In this chapter the authors used data to determine what factors in a child's upbringing were correlated with high standardized test scores. The analysis of the data is also used to displace some of the things we believe to be conventional wisdom.
I was surprised to find that some factors were not correlated with high test scores. According to the book, that a child comes from a broken family, that the child's mother worked between birth and kindergarten, that the child was spanked regularly, and that the child regularly watched TV does not have a negative effect on test scores. Also surprising was that attending Head Start programs before kindergarten, being read to by a parent regularly, and being taken to museums were not positively correlated to high test scores. I suppose that I just fed into the conventional wisdom; it made sense to me that regular television watching would be detrimental to a child's education. However, after reading this chapter I though of all the education programming there is out there and the book mentions how children in Finland learn to read and speak before kindergarten by watching American programming with English subtitles, and I could easily see how television would not have a negative effect on a child's education.
I would agree with the authors' conclusions in this chapter. There is little in the way of child-rearing techniques that can greatly increase a child's aptitude and performance in school. This is of course the old nature vs. nurture debate. The book states that children of highly educated parents tend to do better on tests, as to be expected. Adopted children tend to do worse on tests, and although people who adopt are usually highly educated, the children they adopt tend to be born from parents who are not. Similarly, children with low birth rates also tend to test lower than the rest. These are factors I think are associated with the nature side of the debate, and the effect of these factors cannot be enhanced or diminished by any child-rearing technique. There are also some factors that are not nature per se, but are sometimes out of the control of the parent, such as socioeconomic class.
On the other hand, some factors may depend on the the chosen parenting techniques. According to the authors, children born to mothers who are thirty years of age or older, children with parents involved in the PTA, and children with many books in the home typically score higher. Thus, the conclusion is that in terms of parenting, in order to improve a child's aptitude parents need to be actively involved in the child's education. I think this is true. This can maximize the child's success in school up to his or her potential, which is determined by "nature" type and socioeconomic factors.
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4 comments:
Gabe,
I agree with your conclusion and the author's statement that parents that are involved in the PTA and in their child's life DO have a positive impact on the students overall performance. My wife taught "regular" high school classes in North Carolina (grades 9th-10th). She had very low parental involvement as compared to those teachers that taught the "honors" classes. She also had quite a few 11th and 12th graders taking these 9th and 10th grade classes.
Maybe those parents in "regular" classes don't come to the PTA meetings because they are typically from the lower-income class and are out working their second job during the night shift? BUT, my wife did teach a lot of students that had parents that were farmers and the students mentality was "Why do I need to get my high school degree if I am going to help my parents run the family farm?" That kind of mentality has to come from the home...it's hard to motivate kids when they don't want to learn. Maybe that is what the inner-city kids think? When they see that so many of "their kind" don't make it out of the inner-city, I would think that also brings down the motivation to do well in school.
So, I think the environment and parental involvement factor into the equation as well.
Reading your post made me think of a conversation that I had recently with one of my friends. She is a 1st grade teacher at a school located in Tampa. The school she works at is a little below average. She said how she was talking to her students the other day and they saw a picture of a lily pad and the students did not know what it was. This is something that when we where children we would have known either through reading books with our parents or going on walks. However, children today are either playing video games or their parents don't have time to take them on walks. Therefore, they are not learning these simple things that we take for granted. This is just one of those side effects of our society's increasing attention to technology.
With that said, I believe that things like being read to by a parent may not correlate positively to test scores, but they do make you learn some general things. Such as, what a lily pad is, they make you more creative and other everyday lessons.
All in all, I believe that what the authors say in this book does have some validity. However, I think it is a little one sided as well. You have to take everything they say with a grain of salt, just like everything the media says.
Gabe,
I like your nature v. nurture argument for the reason why adopted children do worse on standardized tests do worse. However,instead of the "nature" argument, maybe these children do worse because their adopted parents do not care enough or the trust is not built yet between child and parent.
I also have to stress taht I believe parents involvement in their children's education is imperative to them succeeding. I know that if I did not have my parents pushing me to do well, than I would not have had much incentive to succeed - at least when I was young.
Gabe,
I too find it very interesting that children attending Head Start school or children whose parents read to them at night are not more inclined to score better on standardized test. I was also surprised that watching TV all the time doesn’t correlate to lower scores. Perhaps I fell into the conventional thinking, but if I still had to choose who would score higher between a child who read a lot and a child who watched TV all the time I would go with the reading child. Who would you choose?
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