Our son, his wife, and their daughter Kayo visited Minnesota from Tokyo recently. Kayo stayed with us a few days while her parents took some relief from her high energy.
I consider Kayo a normal almost three-year-old. Lots of energy and lots of rest. Eagerness to please and obstinate to do things her way. Curious about almost everything from books with lots of words and pictures to nooks and crannies she shouldn't get into.
She can recite the English alphabet and my son says she knows most of the Japanese syllable chart (100+ syllables). I do know she knows the horizontal vowel sounds, but she never did the vertical consonant sounds for us. She can count to 20 in English and Japanese. She recognizes words in books. Of course, the key words for a page are bold and in a different color, but she points at the word and says it. She can switch back and forth between English and Japanese, but she speaks mostly in Japanese because her playmates speak Japanese.
Her parents don't hold fast to the "rule" of each parent speaking his or her native language to the child, but her mother speaks mostly Japanese to her.
What kindergarten or elementary teacher who was paid for performance wouldn't love to have Kayo in his or her class?
If Kayo is so normal why does she have such extraordinary skills? Simple, she has a stay-at-home mom who has her own specials skills. Kayo's mom has ten years of experience in early childhood development. Now instead of helping a roomful of toddlers and pre-schoolers, she has only one student. Class size does matter.
Now consider the effort made by a teacher with a class of thirty, many who may not even have seen a book before. That teacher probably should be paid extra for even trying.
So, if we are to pay for performance, should stay-at-home parents get paid if they spend a lot of time stimulating their kids' minds? It will never happen.
