Hot stuff on little kids - Dr Mustard adds spice to the reading wars

Parents, it would seem, need to be supported in their original natural role of being the child’s first teacher. The more the care-giving parent (mother) can be with and teach her children, the more we will have high-quality, high-functioning individuals making up the adult population.

The call for the establishment of universal pre-K options needs to take the disjunction between cognitive and emotional readiness of the child into account, and modify its agenda accordingly.

The kind of centres (Early Childhood Development and Parenting Centres) Fraser Mustard has in mind are a different thing altogether. Here we would have a focus on general developmental goals, we would have participant parents present (while simultaneously learning parenting techniques), attendance would not be fulltime, and staff would be four-year tertiary credentialed, including in neuro-science. But there would not necessarily be any academically specific learning for the children.

Parents with academic enthusiasms could easily, however, add their own literacy and numeracy components to the precursive “readiness” exercises of such a centre.

The most obvious practical message is that Australian parents, as well as Bill Gates, need to throw out the notion that you can improve high school performance levels by improving high schools. While, clearly, you can’t get good Year 12 results without good teachers and facilities, the real sine qua non is bright intelligent students. And you only get these from ensuring maximum encouragement and attention to newborns and under-fives.