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Buckets of tears are shed the first two weeks of preschool and kindergarten for many children who are going to school for the first time.
At least that’s what a school principal once told me.
I believe her because I remember shedding my own tears my first day of school. The fear of being left behind by my mother, in a room full of complete strangers, was more than I could fathom at the tender age of four.
And four is old on today’s standards. Many children today are even younger when they leave home to attend their first day in preschool.
The question I pose is why do we, as a nation, do this to our young? Why in the face of our children’s fears and protests, in the face of our better maternal instincts, do we consider it necessary to remove them from our homes and leave them in the care of perfect strangers in the name of education?
“Why, then, are we locking kids up in an involuntary network with strangers for twelve years? ”
— John Taylor Gatto
