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"Private School For Babies" Opening Up In Gramercy
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Apr 21, 2014
Modified Apr 21, 2014
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Apr 21, 2014
Modified Apr 21, 2014
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So many private baby academies promise rigorous curriculum and so few deliver. They talk a didactic game at the Parent-Teacher Spanish Wine Social, but when your baby's crying out for a sock puppet explanation of Finnegans Wake these pedagogues are too quick to smear a binky in Go-Gurt and call class dismissed. Thankfully, as this DNAinfo lede reveals, "A private school for babies is opening this fall in Gramercy."
The school, called Explore + Discover, will be available to children between the ages of 3 months and 2 years. Tuition is $2,791/month for kids who attend five days a week. You can also pay $1,990 for three days a week or $1,399 for two days but don't you love your child?
It's less than a nanny, and more than Professor Shardy's Lead Paint Lincoln Log Montessori, but your child will have three teachers per class, all of whom will have a master's degree in early childhood education and PhDs in Getting These Little Stinkers With Razor Sharp Fingernails Out Of Your Home For A Few Hours.
The Gramercy location is the first of 26 other learning centers the company has planned to educate the toddlers of tomorrow.
“There isn’t anything out there that focuses on babies,” said Michael Koffler, who owns K3Learning, which also manages Sunshine Developmental Schools, which serves children with disabilities in all five boroughs, among other for-profit specialty schools. “We’re specializing in the world of babies."
“Teachers will be constructing the curriculum with the children,” said Jacqueline Marks, director of the Gramercy location. “Let’s say the teachers notice that the child keeps going back to the same basket of rocks day after day. They’ll watch to see what they’re doing with them. Are they knocking them together or lining them up?
“Teachers will see what the infants are interested in and will use that as clues for how to provide more opportunities to further explore,” she continued.
Does your infant know the difference between extrusive and intrusive igneous rocks? Is he dying to parse Arnold's pebble-strewn Dover Beach? Did he just poop his pants?
Tagged
Baby University
gramercy park
Money well spent
private school
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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