Preschool Interview

[astra_nomer]

Yesterday morning, DH and I took DS2 to his prosepctive preschool for his interview. Yes, they interview 2.5-year old kids befre accepting them into the school.

The head of school (HoS) dumped a big pile of toys in front of DS2 to distract him while she talked with us about DS2 background, asking questions ranging from, 'what are his biggest strengths?' to 'do you eat dinner together as a family?' Then she did a few activities with DS2.


The first one involved a series of wooden cylinders of various radii, taking them out and putting them back into their proper holes.

The second involved using what looked like a strawberry huller to pick up and sort cotton balls of various colors. To my surprise, DS2 sat quietly and watched intently while the HoS methodically sorted 20-30 balls, which bored DH and I to tears. Then, he repeated the exercise himself, even going so far as to pause with the ball over successive bins until he came to the right one, exactly as the HoS had shown him. She remarked on his long attention span, which we found remarkable as well, quite frankly. But then, compared to DS1's attention span, most adults would come up short as well.

The third activity was to get DS2 to name an assortment of toy animals, foods, and other random objects that the HoS pulled from a box. He started off by calling the horse a cow, but then proceeded to name most of the rest of the objects correctly, including the camel, which surprised DH and me. On the other hand, he missed mushroom, but he doesn't eat those, so I guess it's just as well. This exercise was apparently to test his vocabulary.

Next, the HoS pulled out an assortment of plastic "gems," which DS2, on his own initiative, strung into a line, sorted by color. She asked him to count them, which he did more or less successfully up to 12, after which the rest of the numbers were "eighteen."

The last activity was to name the colors of wooden blocks that she pulled out, which DS2 did handily.

In summary, he's ready for preschool, which I had thought for a while now. DH is still dubious, since he's not good about sharing, especially when DS1 is involved. Me, I think that interacting with other children his age will be good for him, and he'll learn how to share just by being in school.

Afterward the interview, while we were gathering paperwork, he started acting out of bit, climbing on and hitting DH and me, and trying to bite my hand. Apparently, he used up all his patience and focus for the interview and had had enough.

Comments

[nuclearpolymer.livejournal.com]

If I was running a preschool, I'd totally interview the kids. Or, rather, pretend to interview the kids so that I could observe whether the parents were psycho. Because really, it's going to be the parents that potentially give you a hard time when they are always late to pick up the kids, or call and complain because you haven't taught the toddlers how to read, or send the kid to school when he's ill, or blame you if another kid says something mean...

[ilai]

Hmm, maybe HoS was in fact interviewing Uncle and Astra :-) The first test makes me think HoS was making sure DS2 is a good conformist child--one who would never put a square peg into a round hole ;-)

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I'm sure they were interviewing all of us, really. Making sure that we are a proper Montessori family and all.

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

Oh come on, you're talking Washington suburbia here. I'm sure all the parents do all those things. Except us. We are the only non-psycho parents in the Washington metro area.

[remcat.livejournal.com]

I take it DC Metro has a lot in common with Manhattan? My friend's son was asked during his interview (at age 2.5), "What are your interests?" Hah!

[unclenomer.livejournal.com]

Yikes, nothing like that. No real questions for DS2, just the games to test vocabulary, counting, and such. All the questions were directed to us.

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

My impression is that there are plenty of psycho parents and schools catering to them in the area, though quite honestly, I haven't encountered many of them. Of course, most of the fellow parents I know have PhDs like me, and are therefore quite aware that that going to Harvard is not the be-all and end-all of education.

My take on the whole interview thing was that DH and I were being interviewed for our parenting/education philosophy, whereas DS2 was interviewed for his ability to listen and follow directions, as well as his knowledge.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Man, I read in an independent school magazine once about some parents who wanted little scion to go to nursery school X because it had the highest rate of admission to elementary school Y which had the highest rate of admission to Lawrenceville which had the highest rate of admission to Princeton.

*shudder*

I probably know parents like that, too, but am blissfully unaware.

Meanwhile someone advertised a nursery school in davis_square the other day whose curricular philosophy is that little kids should....play. I am so totally charmed. I didn't know places like that were still allowed to exist in affluent areas.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

I've talked to lower school admissions at my school. Trust me, they're interviewing the parents, for precisely that reason -- avoiding, where possible, admitting the psycho ones, and giving preference to ones who really seem to support the mission of the school. (Plus which it's really hard to get a handle on the abilities and needs of super-young kids, so talking to the parents is your proxy for whether this'll be a good kid or not.)