Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Love is not enough

By Glynne Sutcliffe - posted Wednesday, 25 October 2006


This is a deeply significant fact relevant to our new understandings of brain research, and the way neural pathways are created within the developing brain. The significance of the under-five years is now known to be crucial in setting patterns for rest-of-life attainments. Second generation Italian and Greek migrant families have a solid track record in taking pleasure in encouraging every developmental phase of their young children’s lives. This has a near automatic effect in boosting subsequent academic achievement levels. And the demand from all these ethnic sub-groups in Australia has already boosted the provision of academically oriented classes for three to five-year-olds, as well as supplementary tutoring for primary school children.

Second, modern economies have very little room for the kind of unskilled labour that previously used to be a ticket not merely to survival but to a reasonably good life. Nowadays those who fail to keep ahead of the game are likely to slip into an underclass, a new version of the hewers of wood and drawers of water. The cost to taxpayers of supporting an uneducated, unskilled underclass has become deeply resented, while the figures have been crunched to prove conclusively that $1 invested in effective early learning saves up to $10 of social cost in remediation, welfare and law enforcement costs.

Governments have become deeply interested in the early childhood years, and there is currently a vigorous debate in the US, with strong echoes being picked up in Australia about whether they should provide a universal pre-kindergarten year at public expense. The cheaper option at the government level is to target early intervention programs to “at risk” children. For different reasons both options are problematic. But in the context of modern pressures bearing heavily on parents, the former is probably a better choice.

Advertisement

Any means-tested targeted program is likely to be funded with a minimalist logic, and an attempt to keep the budget as low as possible. The long term outcome, however, whether the choice is for universal or targeted provisioning, is very likely to mirror the progress of the whole public education system, whereby excellent schools slowly became starved of both funding and well-qualified staff.

For all children energetic, well-informed, time-rich and loving parents are probably the best choice for wiring up a child’s mental capacities. But given the contemporary pressures of paid employment, most children cannot expect, any longer, to be able to slip into adult life by spending their unscheduled days observing and learning from being around the adults in their family. It remains true that they learn best from adults with whom they have an embedded holistic relationship grounded in everyday life.

Parents need to find contexts in which they themselves do most of the teaching, as well as the loving, of their under-fives. The future of parent attended classes is an approach that needs investigating much more widely.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. All


Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

10 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Glynne Sutcliffe MA (Chicago) BA (Hons Hist) Dip Ed (Melb) is a Director of the Early Reading Play School in South Australia.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Glynne Sutcliffe

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Photo of Glynne Sutcliffe
Article Tools
Comment 10 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy