31 August 2008

...And a Child With High Genetic Potential Plus Good Training Does Even Better Still . . . .

..."So a child who has a good home learning environment, good preschool and good primary school will do better than a child with only two who will do better than a child who has one who will do better than a child who has none of these.... _Telegraph
Everyone wants superior children, but no one seems to be willing to do anything to help bring them about. Bright mothers with good educations tend to have bright and capable children, relatively speaking. Sadly, society increasingly tries to shunt bright women away from motherhood, as if mothers cannot also succeed in other areas. Anyway, a University of London project looking at the effect of quality pre-school education suggests that the formative pre-school years of a child are very important to his future cognitive capacity.
Ten-year-olds who have attended "high quality" preschool tend to score higher on mathematics tests than those who haven't, reports Prof Edward Melhuish of Birkbeck, University of London, and colleagues from the Effective provision of Preschool and Primary Education (EPPE) project.

He said they were surprised by the degree to which early experience both in the preschool and home were so influential later in the child's life.

"For the average child who went to a particularly effective or high quality preschool their maths scores would be boosted by around 27 per cent," says Prof Melhuish.

However, the project revealed that the education of the parents - particularly the mother- still has the greatest influence, having twice the effect and thus boosting maths scores even more.

What parents did at home mattered too. "The effects of the early home learning environment were very strong, much stronger than people had anticipated."

"An ideal home learning environment would be rich in stimulation and very responsive to the child's communications and activities," says Prof Melhuish.

"Parents would talk to their children frequently, read to them, maybe visit library to increase range of books for child, provide opportunities to draw, paint, learn songs and rhymes, dance and physical activities, play with numbers and shapes.
Parents make the difference in the child's future life. From the genes, to the intrauterine environment, to early childhood and beyond, parents lay the foundation. Then parents hand children to schools, which may or may not care what happens to the child from then on.

As is seen in population groups where up to 70% of children are born out of wedlock, the results of a childhood without caring and resourceful parents can be stark indeed.

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3 Comments:

Blogger Bruce Hall said...

School environment can, to a very large degree, be influenced by parents. After raising three quite fine sons who are doing well as adults, I can personally attest to the impact of parents who continuously challenge teachers and administrators to improve the quality of education.

I'm not of the opinion that home schooling is, per se, superior to public schooling. Most parents do not have the resources or background for truly effective home schooling. Close friends home schooled their three boys. The mother was a certified teacher. The boys are now decent adults, but they did not move on to college and have all struggled economically.

Part of public [or private] schooling is the socializing process and the competitive aspect that prepares young people for life. What is key is the parents' involvement in the school. If the parents have no interest in the education process, it is likely that attitude will be carried on by their children.

Monday, 01 September, 2008  
Blogger al fin said...

You are making some good points, Bruce. We both understand that the issue of child-raising goes deeper than the surface appearance of a particular education style. Details matter.

I suspect that a child's socialising can be done far better in other environments than the typical school--where students are locked up like prisoners for several hours a day, expected to absorb without question whatever indoctrination and pseudo-information that is ladeled into their open brains. Think seriously, Bruce, about what socialisation actually is.

Socialisation is not indoctrination into a group of ignorant age-matched peers. It is far more than that. Schools fail at meaningful and functional socialisation--which is a huge part of the current problem with psychological neoteny and academic lobotomy.

It is boys particularly who are shortchanged by the school system, from K12 through university. Society suffers as a result.

Monday, 01 September, 2008  
Blogger Markku said...

What to do with children and teenagers is a dilemma. Modern careers and enlightened citizenship require a lot of backround information. On the other hand, school is a very artificial environment that socializes children in ways some of which are harmful.

Wednesday, 03 September, 2008  

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“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” _George Orwell

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