Please don't 'baby' your children

[pineapple95]

Where do I start?

Parents of my y3/4 class routinely carry their children's bags in, take their lunch bags to the hall, hand in letters and money, put their reading diaries and spelling books in the right places on the right days, linger in the corridor chatting ... for goodness sake MAKE YOUR CHILD LOOK AFTER THEIR STUFF!

7-9 year olds can carry bags and remember books. Don't baby them. Even 3 year olds can carry their bags - don't be that parent who mollycoddles their children.

The PISA data does place the US below the UK in reading, maths and science. The data is very flawed, though, imo, when it comes to assessing the overall quality of a country's education system and a lot goes unmeasured, so in the context of this thread I don't think it is particularly useful.

user
There are problems using PISA data.

Pisa data/international tables gets thrown around on MN all the time as some knockdown moment when the reality is that they don't allow the sorts of conclusions many draw on here. As ever in education usually the reality is more complex.

Pisa places the US only very marginally “behind” the U.K. FWIW (and I am no particular fan of Pisa) the US and the U.K. are very much in the same performance segment in what Pisa measures, which is itself a very long way indeed from a complete educational picture.

Copperbonnet, my friends' children are in Kdg in two different schools, one public and one private (RC) though they are not RC. They fret about the lack of homework and the lack of pressure. They will experience standardised testing later of course.

zzzzz what do you mean, compare American athletes on a state by state basis? That is not how sports in the US works.

American athletes (apart from gymnasts) come through high school programmes and then progress to university programmes and compete at collegiate level, where the standard is extremely high.

Students in the University of Tennessee Track programme are the cream of high school programmes all over the US, same goes for the University of Oregon and the same goes for other universities. They draw from all over the US.

Collegiate sports in the US are incredibly well funded and competition is at a high level. National tryouts / championships result in selection for Olympic teams.

America has an amazing elite sports programme, but I am not entirely sure of the relevance of that to anything.

In Science, at least, they are well behind the uk, with few studying individual sciences until year 10/11. On the other hand, they do get there in the end, based on 4 year undergraduate degrees.

Both systems have their pluses and minuses but, in terms of social mobility, I would say we have the edge and, although dispiriting intellectually, the idea of 2 year degrees will encourage poorer students to take the university route.

You are right, Larry, it's irrelevant.
Doubly so because motor skills are related to everyday life far more than to Olympic sports, and also because the post about US athletes/states is based on no knowledge whatsoever. The point of allowing time for fine and gross motor skills is that students are allowed opportunities for movement and for skill development, with academic skills introduced later at an appropriate age.

It's not true about no individual sciences until 15/16 years old though.

You start with the individual science subjects in freshman year of high school, at age 14, and do one each year. In middle school (age 11,12, 13, students do 'science' but with bio, chem and physics distinguished. The difference between middle school and high school therefore is the amount of time spent each week on each individual subject, not a completely general syllabus vs a specialised syllabus. In high school students do each subject every day - meaning a full year of one science subject. A sample sequence is one year each of bio, chem, and physics, followed by an AP level study in the final year of one of those three including Physics 1 or 2 (Algebra-Based) Physics C (Electricity and Magnetism), Physics C (Mechanics), or alternatively environmental science, computer science, or comp sci principles. There are also alternative science courses that are not AP level - offerings depend on individual schools. My local high school offers astronomy, human anatomy and physiology, a course in scientific investigative research, design and innovation, geoscience, and anthropology. There is also intro to engineering design, principles of engineering, civil engineering and architecture, engineering design and development, digital design and electronics, and computer integrated manufacturing.
Students in a remedial track have a different sequence and offerings.

The US offers two year degrees (aka Associates degrees) in community colleges. The cost is a fraction of the cost of the first two years of university. Credits can transfer to universities, where students can do their remaining two years and graduate with a Bachelors degree.

In England meanwhile students from the highest social class groups are three times more likely to go to university than those from the lowest classes. In the US they are twice as likely. There is a 46% gap in England between the 65% of students from richer families going to university and the 19% from poorer families. In America the gap is 36% while in Australia it is 32%.
www.suttontrust.com/newsarchive/uk-us-much-less-socially-mobile-australia-canada/
According to this article, it is actually the US that has a slight edge. Nothing to write home about though.

zzzzz
Surely the appropriate age for academic skills to be taught is when children can acquire them? There is no logical reason why they have to be taught in the order you suggest.

There is actually a good deal of research behind delaying formal teaching until at least age 5 and preferably later. The Rose Report which supported synthetic phonics teaching in Reception in the UK cited US research on phonics teaching but failed to grasp that kindergarten in the US is for 5/6 year olds, not 4/5 year olds, and first grade is for children aged 6/7.

Children of 2 can acquire all sorts of skills, performing-pony-wise. It's not appropriate to make them spend the time learning off the presidents of the United States all the same, because there are more important things for them to be doing with their time. Some children are capable of acquiring the skill of reading at age 3 and some at age 4. However, pushing this on all children at age 3 or even at age 4 is a mistake. There are more important things for them to be doing with their time too.

The negatives of requiring some concrete evidence of educational attainment from 4 year olds includes damage to the self concept of those children who struggle, children who are placed at the lower ability table, children who fidget and gain a reputation for disruptive behaviour, children whose parents cannot take the time to hear their daily sounding out or reading practice.

The concept of oneself as an empowered individual with ability to succeed is incredible important as a foundation for future engagement with the educational environment and future success in the educational environment, and it needs to be developed at age 3 and 4 and even age 5. Sadly, early exposure to synthetic phonics in a pressured environment where results are expected cannot contribute to that. It can have the opposite effect. The proper foundation for future learning success (and future good mental health) is not academic but emotional and psychological.

www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029435-000-too-much-too-young-should-schooling-start-at-age-7/
A discussion.

To have a stab at your question -
you let them know you have confidence in their ability to learn new skills and you encourage them to try. When they have problems you invite them to figure out their own solutions.

My DCs' elementary school required that students did their own self care in school, supported by nice big lockers and rules about orderly deportment that were consistently enforced, as well as a reasonable approach to uniform.

There was no setting. No results of tests were ever posted. Up until the final class dinner of 8th grade nobody knew what students were academic leaders. At that dinner various academic and leadership awards were presented, including valedictorian and salutatorian to the two students who came first and second in terms of overall academic record in 6th, 7th and 8th grades, generating surprise almost every year. The dinner itself was a celebration of the class as a whole, its contribution to the school, and its future as a group of teens in the community.

The negatives of requiring some concrete evidence of educational attainment from 4 year olds includes damage to the self concept of those children who struggle, children who are placed at the lower ability table, children who fidget and gain a reputation for disruptive behaviour, children whose parents cannot take the time to hear their daily sounding out or reading practice.

...and I would like to add, damage is also done to the self concept of children who do not struggle and gain the reputation of being 'clever'. This reputation can put immense pressure on a child.

mathanxiety - I don't know where you get this weird idea from that UK children are not given time to develop fine and gross motor skills?! It's frankly pretty bloody ridiculous. And despite all your protestations about the wonderful equity of the US education system, it is not a paragon of virtue on the world stage for social mobility at all and there is, according to PISA, a big disparity between the performance of its advantaged and disadvantaged schools, which doesn't square at all with your earlier comments about the wonderful accessibility of good schools for rich and poor alike. But then I guess you would argue that all those famlies living in the poor districts with bad schools could just move house to a district like yours... which makes you sound as out of touch with reality as a middle class Brit attempting to claim the same thing about the UK system - ie trying to pass the blame onto the poor people who don't seem able to get off their butts and move house to somewhere wealthy with good schools.

Surely the appropriate age for academic skills to be taught is when children can acquire them?

It’s not that straightforward. Education is a marathon, not a series of sprints. Children are able to learn to decode from about the age of 4. That alone is not argument for making 4 the appropriate age for teaching decoding.

Math,

I am sure the detail about what you say about us science education is correct. However, most schools in uk teach individual sciences from year 7.

In addition I find it really strange that someone can be 15 years old and know virtually no Physics (and we are talking people from advantaged backgrounds here).

The US system of patronage is at least as divisive as the uk class system. I mean look at the Bushes and Clintons (as extreme examples).

The idea of the US as a society of opportunity is, I feel, very dated.

zzzzz - no it’s not. There are many reasons but three are crucially important:

• the greatest easily quantifiable driver of reading comprehension is size of vocabulary. It is far more important for the long term to invest in young children’s vocabulary acquisition than in the earliest possible acquisition of phonic knowledge
• there is an opportunity cost to premature teaching of phonics: it uses far more time than later teaching of phonics
• reading occupies space in the brain that was used for image retention. It is no coincidence than many children stop drawing (with very primitive observation skills and drawing technique) when they learn to read and write. Everyone needs to learn to observe and the best way to do so is by drawing from life. We urgently need to prévenu reading amd writing from hijacking observation and drawing and part of this is delaying the teaching of reading and writing

prevent

larrygrilis - I find it very strange that someone can be 15 years old and only speak their mother tongue! All education systems are incomplete.

That's interesting, user, although also interesting that you refer to "primitive" drawing skills, when primitive man couldn't read or write and people also view cave paintings as primitive art, despite, presumably, primitive man having all that ability to practice without reading getting in the way! You could, surely, just as well argue that formal education of any sort occupies space in the brain that used to be spent exploring your environment with your small, primitive tribe and learning what is safe, what is unsafe and how to survive and hunt in a hostile world, no drawing, reading or writing instruction required.

It's not as if anyone seems to have a clear idea any more of what skills, knowledge and understanding our children need to acquire to survive in the modern world (and not just end up destroying it and ourselves).

What we condescendingly refer to as «primitive art» was nothing of the sort!

The ability to observe and judge your environment has largely been displaced by the modern focus on reading and being told what to think. I disagree with this change in focus.