Probably like many of you I mostly hang out around middle class, highly involved parents. But sometimes I find myself around other parents who are not as involved. I think those other parents don't see themselves as the primary impact on their children; they probably don't see themselves as the primary impact even on their own lives.
Among my peer group there are kids with learning problems and disabilities and all sorts of things. And the parents are watching and notice these problems, and work hard to resolve the problems, and reach out (and know how to reach out) for help. Among those other parents many kids are fine, and will develop quite normally, but there are also kids with learning problems, disabilities, health problems – things that won't just be fine without intervention. And I've repeatedly seen those other parents just not notice, to resign themselves (and thus their children) to these limits.
With this in mind I've realized a lot of rules and materials aren't directed towards me or my peers. These "what your children should know by kindergarten" lists are mostly to catch the kids who are in real trouble, but their parents haven't noticed. (The parents who notice don't particularly need extra reminders that they need to give their children extra help.) A lot of programming and structure is intended to make up for a lack of structure for this particular group of kids.
The involved parents of course always make this about themselves (and me too). Because we're involved, because we're constantly asking "should I worry about this?", because we believe we can make a difference through our effort. So the interventions intended to bring up one set of kids instead get applied – and applied most vigorously! – to an entirely different set of kids that probably didn't need any of it.
And then we go on boards and talk about these lists and are shocked at how limited the expectations of a 4-year-old are (because the lists are intended only to catch kids in trouble) and we start to brag about our kids because we're trying so hard to do the right thing and it's never clear if we are.
> That the single biggest predictor of high academic achievement and high ACT scores is reading to children. Not flash cards, not workbooks, not fancy preschools, not blinking toys or computers, but mom or dad taking the time every day or night (or both!) to sit and read them wonderful books.
One of my earliest (and fondest) memories is about my mother reading "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" to 4-year old me, even though she had had a hard day of work behind her. It got me so hooked to stories and books that I learned to read almost all by myself when I was five.
Proud moment: catching the kid up at midnight reading. I can verify it's actually impossible to tell a child off for something you both did and totally approve of.
Even worse: getting caught doing midnight reading by your 2 year old. Who absolutely isn't going to tell you off, but joins you. hashtagproudmomentsinparenting
My soon to be 12 year old has been 'sneaking' books/lights into his room for most of the last decade. It is a cool problem to have, except he tends to do it to excess, and end up not getting much sleep. For days at a time.
Serious passion for reading, though we did end up having to 'bring the hammer down' and shake him down for lights before bed, alas.
I missed a lot of sleep for my books at that age. It did have some of the negative qualities of an addiction, and still can drag me in -- I broke my toe last week, and tried reading a novel to keep my mind off the pain, and finished it around 5am. And realized I was exhausted, and my shattered toe was throbbing madly, and I hadn't even taken any pills for pain.
My parents quickly realized that "go to your room" was totally a non-punishment for me, and they couldn't reasonably do anything to stop me from reading after they'd gone to bed.
I'd suggest working with your son on flexible solutions -- it could work to ask him to always read more advanced stuff (with more challenging vocabulary, plot, etc.) at bedtime so that it takes more brain-work... that makes it a bit more likely that he'll put it down when he's really tired.
The main thing (I think -- my oldest is only 5) is to see if he himself thinks there's a problem, and (if so) help him hack his own lifestyle, acknowledging that you don't know the answer, but you can help experiment & track the results.
It's pretty much a solved problem. We talked about it, over the course of several years.
Mostly, for him, it's about self moderation/regulation. He's mildly autistic, so it's super easy for him to get 'stuck' on many types of tasks/actions.
He is now able to grasp and internalize the consequences of staying up all night reading. :)
In a true miracle of sweet reason working on kids, we said "you should go to sleep so you won't be too tired in the morning for school" AND SHE LISTENED.
I'm always caught in that dilemma. After all, you tend to learn more and with more efficiency under your own direction than you ever do in school. I guess it depends what type of books they're reading. Perhaps start grooming his library ;)
That failure is an option doesn't in any way change that socioeconomic status of parents is the best predictor. I.e. kids from rich families fail less than kids from poor families.
Define achievement as you wish and you'll probably find it holds true. Expert pickpocket as a measure of achievement? Kids probably go on score well on that environment. And to be fair, in the right situation it's probably a pretty good measure.
In particular, from the subsection "SES and Academic Achievement":
1. Children from low-SES environments acquire language skills more slowly, exhibit delayed letter recognition and phonological awareness, and are at risk for reading difficulties (Aikens & Barbarin, 2008).
2. Children with higher SES backgrounds were more likely to be proficient on tasks of addition, subtraction, ordinal sequencing, and math word problems than children with lower SES backgrounds (Coley, 2002).
3. Students from low-SES schools entered high school 3.3 grade levels behind students from higher SES schools. In addition, students from the low-SES groups learned less over 4 years than children from higher SES groups, graduating 4.3 grade levels behind those of higher SES groups (Palardy, 2008).
4. In 2007, the high school dropout rate among persons 16- 24 years old was highest in low-income families (16.7%) as compared to high-income families (3.2%) (National Center for Education Statistics, 2008).
I have a three-year-old, and I think this is on the whole a great list, but I also find it very hard to believe that reading to your young kids causes them to be high academic achievers.
(I think also the goal of "high academic achievement" seems dissonant with the rest of the list, but maybe that's just me.)
If you can't read, or read poorly, you cannot be a high academic achiever. Reading (prolific) to a child teaches how to read, and that reading is important & worthwhile - leading to voracious intake of academic material.
It may not cause high academic achievement, but high academic achievement is unlikely without it.
It's somewhat similar to the parenting book analogy used in (I think) Freakonomics, isn't it? It's not the fact that a parent buys parenting books that makes them a good mother or father. It's the fact that they're the type of parent who would buy those books, who cares about their children, etc, that makes them a good mother or father.
At 4-5 I could read two languages fluently (at the rate of a typical 7-8 year-old), having been taught phonetics for both languages. There were a lot of words I didn't know, but I could at least look them up in the dictionary.
> Reading (prolific) to a child teaches how to read ...
So even though I wasn't read at a lot as a child, I was taught how to do it myself. Inquisitiveness goes a long way with a child. I started doing crosswords at 6-7, and that taught me other skills etc.
TL;DR, I agree that you can't be a high academic achiever if you can't read well.
And yet, it's one of the few solid results science has given us on the topic of children off to a good intellectual start. The signal is fairly strong.
Does this science control for "being the kind of parent who thinks sitting down and reading with their kid is a pretty damn good idea"? I could see how reading to children is an effect of a set of values that are conductive to raising successful children, and as values often do, don't lend themselves well to being broken down into its constituent parts.
Or put in a different way - if you, as a parent, consider reading to your child a chore, will it still work?
Yes, language exposure in an of it's self is useful. Also, reading interesting books often leads to children continuing to read that same book to see how it ends. And thus reading for fun which provides a lot of useful practice.
There is whole lot of what we do not know about kids and effects of reading at various ages. There are also a lot of unconfirmed myths about it. To make it even worst, most studies on very young kids (babies) dealt with language deprived kids and not normally developing kids.
You will not be academically successful if you can not read well and reading a lot of books makes you better reader. Parents who love reading and read a lot lead to kids that love reading.
Depending on what exactly you mean as good intellectual start, the effects might been much less proven then we like to believe.
You know, I'm actually first on board with the idea that rather a lot of science is more poorly sourced than we'd like, and a lot of people place too much trust in "Science!". There's a lot of people who use the religion part of their brain to deal with "Science!".
On the other hand, this pathological need to disprove every study that has ever come out, ever, on every topic ever, is equally wrong. Perhaps it is also sourced from the same part of the brain.
Simply demanding more proof than we have right now is too powerful an argument; it disproves everything, and is thus useless. This may not be the all-singing, all-dancing result that is so easy to call for when it's not your job to provide it, but it is one of the few strong signals we legitimately have about early intellectual development, and it's as wrong to just dismiss it as it is to blindly trust it.
To forever demand higher standards is not sophisticated; it is to embrace endless, profound, uncorrectable ignorance. It is not scientific.
I'm not disproving those studies, just their interpretations. Those famous baby reading studies were made on language deprived children, because it actually makes sense. Those babies are in need of help. Knowing whether twenty or whatever minutes of reading makes difference or not can change peoples lives. It turns out, that it does.
However, concluding from the above that normally developing baby in family that communicates with him a lot will get the same benefit is incorrect. May or may not be.
The other thing is, babies, toddlers, preschoolers and elementary school children are very different in a lot of ways. The effects of reading on those groups are going to be different. The effects of reading on interested and uninterested child are going to be different too. And it just so happens that many very small kids are not interested in being read to.
Note that I'm not saying that reading to preschooler stories that the preschooler likes will not help to build love for reading. I'm kinda sure it will. However, the whole "reading every day is necessary for children of all ages" drum beats are overstating what is actually known about it.
In this radio piece about the Harlem Children's Zone, they reference a study that connects the sheer volume of words a child is exposed to with success later in life [0].
It may just be that reading is one way to increase the number of words in early childhood and that it correlates generally with more (nonviolent) language usage.
>> "I also find it very hard to believe that reading to your young kids causes them to be high academic achievers"
My guess is that reading to them at a young age teaches them that reading can be fun. It probably means that as they get older they will look at reading as a fun activity - something they want to do - and not something boring. And I'd guess that someone who reads performs better academically than someone who doesn't.
More importantly, reading is the foundation of every middle class job. Whether it is legal precedents, medical journals, technical manuals, textbooks, articles, memos, reports, or code, reading is constant.
Our older daughter hated to be read to - she just wanted to get to the next page and look at the pictures. After getting my fingers jammed in her board books one too many times I just let her enjoy it. In elementary school she really didn't want to do her 20 minute reading assighments.
Now she and her sister, who loved being read to, are both doing just fine and they both read piles and piles of books.
This is a big debate in my household. I look at the clear stand-out stars of the world and it is undeniable that the vast majority of them started working on some aspect of their talent between 4 and 6. Whether it be Golf (Tiger woods), Violin (Itzhak Perlman), Cello (Yo-Yo Ma) Mathematics (Neumann) or really any other field, the absolute dominant people started early - even holding the prodigies aside.
Most importantly though these people were able to cultivate their talents in an environment that encouraged practice and dedication.
I think the right answer is that a 4 year old should be exposed to many different things, see what they gravitate towards and then given narrow and focused instruction on that[1].
I used to believe in the idea of working on weaknesses, but that is only a good way to be "well rounded" - which is almost worthless today. If you want to really excel in the world you need to be the best at a narrow skill and you do that by working really hard at what you are already naturally good at from as early as possible.
[1]I will say that people do need cross-disciplinary knowledge to really make breakthroughs in fields so that is an important aspect that should be taken into consideration
Admittedly though, most of my source is from individual informal research on domain specific experts to determine commonalities between them. What I found was common among them was that they were working on some core concept of the field, or the practice itself very early.
I would venture to guess there is a longitudinal or statistical study out there somewhere which gives more quantifiable information on the question.
Be careful what you wish for. Narrow focus is great, as long as you make the right bets. In the book "Fast Food Nation", there's a great profile of a talented hockey player whose career is sidelined by injury... after thousands of hours of practice and work, he's running a chain pizza joint.
The Tiger Woods of world are brilliant in their fields, but often leave behind a train-wreck of personal life issues in their wake.
I cannot help but wonder if you actually got what the article says. Sure, forcing your 4 year old to practice some skill for hours each day might lead to her becoming a "stand-out star" in that field. But will it also lead to her becoming a confident, balanced, loving, gentle and caring person?
Will you look back to her childhood without regrets? Will she?
My goal as a parent is to help my children discover who they are, follow their interests and talents, and grow up to be independent adults, with the emotional maturity to handle the ups and down of this society, the adaptability to deal with whatever may come their way, and the self-direction to make the changes needed in their own lives to build happiness for them and for their families.
If they are great at something, and develop talents that make them world famous, that would be cool. But so few people do that, I cannot realistically even consider that result in my parenting choices.
I disagree. Choosing not to help nurture a child's need to become a superstar is doing them a disservice. You say "so few people do that," I refuse to believe that every child is not capable of the greatness to be world famous because of something - if that's what they choose.
So if your kid wants to be an astronaut, an A-List movie star, or a magician, nurture that. Don't discount something because "I can't realistically consider that." Don't sell your kid short, they are capable of whatever they choose. You just have to equip them the tools they need to deal with what stands in their way.
Some of the biggest celebrities and even presidents of the United States started off with meager beginnings, knowing nothing, having little; Some of them self educated. Of all the famous people in the world, look at who their parents are, what they came from - look at those that started with nothing. Some have prevailed despite overcoming the worst atrocities known to man and risen to greatness - Nelson Mandela. Some have become famous "just" for standing for what's right when those around them didn't rock the boat - Rosa Parks, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden. (I put "just" in quotes because I think everyone stands for what's right, but historically very few have been brave enough to really make that stand alone with so much standing in their way.)
The chasm between having nothing (and by having nothing, I mean educationally speaking) and world fame can be crossed and has been crossed by many. Don't sell your child short by thinking they can't cross it. It can be done, it has been done and it will be done many times again. So you have to nurture it if that's the path they choose. If you have to educate yourself to help them get there, that's your job as a parent.
Many of the careers that get a lot of prestige - law, medicine, business management, etc - all require that you understand a variety of fields, or are at least greatly aided by understanding a second field in depth in addition to the one primarily related to your career.
Similarly, if you're not competent in a few fields (math, reading, writing, basic computer operation), you're simply going to lose out to more competent peers in the workplace.
Finally, your annotation makes an extremely important point: people we see making breakthroughs in fields - the truly top tier academics for instance - are well known for working in multiple fields and having wide interests. You cite an example yourself when you mention Neumann, who made contributions to a wide variety of math, led the team that invented the first computer, worked on several military projects, and contributed to a few tangential fields occasionally, for example applying game theory (which he invented) to economics.
In reality, the truly dominant people tend to be polymaths, and the middle to middle-top tier tend to be highly specialized.
Said simply: It is much easier to gain generalist capabilities than it is narrow domain capabilities as you age.
The idea here is to harness the extreme plasticity of the growing brain toward a narrow domain while still introducing some broad concepts around the edges.
This is a difference between driving discipline into your child to do something and nurturing them because they enjoy it. Teaching your kid that discipline pays off, show them what the superstars of their subject can achieve if they have the self discipline to drive themselves and then just support them in their pursuit of that. If their pursuit wanes, that's okay. It doesn't mean you should run them into the ground about it. Move onto whatever they're currently interest in and nurture that. Let them be kids and help them to get the most they can out of their interests. Find ways to keep it fascinating and fun for them and wanting to learn more, but when there comes a time they want to move onto something else, that's okay too.
I believe your child should be as well rounded or as focused as they feel the need to be. The world needs generalists and it needs specialists. The Yo-Yo Mas, Tiger Woods' and Michael Phelps' of this world may be superstars, but they needed a team of generalists coordinating their rise to stardom; Your child may be a generalist, the glue that holds everything together and the oil that makes the machine work. The one who can make sense of the chaos of the world around them and bring order and harmony. There is great value in that too.
You can't say the well rounded are any more or less worthy or worthless than the superstars. All are needed and all are as valuable as one another.
The smallest pin in a watch as as important as the largest cog, but without a drive mechanism or hands, the piece is worthless. It is only when all the parts come together in concert that it is worth something. Each of the parts is a specialist at what they do, doing one thing extremely well; each a vital piece of the puzzle. But it takes the watchmaker, the generalist who understands the value of all the pieces together, who has the skill (and a lot of patience) to bring them together as a whole that makes the result something useful.
It doesn't mean you should run them into the ground about it.
Of course not, is there any evidence that doing so has a net positive return? Why even discuss that point?
You can't say the well rounded are any more or less worthy or worthless than the superstars. All are needed and all are as valuable as one another.
Disagree. You can replace the generalist performing a function on this "machine" and still have the same result. Not so for the superstar.
But it takes the watchmaker, the generalist who understands the value of all the pieces together, who has the skill (and a lot of patience) to bring them together as a whole that makes the result something useful.
While that all feels good and makes us all think we are beautiful snowflakes with real positive contributions that make an impact, the reality seems to not comply. Of course the idea that any one input is equally important than all other parts is not a falsifiable contention.
To wit: If the CTO (specialist) left our company it would fail basically immediately with no one able to come in and replace him. If I the CEO (generalist) left there are tons of people who could come in and run it probably as well. This is an example of something most people in this community have probably experienced at one time of another and proves my point. We as a community think we can augment this by requiring clean code standards with comments and distribute code so that individuals aren't irreplaceable but in fact it is often still the case.
Without all the pieces the watchmaker is just some guy with the knowledge to make watches. Without a watchmaker, the pieces are all just pieces. It takes all of them coming together to become a watch. All of the pieces may be replaceable, but nevertheless, all make a valuable contribution.
Which watchmaker do you go to for your watch? The one that has the reputation for making the best watches - the best generalist. Just because someone is a generalist, doesn't mean they're not the best at what they do.
Steve Wozniak - Technical genius, Systems Engineer, Specialist. Arguably as important in Apple's success as Jobs. Without Woz, there was no product. It was his know-how that gave Apple life.
Steve Jobs - CEO, Salesman spectulaire, Visionary, Generalist. Exiled from his own company. Replaceable? The board of directors clearly thought so. Could anyone have done as good a job? Who knows. What we do know is that the previous management did a shitty job and in a very just turn of events, Jobs turned out to be fucking awesome at it. Kudos to him.
Could any engineer than Woz have built the product Jobs asked for? Quite probably. I'm sure there were other capable engineers out there if Wozniak had declined or not been available. It took Jobs more generalized abilities to direct Woz's talents and get a product to market.
Would Jobs have made a success of his life without Wozniak? Would Wozniak have still been a successful computer genius without Jobs? There's not a shred of doubt in my mind that either of them would have made it. Both technically replaceable, but each as irreplaceable as the other in the creation of Apple. It took both to make that magic happen.
For years I have played table tennis, and seen various young, talented and ambitious players rise through the ranks, sometimes to a point where they played in the men's leagues at 14 or 15 years, because there wasn't much competition in the youth leagues.
And while I didn't count them, I'd say that about two thirds of them stopped progressing (and then playing) somewhere between age 16 and 18. Mostly they developed other interests, or lost motivation for reasons unknown to me.
So I'd be very careful with putting high stakes on very narrow interests; it can easily become a dead end.
(FWIW I don't consider that time "lost" or anything; they surely learned a lot about self confidence, team play, reliability and other traits; it's just that it sounds that you as a parent might be rather disappointed when your hypothetical child loses interest in his narrow focus).
Lots of people object to what you are saying, but I'm relieved to hear someone say it. Many 'specializations' are actually worlds unto themselves, with endless amounts of things to learn. They are fun to explore (for a kid of a specific bent) and there is no reason not to explore them as early as possible, just as I wasted no time in taking my toddler on hikes to see parts of the world different than where we live. In my own life, there were many things I regretted learning about until it was too late to devote much time to them.
It seems to me that the biggest advantage to being a generalist is that as parents, we can identify what a kid is good at, and can start him down that road. Things go wrong when a parent is not himself enough of a generalist to figure out what the kid likes, and just pushes him toward something random or prestigious.
As for those that object to what you say, I wonder why they insist on putting words in your mouth. Perhaps they don't believe that a young kid could be interested in any deep topic without coercion; which relieves them of the responsibility to try to find what this topic could be. But my attitude is that as a parent, I may not find it, or maybe it's not there, but the potential upsides are large enough that I will keep thinking about it.
I started playing violin when I was pretty young (maybe 4)? I quit at about age 12, couldn't stand it anymore. It was actually a bit of a showdown with my parents, and I definitely had to just deal with the storm of disapproval.
I came to love music again later in life, and I do play now, fiddle as well as a few other instruments.
Here are some of my absolute favorite "violinists" (probably should call them fiddle players). By and large, they came to violin later in life, though with great interest in music. They are very different musicians from classical players, no doubt, but they're the type of musicians I probably should have been. I honestly think I was harmed as a musician by classical teachers who were constantly in my business, messing around with how I held the bow.
There are so many kids nowadays who can play a nearly flawless etude. Some show the the grimaces and gestures of someone who plays with passion, but I still wonder if it is an affectation, a teacher, noticing it has gotten a little mechanical, says "but with more passion… good, good" (as student playing etude flawlessly after a gazillion practices now affects the swaying and grimaces that seem to properly convey requested passion)
Personally, I'd much rather be Boyd Tinsley or Ketch Secor than a top classical musician, but that's probably because I'd much rather listen to their music.
"He was not an avid music lover or player. He learned violin by accidentally signing up for a middle school orchestra class, under the impression that guitar would be taught. The idea of learning the violin, however, was interesting enough for him that he stuck with it."
"He suffered from severely clubbed feet for the first 30 years of his life. At the age of 10 he learned to play the banjo but soon switched to the fiddle. In 1917, he moved to West Virginia but due to the flu epidemic of 1919, he had to return to Virginia."
He taught himself to play the fiddle at age 7 and the first song he learned was "There's an Old Spinning Wheel in the Parlor". Soon, Clements formed a local string band with two first cousins, Red and Gerald. Gerald was the fiddle player and when he got married and left, Clements had to pick up the fiddle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luderin_Darbone
He was born in Evangeline and raised in Orangefield, Texas. His parents gave him his first fiddle at the age of 12 and he learned to play through a correspondence course.
I'm also a big fan of Ketch decor from Old Crow Medicine Show (who also learned late in life).
"The act of fiddle playing is a lifetime relationship. You have good spells and bad turns, and while you celebrate all your time together, it doesn’t mean it’s all rosy. I’ve been playing since I was 18, and learning to play in Rockingham County, NC, but it’s taken me this long—14 years—to figure out not to fall over on the dance floor and step all over her feet."
I look at the clear stand-out stars of the world and it is undeniable that the vast majority of them started working on some aspect of their talent between 4 and 6.
The development of a standout isn't generally talked about unless there's a story to be told, so while you will hear the story about the kid who started young, cute pictures as evidence, you won't hear about the ones who didn't (unless it's so late that it, again, becomes worthy of a story).
Further, isn't that logic vulnerable to a dangerous survivorship bias? For every Woods or Perlman, how many kids grew to absolutely hate an activity because instead of it being fun or developing, it became the hangup of a parent expecting their child to be an extreme exception? How many simply weren't standouts, so they spent much of their youth forced to do an activity that they ended up being merely average at?
For every Woods or Perlman, how many kids grew to absolutely hate an activity because instead of it being fun or developing, it became the hangup of a parent expecting their child to be an extreme exception? How many simply weren't standouts, so they spent much of their youth forced to do an activity that they ended up being merely average at?
Except that is exactly not what I am proposing and is the kneejerk reaction to the idea of cultivating talent. I find it extremely frustrating that people immediately turn the discussion into retroactive mirroring based on what bad parents have done to their kids, as though it is the natural outcome of this kind of cultivation.
Are we so mentally handicapped that it is impossible to see that while the tactic of forcing a child to do something will inevitably lead to failure, early specialization is a real indicator of future success in a field?
Here it is laid out all simple like:
1: Provide a variety of options and environments for children to demonstrate their abilities (physical, mathematical, grammatical etc...)
2: Identify what domains the child is gravitating for work/play
3: Identify where within those domains the child is showing a naturally proclivity
4: Narrowly tailor instruction and opportunity to cultivate proclivity within that domain
Very simple. No coercion (outside of the standard required for preschoolers) needed.
by working really hard at what you are already naturally good at from as early as possible.
That's more than just tailored instruction. Also, being the best in your field is practically worthless, my sister is in the top 1,000, probably even top 100 in her field in her mid 20's. So she is well paid and making movies. But, she could easily swap to doing something else.
Ignoring your obnoxious and ill-placed reply, I (and others) responded specifically to what you said, which was that the "debate" in your household was about "you need to be the best at a narrow skill and you do that by working really hard at what you are already naturally good at from as early as possible"
This seems tragically naive, and in all likelihood terribly destructive of future success, rather than supporting it.
Missing is the most important advice for toddler-parenting: ignore what other toddler parents are saying. If you want advice get if from parents with older kids.
She should know that it is always okay to paint the sky orange and give cats 6 legs.
I'll be sending this to my son's preschool teacher who marks her pupils' art with a red pen[1]. He's attends one of the "better" schools in Johannesburg.
[1] Later used to diagnose "disorders" and send kids for occupational therapy - part of a huge and well-publicised racket in the area -the rich northern suburbs of Johannesburg could be the OT capital of the world, looking at diagnosis rates.
I feel like you do your kid a real diservice by worrying about what they 'need' to know, and then dictating that their time is spent learning that
time is finite, time wasted on learning what all the other 4 year olds know is time that can't be spent learning what they actually want to be learning that will make them a unique member of society
any competitive advantage they'll have in the future will come from them knowing something all the other kids don't know, they'll get almost no advantage from learning the same things every other kid had drilled into them as well
(and that's not even accounting for how much more quickly they'll learn what they're naturally curious about)
Money quote right here: "Time wasted on learning what all the other 4 year olds know is time that can't be spent learning what they actually want to learning that will make them a unique member of society", you sir, are absolutely right. +1
I disagree. Anecdotally, every kid I've known has been a naturally curious creature, and I think most kids do want to learn. However, many kids do not enjoy being taught, especially in a school setting. The early years of school are more about teaching children to sit quietly and keep their hands to themselves, which has nothing to do with satisfying curiosity.
That may be what you're saying, but I think the difference is important enough to be more explicit.
kids are like everyone else, they respond to their feedback
the question of whether they want to learn is roughly irrelevant here
the question is more, should their learning mirror every other kids learning?
the basic stuff, (reading, writing, numerical literacy) is so basically useful that'll it will be learned in context of exploring nearly any facit of life
I'd argue that encouraging your kids to explore their universe is vastly better education, than worrying about any paticular skill set in any paticular time frame
skill sets are almost always easier to obtain in context, as needed
"What should children know" is an overloaded question, and if we are talking about developmentally delayed child, it has a completely different meaning. In that case, there are a certain things a child should know with strong statistical confidence (e.g. 95% of children do this by age X).
Of course viewed in normal school children context, this question has a completely different meaning. Even here the author is confusing knowledge with right kind of environment that produces or fosters it. But a test of knowledge does not test the environment, just the final product of it.
I agree with you - I think when a parent asks "what should my 4 year old know", they are looking for that statistical reference:
"Most kids, by the age of 4 know X, know or are in the process of learning Y and probably don't yet grasp Z. if they already know Z, but don't know X, it's not a big deal, they'll get it shortly."
Clearly "My kid knows X, Y and Z" isn't what the parent is looking for. I don't care what your kid can do, quite probably my kid can do a bunch of stuff yours can't and vice versa, I don't really care that your kid can do X and mine can do Z, I don't think less of your parenting, nor your child that they can't do Z and it's not a big deal to me that yours can do X.
When I ask the question, what I'm really asking is so much more complicated: "Is my kid equipped with enough of the understanding and skills they require to feel at home and confident in the grade they're in, while still learning at an optimal pace for them? Are they keeping up with what's being taught or are they struggling? Are they engaged or disruptive? If they're disruptive, is it because they're struggling to keep up and have disengaged because they've lost hope, or is it because they already understand everything they're being taught and are bored? Are they more/less advanced than the majority of the class, do I need to consider keeping them back a year because they're struggling with a lot of material, do I need to fast-track them ahead a year so they're a better social/educational fit with their peers? Do I need to consider some private tutoring for X, Y or Z because they're struggling or because they've hit the ceiling for their peer group for that subject?"
So when I ask "What should my 4 year old know", what I'm really looking for is some assurance: "Relax, your kid is a perfect fit for the grade she's in, she's an amazing child, she's made friends, she's happy, she's engaged, she participates, she's got the confidence to speak, she listens well to instruction and to her peers, she understands and retains information well - she's on par with the rest of her class, a bit ahead in X, a bit behind in Y, but nothing that you need to spend any time worrying about. Just concentrate on having fun with her and enjoying her childhood, she's doing fine."
This hits the nail on the head - nobody at all wants to hear about other "slightly ahead" children and such, these things are not useful. People are looking for major deficits.
I know for a fact this is what I was looking for with my son, who is 4 years old with the speech/language skills of a 2 year old -- these things were absolutely important, especially when there were people in his life who were totally in denial. Thanks to these measures, my son can get the help he needs through a speech and language therapist. Impossible if there was nothing to tell everybody that something is wrong.
With my daughter, who is 5 months, I also regularly look up the same things. It's more of an assurance than anything.
It's important to stress that they are a rough measure. As I said earlier, looking out for major deficits, the big red flags. Slightly ahead in one area, a bit behind in another means nothing - each child develops at different paces and at different speeds and these little over-achievements or under-achievements. These things, bundled with a parent like me, is enough to make me fret and get worried but the more it happens the more you learn that if there's no big red flags, the little yellow/green ones are nothing to worry about. I've lost a few nights sleep before learning this one.
As a parent of a 3 1/2 year old, this was a great read. Development in early childhood is so rapid, I still feel like a new parent. Here's the two things I'd add:
- How to fall down and pick yourself back up without crying too hard.
- How to laugh at yourself good-naturedly when you make a mistake, and try again until you get it right.
These are really valuable - only cry when it's necessary. Cry because it hurts and you feel an emotional need to cry, don't do it because you think it gets you more attention, that'll wear out in a hurry. (Also: Don't make trouble or drama where there is none.)
- Definitely don't take the yourself too seriously. There's enough to be serious about in the world already, without polluting it further with too much of yours.
- Don't give up just because you make a mistake or failed once... or 999 times. We wouldn't have anything we know in this world if scientists and inventors gave up on every failure, most famously: The light bulb. If you think something can be done and the result is worth the effort, stick at it until you get the result you're looking for. That's how we make progress.
Its because C is a bad first language, I remember when I first started programming what was really exciting to me was seeing something working. Beyond simple "hello world" type applications, C is going to take a lot more work. Its a great language, very useful for building things. However what makes it great is what makes it bad for first timers.
C#, or javascript, maybe python would be good languages in my opinion.
If that's your criteria for a good first language, then I'd say shell script. You already need to know a subset of the shell and its commands anyway, to be able to use the computer in the first place. So from there, learning the programming-language aspects of it is a natural progression.
I've seen French and German code that got by with no significant English (outside whatever wrapped the core functions).
It's easier in some languages than in others.
Back in the good old BASIC days, there were even hacks to make those tokenizing interpreters on home computers use German symbols for their keywords. (nice side effect of the tokenized representation: the code remained compatible)
Excel and {Open,Libre}Office Calc work with localized symbols for their functions, too.
I think I've even seen a C header file that wrapped keywords (through macros), types and libc names in translated versions. Luckily those are rare...
So, programming without English is possible - but I really wouldn't recommend it.
I knew what most of the BASIC keywords did on the computer before I understood their meaning in english. I'm not sure I even completely grasped that they were words in a language until then.
But yeah, english is pretty undisputed as the lingua franca of most things computer, and so developing professionally beyond a certain threshold is difficult without english.
> It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
I didn't mod you down, but it's worth pointing out that the versions of BASIC that Dijkstra was referring to are now dead. Without special effort and probably running an emulator, you will not be able to run an unstructured BASIC where goto is the primary control flow mechanism. It's all structured, as in "structured programming", now.
How to self-reflect, and think about how they act.
"Don't do to other what you wouldn't do yourself" kind thing. This would come a long way to keep some kids out of trouble.
Similar to jonathanwallace's point, I would argue that such self reflection, as a component of "executive function," isn't fully achievable or fully developed for most individuals until they're in their 20s [0].
Nevertheless, it's crucial that we support the development of cognitive skills related to self-reflection, inhibitory control, and so on even in children whose prefrontal cortexes may not be physically developed enough to consistently make appropriate judgements.
Even in the blog post from 2010 kindly submitted here, the author notes that this writing is from "many years ago," with a link to the old version,[1] so I wonder what she thinks now several years later, as her child has grown up some more.
This is important stuff - I did first grade twice, because I was a "slow starter" in a lot of ways. My mother had serious concerns about how well I'd do at school, for the first few years (even after being left back -- it didn't help that I was incredibly shy and didn't really want to interact with the teacher), but once I started reading I read voraciously, and got better & better at school as time went on, so by the end of HS and then in university I was at the top of my class generally.
There's still a pile of stuff I wish I'd learned much, much earlier -- like "how to get good at something" (besides just muddling your way into it), and that the basics of skill acquisition apply to social skills as well... so now I'm explicitly teaching these things to my kids, along with a healthy dose of fun and silliness along the way.
> musical instruments (real ones and multicultural ones)
Er, what exactly is a multicultural musical instrument? Like a bongo drum? One of them 'ethnic' doodads?
Just encourage your kids to read and they'll educate themselves. No extra work required! Once they get the bug they can read about history (in a better way than school ever could), science and adventure to their heart's content.
I think books, lego and a gameboy (grant me some concessions, we didn't leave Windows 95 until about 2004) were all I needed to get through childhood.
In my opinion that's a bit creepy. A child who is loved unconditionally can never understand unconditional love.
You can never see what's always there, such as the air we breathe. You can only understand it by logic and that's not until your teenage years, at the earliest. How could a toddler possibly understand love?
Edit: To clarity, of course you should love your children, unconditionally. But to teach them what unconditional love is, at an early age? Really?
The concept of love would be hard to convey, but the fact that dad (and/or mom) won't stay mad, will give them food, will put them into a warm bed, etc. is something you - imo - can teach them.
Unconditional love is such a weird concept to me. I definitely wouldn't continue loving my child if she killed my other child on purpose. (Out of jealousy perhaps)
Even if you're example is a bit extreme, I am pretty sure that a 4 years old has not the maturity to understand the far-reaching consequences of such dire actions. Understand that it is bad yes, understand that it is definitive no.
This is also why depending on the jurisdiction and their age, minor are judged according to special laws. And I am not sure a place exists where a 4 years old would be put on trial.
The lack of unconditional love is such a weird concept to me.
At least in my case, it's not revocable; I couldn't stop loving them even if I wanted to. And yes, that includes your hypothetical extreme example. My children will still be my beloved children regardless of their actions.
I've thought about that, having multiple kids and having lost one. My prediction is that I still would love the murderous child. It's rather surprising how strong my emotions are to my little girls for no conscious reason.
I don't think I would go from love to hate, as I've never hated anyone. It's just that my love would be lost.
As for a toddler not understanding permanency, that may be. However I don't really subscribe to the idea of claiming something is true (e.g. unconditional love), and then later amending it when permanency is more fully grasped. Similarly, I'm clear from the very beginning that Santa Claus is a fairy tale. I want my children to trust me, and in my eyes trust isn't earned by lying, even when the reason is ageism.
> That the single biggest predictor of high academic achievement and high ACT scores is reading to children. Not flash cards, not workbooks, not fancy preschools, not blinking toys or computers, but mom or dad taking the time every day or night (or both!) to sit and read them wonderful books.
This startup - Versame - is building a wearable device for children and parents to measure this. Check it out: http://versame.com/
I often wonder if kids need to go to school 5 or 6 days a week, and spend 8 -9 hours there. I like the idea of kids being with other kids, but do they really need to spend most of that time sitting on a bench, listening to classes?
I'm not sure what is best for a 4 year old, but they certainly aren't helped by smug and self-righteous posts by parents that claim to have better answers than other smug and self-righteous parents.
Or at least pick one and stick with it. Traditionally it would be "she".
It wasn't important in this case, but my brain kept flipping back to the previous item to make sure I hadn't made a mistake in reading. Ordinarily it is pretty important to the narrative.
Preemptive apologies for potentially stepping in a land mine, but… "traditionally" under what tradition?
Typically in older literature "he" has been used as the neutral pronoun when gender is unknown or unimportant. I've seen a more recent movement towards use of "she", but I don't think I'd say it's "traditional". Am I missing something?
Fair enough. I've seen "she" used for ships and the like as well, though I've always found that a little sexist myself, as if it were equating women with inanimate objects. In the end I don't care much either, I was just wondering, since I have seen some more recent articles and publications move towards using "she" as a generic pronoun, but I've always attributed that to the influence from modern feminist movements.
My personal preference is for singular "they", for what it's worth.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular pronoun, and has been in use that way for centuries. The idea that 'they' isn't a singular pronoun comes from the same stable of grammar rules that say it's not okay to use a preposition to end a sentence with.
Although I agree that you can end a sentence with a preposition if you want to, your sentence is still grammatically wrong. What you wrote is equivalent to "...it's not okay with which to use a preposition to end a sentence." Maybe try "a preposition is not an okay thing to end a sentence with."
Edit: My version is equivalent to "a preposition is not an okay thing with which to end a sentence."
Honest question: I often find I refer back to the rules of grammar when they prevent ambiguity or enhance clearly (often two sides of the same coin). With this phrase, what ambiguity is prevented or clarity enhanced?
It's a mechanical transformation. "End a sentence with" <-> "with which to end a sentence". As I pointed out above, vacri's version turns into an obvious jumble after this equivalent transformation, which means the original is also a jumble. It's just a more difficult jumble to untangle, so you might not notice it's wrong.
The relevant concepts here are preposition stranding and pied-piping. These are not "mechanical transformations" in the sense you mean -- there are certain constraints on when a preposition can be pied-piped and when it can't.
Maybe there's a better way to show it. But the sentence definitely has too many words in it. You could just drop the word "with" from the end and it would work fine. So "with" is a preposition, and the object seems to be the earlier word "preposition", but that word is already the object of "to use" without needing a prepositional phrase. The word "with" is tacked onto the end with no structure.
I think you're correct - I knew when I wrote it that it was a little forced on my behalf. Certainly your version sounds more natural, though I have heard people say similar things to my version.
If they're talking about a specific child, sure, but if they are talking about a single, unspecified child, they is becoming more popular[1].
"Bill is over there. He is playing with his toys."
"If your child is in the kitchen, make sure they don't touch the hot stove." vs "If your child is in the kitchen, make sure he/she doesn't touch the hot stove."
For many readers the he/she breaks all flow the sentence had.
This is a false dilemma. "He/she" was never even mentioned.
In the context of the article[0], other options exist like:
If your child is in the kitchen, make sure he doesn't touch the hot stove.
If your child is in the kitchen, make sure she doesn't touch the hot stove.
These sentences are no harder to read than if "they" had been the pronoun used.
[0] - and I really think what the author is trying to do is make the reader think of a different child with each bullet point. Not a single, unspecified four year old, and not a collective group of every four year old, but one unique four year old for each bullet point. Alternating the gender of the pronoun creates this effect.
The issue is when people (seemingly) randomly switch between he/she and his/hers, even within a single context. Then you end up with something like:
"If your child is in the kitchen, make sure she doesn't touch the hot stove. If he does, however, ..."
Even when the switch isn't that abrupt, if someone is switching between he and she every few paragraphs, it can become very distracting. Using singular they solves this problem.
Among my peer group there are kids with learning problems and disabilities and all sorts of things. And the parents are watching and notice these problems, and work hard to resolve the problems, and reach out (and know how to reach out) for help. Among those other parents many kids are fine, and will develop quite normally, but there are also kids with learning problems, disabilities, health problems – things that won't just be fine without intervention. And I've repeatedly seen those other parents just not notice, to resign themselves (and thus their children) to these limits.
With this in mind I've realized a lot of rules and materials aren't directed towards me or my peers. These "what your children should know by kindergarten" lists are mostly to catch the kids who are in real trouble, but their parents haven't noticed. (The parents who notice don't particularly need extra reminders that they need to give their children extra help.) A lot of programming and structure is intended to make up for a lack of structure for this particular group of kids.
The involved parents of course always make this about themselves (and me too). Because we're involved, because we're constantly asking "should I worry about this?", because we believe we can make a difference through our effort. So the interventions intended to bring up one set of kids instead get applied – and applied most vigorously! – to an entirely different set of kids that probably didn't need any of it.
And then we go on boards and talk about these lists and are shocked at how limited the expectations of a 4-year-old are (because the lists are intended only to catch kids in trouble) and we start to brag about our kids because we're trying so hard to do the right thing and it's never clear if we are.