Fostering love of learning in early elementary

[Anonymous]

We are deciding between public and private for early elementary. One of our greatest hopes for our DD is that she develops a curiosity and love of learning, and a sense of agency for and ownership over that life-long learning journey. I believe that much of that (in terms of curiosity, skills, intrinsic motivation, etc) is developed in the early years.
Do you feel DCPS does a good job of fostering a curiosity and love of learning in the K-3 years? I repeatedly hear that privates are better at this but I’m not sure that this is based on anything more than perception.
What’s your experience with DCPS in the early years?

[Anonymous]

Yes.

[Anonymous]

That is a euphemism private school parents tell themselves. Of course if you ask them whether public school children do not love learning, they will swiftly backpedal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes.

Ours did.

[Anonymous]

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).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That is a euphemism private school parents tell themselves. Of course if you ask them whether public school children do not love learning, they will swiftly backpedal.

At least children at private schools are allowed to go to school. Putting a five year old on a zoom call is not a great way to foster a love of learning. Probably a good way to teach kids to hate school.

[Anonymous]

Much of that is developed in the early years, but it's not all because of the school. Parents and specific teachers (rather than whole school or school system) play a big part.

[Anonymous]

In typical years it depends on the teacher, but I don’t know how a teacher of a young student could foster a love of learning over zoom. My kid started hating school so I pulled him out to homeschool. But I’m sending him back when kids won’t be on iPads all day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That is a euphemism private school parents tell themselves. Of course if you ask them whether public school children do not love learning, they will swiftly backpedal.

At least children at private schools are allowed to go to school. Putting a five year old on a zoom call is not a great way to foster a love of learning. Probably a good way to teach kids to hate school.

hard to argue with that!

[Anonymous]

This time 2 years I would have said yes absolutely our kids loved learning and it was nurtured by our DCPS. Unfortunately distance learning was shit and their excitement for school was on life support for the last year. We’re slowly getting back to normal for my 1st grader (she loves going to school now). My 5th grader has done well academically throughout the pandemic but is pretty jaded on school these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Much of that is developed in the early years, but it's not all because of the school. Parents and specific teachers (rather than whole school or school system) play a big part.

If you truly believe love of learning and independent thought are qualities kids can have, then I don’t really see how it makese sense to believe they can ve taught. Programming kids and intensively curating their experience (eg fretting over play based v montessori v public v private) is sort of the opposite attitude.

[Anonymous]

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....

[Anonymous]

Parents teach curiosity and love of learning, but a bad school experience can destroy it. I thought our public (not DC) did a great job in K and 1, but by the end of 1st the classroom inequities were starting to wear on DD . We moved to private in 2nd because of covid but I am undecided on moving back because DD spent so much of 1st being a teacher's helper or waiting for other kids to get on task.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

I guess if you don't want your child to be around people of different abilities or people who are struggling, then you pay for that. I think my child can love learning even if not everything in her life is curated and Iow-income kids are hand-selected for behavior and academic ability.