Low expectations = poor results

The other day, I ordered some Singapore Math books because L was getting really bored by the math we were doing. We've been using Progress in Mathematics, a curriculum that's gotten some great reviews, but it just wasn't going anywhere. There was a lot of repetition, but there didn't seem to be any real progression in the way the facts were presented, in terms of facts building on other facts. There wasn't much depth, either. The stuff was really really dumb. Okay, okay. I know what you're thinking. It's KINDERGARTEN.

Yes, that's true. It's just kindergarten, and I'm not trying to push my child into being a prodigy or anything like that. But my philosophy is, if we have to spend any time on it at all, shouldn't it at least be teaching her something? And if she's not learning from it, shouldn't we be doing something else, like playing in the park? Or reading a book?

I went to the last pages of the book, where they have a cumulative review of what's been learnt through the year. I figured that that would give me the best view of what she should have been taught. First of all, they have a section on using a calculator. To do 2 + 2 + 2 = 6. That's just wrong. Kids just learning the concept of addition shouldn't be encouraged to get a machine to do the thinking for them. Secondly, this was what the cumulative questions were: A drawing of a steaming mug of coffee, and the choice of "hot" and "cold", the question being "Choose the temperature." Another item had 2 pictures, one of a woman cutting a watermelon and another of her cutting a banana. The question was "Which activity takes less time?". There was only one question that involved any calculating: 6 cents - 3 cents = ? cents (accompanied by a picture of six pennies with 3 crossed out.)

Turning to the Singapore Math books (which is the curriculum mandated by the Singapore goverment and gaining popularity over here), I flipped to the end of the books and saw that the kids were doing things like 3 + 4 = ? and simple fractions and word problems like"

I have $10.
I bought an ice-cream for $2.
I bought a chocolate bar for $2.
How much money do I have now?

In other words, real math.

I'm not advocating that we should be cramming our kids' brains with math, or claiming that knowing or not knowing fractions by the age of 5 is indicative of the way the rest of their lives are going to play out. Like I said before, I just feel that if we're going to be spending the time on any of this stuff, at least make it meaningful. Let them really learn something, rather than have the subject matter dumbed down to the level that no one can get an answer wrong and, heaven forbid, have their self-esteem hurt. We expect so little of our kids!