part about a little boy who was her former student, and I wanted to cry for him. She said that he was a brilliant young child with similarly intelligent parents. She and her friend taught him in preschool and kindergarten. She states with sorrow how he couldn't remember to hang up his coat, didn't play with other children, asked about advanced academic subjects, and had social/emotional skills that were out of balance with his intellectual achievements. Their teaching goals for him were to get him to play and talk with his peers.

My heart ached for this little boy as I read about him. But not, I suspect, for the reasons the blogger implied. I don't think that this boy's parents rushed him through childhood in pursuit of academic achievement, leaving him unable to relate to his peers. I think he was probably profoundly gifted. It is hard for such gifted children to relate to their peers because they don't have true peers. Their age peers are not their mental peers, and their mental peers are not their age peers.

Teaching such a child to hang up his coat and get along with his classmates are important and valuable skills. But I think his innate asynchronousity caused his struggles, not his parents' value of academics.