To think everyone's children can't be "very bright"

[DrinkFromMyFountain]

Because a good 80% or posters/people in RL seem to refer to their kids as "very bright", surely 80% of kids can't be above average?

As the proud mother of a three month old I'm not fussed if my DS is "bright" or not, if he isn't academic I'm sure he will have other talents!

I hereby declare I shan't constantly boast about how bright he is unless he is a full in genius . As my mother always said, there is nothing wrong with being average.

It is socioeconomic.

The children of people who contribute to Mumsnet will 'on the whole' be bright.

This is a combination of genes, and environment. Babies born into a world of good nutrition, books, correct language patterns, being talked to and stimulated, and having books read to them (ie the middle classes) will be more stimulated and therefore develop more neural pathways than babies born in more impoverished homes.

Hard scientific fact. It gets the government in a frenzy as by the age of four the differences are permanent, and this is why there are programmes such as Surestart and other playgroups, and our children going to school so early as they try and iron out the differences and ensure equality.

Eh? What? What MrsDV said x100000.

I was born into that world and my mum was working class single parent on benefits wellwobbly..how offensive your generalisations are.

I think Wellwobbly is right on this occasion.

There are loads of houses with no books in them. Teachers visit homes before Reception children start and many houses have perhaps a TV guide and not much else in them. No children's books at all. This is a minority, but a significant minority.

Some people are not greatly literate themselves and so don't necessarily prioritise buying books, that's why the Book packs were sent out, but if the parents themselves are conscious of their own poor reading ability, then reading aloud is unlikely to be a fun experience for anyone. At the school my mum worked at, their home visits not only revealed lots of houses without books in but quite a few parents who wanted remedial literacy themselves- they have classes there for the parents to catch up.

It is linked to socio-economic status because if you are barely literate, it limits the kind of work you can do and money you can earn, a majority of the prison population has problems with literacy (ranging from just a poor reader to really not literate at all).
You would hope that all children in education in the UK would end up literate after 11 years but this is not true. I have worked in schools in inner London in which the 12/13 year olds couldn't read the forms/info we had provided and we had to read it aloud to them.

Very sad. This does not mean that there are not plenty of non-mc families who love books and are oriented around education and reading, there are, probably the majority but just that there are some who fall out of the literacy net really badly and without a lot of intensive resources, this then translates into poor life chances all around (the gov't has cut back on Reading Recovery and interventions on this which is very short-sighted).

By the age of four the differences are permanent Have?

Not saying though that there is any reason why everyone cant do a whole load of stilulation before a child starts school.

hmm, I think so yes. Sorry. There have been studies on this, probably America?

But I do not link this to a hard neurobiological argument like Wellwobbly. One of the reasons that people did like grammar schools (or rather some who used them did) in the 60's was because it gave bright but poorer kids (like my dad who lived in a 2 up 2 down in a poor area) an opportunity to get good qualifications and an entrance into the professions. My grandma was not very literate, she could write perhaps two or three simple sentences on a postcard in a shaky hand and sign it, left school at 13- her son went on to be a headmaster, to love literature and complete a higher degree. Something has to lift people out of the culture of impoverished expectations and opportunities and although I see the grammar schools had their problems, social mobility is worse now, not better and again this is really tragic.

Just because a person doesnt like something, doesnt mean that it is not true.
Just because people in soiciety can use that for their own means, doesnt mean that it is not true.
Just because a person is from one background as opposed to another, doesnt mean that it is not true.
Just because a person doesnt like an idea, doesnt mean that it is not true.
Just because a person has been taught something different, doesnt mean that it is not true.
Just because a person has not heard that before, does not meam that it is not true.
Just because a person finds an idea abhorent does not mean that it is not true.

You can see from the GCSE results that some children leave school without any qualifications at all. Is this really news?

I only found out when I went into the schools as a visitor (I was not a teacher). They are in classes of 30, once the window of reading (say 5-10) in primary has gone they were often neglected, and their reading would remain very poor, plus by then teenage issues kicked in (truancy, other problems).

If you are shocked by it, then adult literacy classes must be even more shocking. Why do you think they run classes in basic maths and english at the local colleges? These are not for immigrants at all, but the UK schooled population who fell out of the net.

But- of course, poverty of expectations at home in school and in society in general don't help.

MrsDeVere. It is genes and environment. Not just environment. And I agre with you. That is other peoples' prejudices. They are taking into avvount environment and leaving out genes all together. Ridiculous of them and snobby.

I have always thought that there is huuuge untapped potential in deprived areas.

YANBU

Of course the root of the problem is the dumb as rock parents. You see, they're so dumb they don't realise their offspring are dumb because of course their yardstick is stumpy!

And I am totally with you again, in thinking that that makes any excuse whatsoever for not trying and expecting and encouraging the absolute best out of pupils, and indeed, people when they are adults too.

On a societal level what well wobbly is saying is true though obviously individuals are different and plenty of parents and children succeed in spite of difficulties in their circumstances. Accepting that lower socio economic groupings have less opportunities allows policies to be developed to try to overcome any potential issues. While that might be unpalatable for some people it is better better to be proactive than leaving people to find their own solutions on a case by case basis.

I am not saying poor literacy is caused only by parents having poor literacy, I'm saying unless there is some type of intervention to lift children's literacy up above that of their parents, the cycle repeats itself and one of the consequences is social deprivation for the less literate.

This lifting up could be anything from a paid for course coming from government funding, parents who don't have great literacy themselves (e.g. those who don't have English as a first language) but pay for tutors/help/prioritise education at home, parents reading every night to their children (of course this makes children more literate!), a great school system which gets the majority reading and catches the ones who are struggling and helps them for 11 years until they can read, a more general culture in which being educated and working hard at school is valued and not seen as uncool or geeky etc

But, this is not what happens, and there are still children/teens out there who are really not literate to the standards needed to get good jobs/use the internet and so on. The government knows schemes such as Reading Recovery work, but the scheme is no longer a priority for them.

I think research reckons it's about 50/50 genes and environment.

DD2 is 100% her English teacher grandparents descendent. It's quite unnerving. There are distinct edges of them in DD1 too. We're scientists, it definitely skipped a generation.

Social mobility is a difficult one. My bright working class grandfather moved up to being a MC lecturer because of the technical skills he learnt in the RAF. DHs dad got a university scholarship from a trade guild (he's actually older than my grandpa).

They then had DCs they expected to go to university.

Around the same time, women started going to university. DFs parents are in their mid 80's, they are probably amongst the first couples where bright girl and bright boy meet at university and get married.

The more this happens, and the less people marry the girl next door the less genetic mixing there is.

Eugenics has happened whether we like it or not. As soon as universities became mixed they became a bright people dating club. Grammar schools allowed intelligent working class people to join this club.

On average genetically bright people have bright children. They then give them lots of advantages too and the cycle continues.

I think most children are bright, it is not necessarily always used to describe a clever child, sometimes a sociable happy child.

I think there are often lots of mums on MN with clever/gifted children as it is not something people are able discuss in RL (although it can be a bit like that on MN also) so maybe there is a higher % on here?

"There is an important point to explore here.
Attitudes like wellywobbly's are not uncommon."

Sadly Mrs deVere your Good Intentions and Moral Superiority can't make reality go away. And designating my 'attitude' Evil and therefore Irrelevant (that tired, tired tactic) won't make the facts go away either.

And OP who got defensive and 'resents' me? You notice I said very carefully 'on the whole'. On the whole.

I didn't make up bell curves, you know, and nor did I make up the bell curve that plots 'brightness'.

I am studying the development of neural pathways at the moment. If you apply logic, OF COURSE a good diet and stimulation will develop brain activity.