  Ugh. Talk about your double hitters. August is basically the Monday of months. Time to get up and get going already. For me, it's time to fish or cut bait regarding Aidan and pre-school. A year ago, when we began looking into the new school, this didn't seem like such a difficult situation. I can keep him where he is, in a progressive, experience-based Piaget three mornings a week, or even five. But he'll be losing all continuity even if he stays there because so many of his classmates are leaving to full-time private schools that begin at pre-K3, his teacher changes, and the school is moving the class to a different building.
A big benefit of keeping him there--that he and Ella would be in the same building when she begins her part-time program soon--is gone. While his class there begins PK-3 learning goals next month, the part-time format is certainly significantly less goal oriented. And maybe that's a good thing. I've done plenty of research this morning on the benefits of play and learning through play for children under 6. It's clear that children can thrive in this model. The alternative is a goal-oriented classroom atmosphere, which has been shown as bad for only some kids in studies, the kids who are lagging in picking up the learning skills. Apparently the play model alone protects a child in that situation from the kind of self confidence loss that can affect a child for life. Here's where I go a little off the deep end as a progressive parent though: but my son is so smart! Why waste his spurt of interest in academic learning on the more social and less achieving play-learning? He's just learned to write his first words, he loves phonics, and has great word shape recognition, and he's only 3 1/2!
As long as learning in the formative years serves to teach children how to learn for their entire lifetimes, why not teach him to love learning on a steep bell-curve? Already, at pre-k3, I think he could take his Vanguard tests. These are the tests Houston children take for public school that determines where they'll funnel into for their entire learning career. Vanguard, the highest level of test results, is basically the uber-college track. If your child scores on the top 3% of Vanguard tests, you can choose which school in the entire district your child will attend.
But then, he is only 3 1/2. He's pre-k3. I can always start the steep bell curve next year for pre-k4, right? Let him spend one more year primarily working on social skills, with some extra time and money going to extra-curricular activities? The other option is Super Cool International Private School, which has one huge attribute going for it: languages. Pre-K3-5 spend roughly half of their day in either French or Spanish, whatever track we choose. Aidan's already acquiring a ton of Spanish from Yolanda, so we'd pick French.
After 1st grade until graduation, students can add up to five languages gradually as they master the earlier ones. Real subject matters are taught in their mastered languages. It's the second largest international school in the country, second to the UN school in NYC. It's primarily for foreign expats living in the US, because US public school isn't exactly rigorous enough to count when they get back home. This is in line with my own international experience. When I was an exchangee in Germany, my peers kicked my rear in every subject. And it wasn't just the language barrier because they would sometimes have class in English just for my benefit. Not until I began college in the US, did I feel like I caught up to the level of learning I encountered in the German gymnasium. Super cool international school will certainly provide a diverse student body culturally, but I'm worried about its diversity economically.
I'm pretty sure our family's income will be among the lowest. I rationalize this fact by saying 1) his extracurricular activities will be through our neighborhood inner-city cultural center, which will expose him to much different income groups, and 2) any of my top picks for university for either myself or my kids has the exact same issue so we might as well tackle that now. Here are the biggest drawbacks: this school is full-time, and I'm not sure I'm ready for my little boy to be gone from me (and his sister) full time. Plus, it's roughly twice the money, a difference of $5000/year to $9700/year. The extra money on its tuition means we can't afford the extra-curricular music or gymnastics we'd planned to begin this year.
I'm sure we'll still do soccer. After all, the Y is cheap. And maybe we could still begin Suzuki violin if we got a borrowed violin. But I also wanted to buy a piano this year. Aidan does best behaviorally, socially, and achievement-wise when he's really challenged. At the end of this past spring semester, when he suddenly became the second oldest in his little class, he received his first bad behavior reports from school.
Maybe this is a good reason to start the international curriculum now. If you've read the research I posted this morning, you know that 23% of Japanese children, 60% of Swedish children, and 99% of French children are in school at age 3. I look toward these more socialized states for guidance because I know the future of their children still has a seat at the stakeholders' table. If anything, these numbers are encouraging me to lean toward keeping him in the part-time program. But I still don't know. Last night John and I couldn't sleep because we kept going over the options. We'd lay there quietly for a while thinking the other was asleep, and then one of us would put forth a new observation on the topic. This morning we awoke leaning opposite ways. By 9 a.m., we'd each swapped sides. It's August, we have to decide! 
