02/09/2023
There aren't any "rules".
Or, perhaps more accurately: we make up the "rules".
If we let go of the idea that children have to learn something by somewhen, then what changes?
..The idea is let go of. Children develop at their own paces. That's it, all that happens. We start measuring things to the child instead of to the norm. We all unclench our fists a little and relax a little.
This was already important before covid and it's 10x as important now. I have 2nd graders who've never been taught how to form letters. I have 6th graders with the emotional maturity of 3rd graders. It does me no good to compare them to the children of the same age in 2017. All I can do is take them as they are now, understand what's affecting them now, and meet them now.
[Image description: A quote by Idzie Desmarais that reads, "The age-based standards children are held to are essentially fake. There's no Law of Nature that says a child must read by X age, or count to 100 by X grade. Children naturally learn different things at different times, and their lives are not ruined by a peer having learned something first." The image behind the quote is of a concrete, grey dappled background, with a measuring tape at the bottom. End description.]
