Fostering love of learning in early elementary

[Anonymous]

This is more teacher dependant in my opinion, than anything else. I felt the same way, and had actually planned to keep my September bday DD in one extra year of "Reggio" based preschool versus Kindergarten last year. Pandemic and virtual opportunity changed this - as we decided to give our in-boundary school a try and not stress over what our kid accomplished academically. The teacher we had was amazing. I could not have asked for a better experience, albeit online, for my kids introduction to academics. I was not as thrilled with the assistant teacher, and had she been at the helm, the experience would have been entirely different.

Point being - you can end up with amazing and not so great teachers in public and private, it's the luck of the draw; some privates do claim to foster a love of learning, as do some publics. In practice it is not exactly so. There are a few DC publics/charters that do seem to veer that way and are by far better than some privates, which may actually be a more stressful learning environment in some respects. My kid does not go there, but I visited Murch, and it was amazing. I have also heard some great things about Mundo Verde and other charters.

[Anonymous]

Just be sure to pick a DCPS school with many good teachers. If there's strong neighborhood buy-in, with a school that's at least 2/3s in-boundary students, you'll probably find that. I don't think you need to pay for private for an elementary school kid in DC these days. Even if you're well-off, you don't want a cocoon kid who may not be able to roll with the punches a little.

My kids love their longtime DCPS school and are thrilled to be back there this quarter in 3rd and 5th grades. They read one or two ahead of grade level, play musical instruments decently after years of very cheap music lessons at the school, and loop up a grade for math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just be sure to pick a DCPS school with many good teachers. If there's strong neighborhood buy-in, with a school that's at least 2/3s in-boundary students, you'll probably find that. I don't think you need to pay for private for an elementary school kid in DC these days. Even if you're well-off, you don't want a cocoon kid who may not be able to roll with the punches a little.

My kids love their longtime DCPS school and are thrilled to be back there this quarter in 3rd and 5th grades. They read one or two ahead of grade level, play musical instruments decently after years of very cheap music lessons at the school, and loop up a grade for math.

This. Think about it, OP. The curated "diversity" of a selective private can have a subtle negative influence on your child's character, social skills, and life experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of those qualities are intrinsic and come from the home setting. No school is going to do that. DCPS is good at teaching kids to read and write (better than privates as far ad I can tell).

I was going to say this as well. Parents teach “love of learning” not school. I will also say this is a personality trait, to a degree. One of my children LOVES learning, the other, eh, not so much....

I think people say "love of learning" when they really mean "love of school" -- as in a child who is happy to go to school and learn whatever they teach there. One of my children is like that and happily goes and learns whatever the teacher teachers. My other one has a "love of learning" but not of all things. He loves learning about dinosaurs for example. He does not love all that is covered in school, some of which he declares to be "boring." Still it is important that he learn how to add and write... so off to school he must go.

PP you’re responding to. Perhaps. But I meant “love of learning.” Both of my kids enjoy GOING TO school very very much.

[Anonymous]

Well, this is why we chose a Montessori elementary. The whole premise is to foster independent choice and love of learning. This year has been a total shitshow on that front given virtual, and there are plenty of ways that learning can be boring even in Montessori, but done well it is all about what you're talking about. So much of love of learning can be fostered at home, but you want the school to prioritize that as well. This has a lot to do with talented teachers, but also with balancing independence with direction so every kid does learn to read, for example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just be sure to pick a DCPS school with many good teachers. If there's strong neighborhood buy-in, with a school that's at least 2/3s in-boundary students, you'll probably find that. I don't think you need to pay for private for an elementary school kid in DC these days. Even if you're well-off, you don't want a cocoon kid who may not be able to roll with the punches a little.

My kids love their longtime DCPS school and are thrilled to be back there this quarter in 3rd and 5th grades. They read one or two ahead of grade level, play musical instruments decently after years of very cheap music lessons at the school, and loop up a grade for math.

What school is this with the music lessons?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just be sure to pick a DCPS school with many good teachers. If there's strong neighborhood buy-in, with a school that's at least 2/3s in-boundary students, you'll probably find that. I don't think you need to pay for private for an elementary school kid in DC these days. Even if you're well-off, you don't want a cocoon kid who may not be able to roll with the punches a little.

My kids love their longtime DCPS school and are thrilled to be back there this quarter in 3rd and 5th grades. They read one or two ahead of grade level, play musical instruments decently after years of very cheap music lessons at the school, and loop up a grade for math.

What school is this with the music lessons?

DP. our dcps has a well organized aftercare that offers music lessons.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, wanting your child to love learning and love going to school is important, but it's not the only thing. And it's a thing parents of young children think. As your child gets older it's important that they learn to cope with less than ideal conditions, aggravation, struggle, bounce back from a tough day or week, and generally learn that the world isn't designed around their best interests and development. Hopefully they still love school overall, but these are important lessons. Private schools can try to teach them, but it's an uphill climb against the general background of privilege and attention and support.


FWIW my child absolutely adored her time at a very low scoring DCPS. There was so much joy in that building.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is more teacher dependant in my opinion, than anything else. I felt the same way, and had actually planned to keep my September bday DD in one extra year of "Reggio" based preschool versus Kindergarten last year. Pandemic and virtual opportunity changed this - as we decided to give our in-boundary school a try and not stress over what our kid accomplished academically. The teacher we had was amazing. I could not have asked for a better experience, albeit online, for my kids introduction to academics. I was not as thrilled with the assistant teacher, and had she been at the helm, the experience would have been entirely different.

Point being - you can end up with amazing and not so great teachers in public and private, it's the luck of the draw; some privates do claim to foster a love of learning, as do some publics. In practice it is not exactly so. There are a few DC publics/charters that do seem to veer that way and are by far better than some privates, which may actually be a more stressful learning environment in some respects. My kid does not go there, but I visited Murch, and it was amazing. I have also heard some great things about Mundo Verde and other charters.

I’m a teacher and I completely agree with this. Love of learning is infectious. The attitude/enthusiasm/mindset of the teacher matters very much in the early years. Look for excellent school leadership that sets a tone for the whole school. Public/private doesn’t matter if the faculty is top-notch.

This remains true for middle and high school. But, by middle school, your child will be developmentally in a different place and his/her peers will start to be a bigger influence than the adults in their life ( who are still important, but in different ways). By middle school, you want to be sure your child has at least a pool of classmates who are invested in learning and school, because they will absorb the attitudes of their peers. I watched my own kids gravitate away from the peers who blew off school and thought it was all stupid and thankfully they had alternative social groups to remake close friendships with kids who do care, value the same things academically. By high school,
Make sure that cohort is there, whether public or private. What I’ll say is that private doesn’t guarantee this kind of kid. Many could be achievement-oriented, but not intellectually incurious and more interested in making the grade. Take the time to get to know school communities and school leadership before you choose. It’s not just test scores/size of tuition/college acceptances that matter. It’s the culture of the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is more teacher dependant in my opinion, than anything else. I felt the same way, and had actually planned to keep my September bday DD in one extra year of "Reggio" based preschool versus Kindergarten last year. Pandemic and virtual opportunity changed this - as we decided to give our in-boundary school a try and not stress over what our kid accomplished academically. The teacher we had was amazing. I could not have asked for a better experience, albeit online, for my kids introduction to academics. I was not as thrilled with the assistant teacher, and had she been at the helm, the experience would have been entirely different.

Point being - you can end up with amazing and not so great teachers in public and private, it's the luck of the draw; some privates do claim to foster a love of learning, as do some publics. In practice it is not exactly so. There are a few DC publics/charters that do seem to veer that way and are by far better than some privates, which may actually be a more stressful learning environment in some respects. My kid does not go there, but I visited Murch, and it was amazing. I have also heard some great things about Mundo Verde and other charters.

I’m a teacher and I completely agree with this. Love of learning is infectious. The attitude/enthusiasm/mindset of the teacher matters very much in the early years. Look for excellent school leadership that sets a tone for the whole school. Public/private doesn’t matter if the faculty is top-notch.

This remains true for middle and high school. But, by middle school, your child will be developmentally in a different place and his/her peers will start to be a bigger influence than the adults in their life ( who are still important, but in different ways). By middle school, you want to be sure your child has at least a pool of classmates who are invested in learning and school, because they will absorb the attitudes of their peers. I watched my own kids gravitate away from the peers who blew off school and thought it was all stupid and thankfully they had alternative social groups to remake close friendships with kids who do care, value the same things academically. By high school,
Make sure that cohort is there, whether public or private. What I’ll say is that private doesn’t guarantee this kind of kid. Many could be achievement-oriented, but not intellectually incurious and more interested in making the grade. Take the time to get to know school communities and school leadership before you choose. It’s not just test scores/size of tuition/college acceptances that matter. It’s the culture of the school.

Question: how does one come to know the culture of the school, before attending/sending a child there? As well, how does one know if the faculty is top notch? These are not things we can find out easily without experience in the school itself. Word of mouth only tells you so much.

I agree with your whole statement, except - I was close with kids who did not like school and indeed most dropped out during high school. Yet I had access to high level classes and continued to enjoy them at the same time. I now believe that the peers in those classes were overly achievement oriented and honestly seemed more incurious than the dropouts. This was a public school. The peers were there, but I avoided them, in other words... As you point out, a worry about a private school might be that you do end up with only status and achievement oriented kids, and they don't love learning. They love success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is more teacher dependant in my opinion, than anything else. I felt the same way, and had actually planned to keep my September bday DD in one extra year of "Reggio" based preschool versus Kindergarten last year. Pandemic and virtual opportunity changed this - as we decided to give our in-boundary school a try and not stress over what our kid accomplished academically. The teacher we had was amazing. I could not have asked for a better experience, albeit online, for my kids introduction to academics. I was not as thrilled with the assistant teacher, and had she been at the helm, the experience would have been entirely different.

Point being - you can end up with amazing and not so great teachers in public and private, it's the luck of the draw; some privates do claim to foster a love of learning, as do some publics. In practice it is not exactly so. There are a few DC publics/charters that do seem to veer that way and are by far better than some privates, which may actually be a more stressful learning environment in some respects. My kid does not go there, but I visited Murch, and it was amazing. I have also heard some great things about Mundo Verde and other charters.

I’m a teacher and I completely agree with this. Love of learning is infectious. The attitude/enthusiasm/mindset of the teacher matters very much in the early years. Look for excellent school leadership that sets a tone for the whole school. Public/private doesn’t matter if the faculty is top-notch.

This remains true for middle and high school. But, by middle school, your child will be developmentally in a different place and his/her peers will start to be a bigger influence than the adults in their life ( who are still important, but in different ways). By middle school, you want to be sure your child has at least a pool of classmates who are invested in learning and school, because they will absorb the attitudes of their peers. I watched my own kids gravitate away from the peers who blew off school and thought it was all stupid and thankfully they had alternative social groups to remake close friendships with kids who do care, value the same things academically. By high school,
Make sure that cohort is there, whether public or private. What I’ll say is that private doesn’t guarantee this kind of kid. Many could be achievement-oriented, but not intellectually incurious and more interested in making the grade. Take the time to get to know school communities and school leadership before you choose. It’s not just test scores/size of tuition/college acceptances that matter. It’s the culture of the school.

Question: how does one come to know the culture of the school, before attending/sending a child there? As well, how does one know if the faculty is top notch? These are not things we can find out easily without experience in the school itself. Word of mouth only tells you so much.

I agree with your whole statement, except - I was close with kids who did not like school and indeed most dropped out during high school. Yet I had access to high level classes and continued to enjoy them at the same time. I now believe that the peers in those classes were overly achievement oriented and honestly seemed more incurious than the dropouts. This was a public school. The peers were there, but I avoided them, in other words... As you point out, a worry about a private school might be that you do end up with only status and achievement oriented kids, and they don't love learning. They love success.

Or at my private school, they loved beer, cocaine, and cheating on tests. It's not like private school gets you out of peer group issues. Just different issues. Choose carefully.

[Anonymous]

honestly you should just pick the one that will actually let your child attend school. that's more likely to be the private option.

all of these fuzzy reasons people cite for public school don't amount to a hill of beans if your child isnt allowed to attend class each day, all day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is more teacher dependant in my opinion, than anything else. I felt the same way, and had actually planned to keep my September bday DD in one extra year of "Reggio" based preschool versus Kindergarten last year. Pandemic and virtual opportunity changed this - as we decided to give our in-boundary school a try and not stress over what our kid accomplished academically. The teacher we had was amazing. I could not have asked for a better experience, albeit online, for my kids introduction to academics. I was not as thrilled with the assistant teacher, and had she been at the helm, the experience would have been entirely different.

Point being - you can end up with amazing and not so great teachers in public and private, it's the luck of the draw; some privates do claim to foster a love of learning, as do some publics. In practice it is not exactly so. There are a few DC publics/charters that do seem to veer that way and are by far better than some privates, which may actually be a more stressful learning environment in some respects. My kid does not go there, but I visited Murch, and it was amazing. I have also heard some great things about Mundo Verde and other charters.

I’m a teacher and I completely agree with this. Love of learning is infectious. The attitude/enthusiasm/mindset of the teacher matters very much in the early years. Look for excellent school leadership that sets a tone for the whole school. Public/private doesn’t matter if the faculty is top-notch.

This remains true for middle and high school. But, by middle school, your child will be developmentally in a different place and his/her peers will start to be a bigger influence than the adults in their life ( who are still important, but in different ways). By middle school, you want to be sure your child has at least a pool of classmates who are invested in learning and school, because they will absorb the attitudes of their peers. I watched my own kids gravitate away from the peers who blew off school and thought it was all stupid and thankfully they had alternative social groups to remake close friendships with kids who do care, value the same things academically. By high school,
Make sure that cohort is there, whether public or private. What I’ll say is that private doesn’t guarantee this kind of kid. Many could be achievement-oriented, but not intellectually incurious and more interested in making the grade. Take the time to get to know school communities and school leadership before you choose. It’s not just test scores/size of tuition/college acceptances that matter. It’s the culture of the school.

Anybody have insight to share about the teaching staff and Administration at Bancroft? I’m not sure how to judge this until we are there, except for word of mouth!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is more teacher dependant in my opinion, than anything else. I felt the same way, and had actually planned to keep my September bday DD in one extra year of "Reggio" based preschool versus Kindergarten last year. Pandemic and virtual opportunity changed this - as we decided to give our in-boundary school a try and not stress over what our kid accomplished academically. The teacher we had was amazing. I could not have asked for a better experience, albeit online, for my kids introduction to academics. I was not as thrilled with the assistant teacher, and had she been at the helm, the experience would have been entirely different.

Point being - you can end up with amazing and not so great teachers in public and private, it's the luck of the draw; some privates do claim to foster a love of learning, as do some publics. In practice it is not exactly so. There are a few DC publics/charters that do seem to veer that way and are by far better than some privates, which may actually be a more stressful learning environment in some respects. My kid does not go there, but I visited Murch, and it was amazing. I have also heard some great things about Mundo Verde and other charters.

I’m a teacher and I completely agree with this. Love of learning is infectious. The attitude/enthusiasm/mindset of the teacher matters very much in the early years. Look for excellent school leadership that sets a tone for the whole school. Public/private doesn’t matter if the faculty is top-notch.

This remains true for middle and high school. But, by middle school, your child will be developmentally in a different place and his/her peers will start to be a bigger influence than the adults in their life ( who are still important, but in different ways). By middle school, you want to be sure your child has at least a pool of classmates who are invested in learning and school, because they will absorb the attitudes of their peers. I watched my own kids gravitate away from the peers who blew off school and thought it was all stupid and thankfully they had alternative social groups to remake close friendships with kids who do care, value the same things academically. By high school,
Make sure that cohort is there, whether public or private. What I’ll say is that private doesn’t guarantee this kind of kid. Many could be achievement-oriented, but not intellectually incurious and more interested in making the grade. Take the time to get to know school communities and school leadership before you choose. It’s not just test scores/size of tuition/college acceptances that matter. It’s the culture of the school.

Question: how does one come to know the culture of the school, before attending/sending a child there? As well, how does one know if the faculty is top notch? These are not things we can find out easily without experience in the school itself. Word of mouth only tells you so much.

I agree with your whole statement, except - I was close with kids who did not like school and indeed most dropped out during high school. Yet I had access to high level classes and continued to enjoy them at the same time. I now believe that the peers in those classes were overly achievement oriented and honestly seemed more incurious than the dropouts. This was a public school. The peers were there, but I avoided them, in other words... As you point out, a worry about a private school might be that you do end up with only status and achievement oriented kids, and they don't love learning. They love success. [/quot

Honestly, it's just not that hard here in DC when evaluating by-right/neighborhood public schools. Study up on in-boundary percentages in the last five years or so, look at the trend (rising in-boundary or falling in-boundary). Find the programs you're checking out on schooldigger.com. The higher the in-boundary % here in the District, the better the school is. The lower the %, the worse the school is. When we started at Brent 8 years ago, the in-boundary percentage was around a third. Now it's more than 80%. The school has improved dramatically in those 8 years. Almost everything is much better now, teachers, admins, PTA fundraising, extra-curriculars, physical plant, everything but the garden outside is better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is more teacher dependant in my opinion, than anything else. I felt the same way, and had actually planned to keep my September bday DD in one extra year of "Reggio" based preschool versus Kindergarten last year. Pandemic and virtual opportunity changed this - as we decided to give our in-boundary school a try and not stress over what our kid accomplished academically. The teacher we had was amazing. I could not have asked for a better experience, albeit online, for my kids introduction to academics. I was not as thrilled with the assistant teacher, and had she been at the helm, the experience would have been entirely different.

Point being - you can end up with amazing and not so great teachers in public and private, it's the luck of the draw; some privates do claim to foster a love of learning, as do some publics. In practice it is not exactly so. There are a few DC publics/charters that do seem to veer that way and are by far better than some privates, which may actually be a more stressful learning environment in some respects. My kid does not go there, but I visited Murch, and it was amazing. I have also heard some great things about Mundo Verde and other charters.

I’m a teacher and I completely agree with this. Love of learning is infectious. The attitude/enthusiasm/mindset of the teacher matters very much in the early years. Look for excellent school leadership that sets a tone for the whole school. Public/private doesn’t matter if the faculty is top-notch.

This remains true for middle and high school. But, by middle school, your child will be developmentally in a different place and his/her peers will start to be a bigger influence than the adults in their life ( who are still important, but in different ways). By middle school, you want to be sure your child has at least a pool of classmates who are invested in learning and school, because they will absorb the attitudes of their peers. I watched my own kids gravitate away from the peers who blew off school and thought it was all stupid and thankfully they had alternative social groups to remake close friendships with kids who do care, value the same things academically. By high school,
Make sure that cohort is there, whether public or private. What I’ll say is that private doesn’t guarantee this kind of kid. Many could be achievement-oriented, but not intellectually incurious and more interested in making the grade. Take the time to get to know school communities and school leadership before you choose. It’s not just test scores/size of tuition/college acceptances that matter. It’s the culture of the school.

Question: how does one come to know the culture of the school, before attending/sending a child there? As well, how does one know if the faculty is top notch? These are not things we can find out easily without experience in the school itself. Word of mouth only tells you so much.

I agree with your whole statement, except - I was close with kids who did not like school and indeed most dropped out during high school. Yet I had access to high level classes and continued to enjoy them at the same time. I now believe that the peers in those classes were overly achievement oriented and honestly seemed more incurious than the dropouts. This was a public school. The peers were there, but I avoided them, in other words... As you point out, a worry about a private school might be that you do end up with only status and achievement oriented kids, and they don't love learning. They love success.

Some ways to see excellent teaching or a love of learning culture in an elementary school:

--go for a tour and look at the students during class, especially kindergarten. Do they look purposeful and engaged and mostly happy? Or do they look stressed and bored( thumb-sucking, excessive foot bouncing or bothering kids sitting next to them, heads down on desks)

--observe classes. Are teachers asking open-ended questions? Are they responding to "wrong" or "strange" answers from the students constructively and with curiosity? Are students allowed a degree of choice in their activities, or is everything proscribed?

--ask about how students are assessed. Is it all paper and pencil tests, or are projects used for assessment of learning goals?

--upper elementary: do you see evidence in the curriculum of any cross-discipline teaching? Or is math only done in math class, science only done in science, writing only done in English...

I've run out of time, but will come back to this thread with more ideas on how to evaluate the learning culture of a school later