Month: June 2013

Im doing a presentation to a group of parents next week on Internet safety. I’ve got my information all pulled together and I’m putting it into a powerpoint slideshow. I’d love your input on either things that worry you or actions you’ve taken at home to make sure your kids can surf safely. We’re mostly talking about elementary school aged kids, and I’m mostly focusing on the junior years (Grades 4 – 6).

To me, there are five major risk areas:
– stumbling across (or searching out) inappropriate content
– phishing, malware and malicious downloads
– inappropriate disclosure of private information
– cyberbullying and stranger danger
– unexpected costs or bills from things like in-app purchases

I’m choosing to mainly focus on privacy and cyberbullying, because these are behavioural issues more than technology issues, and because they are the ones that worry me personally the most. But have I missed any other significant risk kids face online?

I’ve got a set of 10 tips for safe family surfing, which I’ll share after the presentation. (Disclosure: still fine-tuning those!) But would you care to share the steps you take to “cyber-proof” your kids? (Hmmm, I think I just came up with a new title for the presentation. “Cyber-proof your kids!”) As a parent, is there anything you would like more information about?

And just out of curiousity, do you use parental controls on your computer?

This question inspired by Lucas, my precocious junior kindergartener. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I was dancing with glee at the idea of him benefitting from all-day kindergarten. I knew he was more than ready, and I wasn’t sad about not having to pay one last year of daycare for mornings.

Alarm bells started to ring in my head when I found out a few weeks ago that they seem to be doing away with the idea of junior and senior kindergartens for a blended kingergarten group. I was fine with everything else in the program, like what seems like a Montessori-influenced emphasis on play-based learning, and larger class sizes supported by an ECE, and the day split into English and French.

I have real concerns, though, that my already advanced (IMHO, at least) February-born boy will be in a class with some kids who will be only three years old in the fall. He can already read and write and do simple math. Heck, I wanted to enroll him in JK a year early, just because I knew he was ready. Having just shepherded two boys through the primary grades, I’m very confident that he’s academically capable to start Grade 1 in the fall. I was worried about separating him from his peer group, but he is in a JK/SK split right now so in fact he will have some of his current classmates in his grade whether he starts SK or Grade 1 in the fall.

This has churned up all kinds of interesting questions. While I know you don’t have the insight into what’s best for Lucas, I am very curious to know your experience and opinions about skipping grades and split classes. Do they even skip kids ahead any more? It was common enough in the 1970s that I have a few friends who skipped grades. I was never that hard of a worker, although school did come easily enough for me when I bothered to try.

Moreso, though, I’m interested in your thoughts about split classes. I am genuinely worried about Lucas stagnating for a year because the teacher (and ECE, I suppose) will be trying to meet the needs of kids across a giant spectrum of capabilities. I had a really interesting conversation over coffee with a friend who has done a lot more research on this and she said it’s a myth that they put the more capable and advanced kids in the lower end of a split class. She is of the opinion that being in the older group in a split or mixed class teaches kids leadership and compassion and empathy. While I can appreciate that (although I admit, it hadn’t occurred to me) I think I would rather he be learning math and reading skills. It’s not an either-or, I know.

And here’s another question all tangled up in the same quagmire: is it better to challenge a child or let them excel? If I were to ask the school to consider skipping him ahead to Grade 1, I’d be raising the bar for him and he’d be working to play catch-up. If I wait a year, I think even Grade 1 will be easy for him – he picks up SO much just from his older brothers, and from the terrific daycare we have. If he’d been born 40 days earlier, he’d be enrolled in Grade 1 anyway. So is it better to leave him and let his confidence grow so he thinks school is easy and fun rather than challenging him to rise up to what I am confident he can do? What if the easy path doesn’t lead to confidence but boredom?

So mamy questions! The easy path is, of course, to just let the years play out, and have him go ahead with his year of SK in September. But I can’t help wondering if I am doing him a disservice by not taking this chance to give him a boost which I genuinely believe would be in his best interest. I wouldn’t consider skipping a child in an older grade unless there were some truly extenuating circumstances – I saw first hand how kids can react to kids who fail and who skip from a social perspective and it’s wasn’t pretty then. I wouldn’t expect it to be better now. But to skip SK into Grade 1 seems more feasible, especially if I know he’s already well equipped for the challenge.

Lots of issues wrapped up in this one, eh? I know there are a good handful of teachers reading, I would love to hear from your perspective. And parents, what do you think about the “challenge vs confidence” question, or the whole split grade thing? Oh heck, while we’re at it, could you haul out your crystal ball and tell me the right answer? Because I’ve been around and around on this one and the more I think about it the more unsure I get!