The Educated Child

A Parents Guide From Preschool Through Eighth Grade

Chester E. Finn, Jr., John T. E. Cribb, Jr., William J. Bennett

• Publisher: Free Press
• Year: 1999
• ISBN:
  9780743200912
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Elementary Education

If you care about the education of a child, you need this book. Comprehensive and easy to use, it will inform, empower, and encourage you.
Just as William J. Bennett's The Book of Virtues has helped millions of Americans teach young people about character, The Educated Child delivers what you need to take control. With coauthors Chester E. Finn, Jr., and John T. E. Cribb, Jr., former Secretary of Education Bennett provides the indispensable guide.
Championing a clear "back-to-basics" curriculum that will resonate with parents and teachers tired of fads and jargon, The Educated Child supplies an educational road map from earliest childhood to the threshold of high school. It gives parents hundreds of practical suggestions for helping each child succeed while showing what to look for in a good school and what to watch out for in a weak one.
The Educated Child places you squarely at the center of your young one's academic career and takes a no-nonsense view of your responsibilities. It empowers you as mothers and fathers, enabling you to reclaim what has been appropriated by "experts" and the education establishment. It out-lines questions you will want to ask, then explains the answers -- or non-answers -- you will be given. No longer will you feel powerless before the education "system." The tools and advice in this guide put the power where it belongs -- in the hands of those who know and love their children best.
Using excerpts from E. D. Hirsch's Core Knowledge Sequence, The Educated Child sets forth a state-of-the art curriculum from kindergarten through eighth grade that you can use to monitor what is and isn't being taught in your school. It outlines how you can help teachers ensure that your child masters the most important skills and knowledge. It takes on today's education controversies from phonics to school choice, from outcomes-based education to teaching values, from the education of gifted children to the needs of the disabled. Because much of a youngster's education takes place outside the school, The Educated Child also distills the essential information you need to prepare children for kindergarten and explains to the parents of older students how to deal with such challenges as television, drugs, and sex.
If you seek high standards and solid, time-tested content for the child you care so much about, if you want the unvarnished truth about what parents and schools must do, The Educated Child is the one book you need on your shelf.

PART I

THE
PRESCHOOL
YEARS

THE FIRST THREE TO FIVE YEARS OF LIFE ARE, IN MANY WAYS, the most critical period in a child’s education. Observers of human nature have long recognized the profound importance of early learning. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it,” advises the Book of Proverbs. “The most important part of education is right training in the nursery,” Plato observed. Consider a few of the physical, intellectual, and emotional developments that mark the preschool years:

• Growth of curiosity. Children are born to learn. All healthy infants exhibit an innate desire to investigate in the first weeks and months of life. It is crucial to fan those early sparks of curiosity throughout the preschool years. If they are dampened, a child’s academic future is jeopardized. Teachers rank curiosity as a vital quality for a child to possess when entering kindergarten—more important than knowing the alphabet or how to count.
• Development of interests. The interests children find early in life can be powerful predictors of later academic success. For example, teachers know that youngsters are more likely to become good readers if they develop a fondness for hearing stories read aloud during the preschool years. They learn to write more easily if they acquire an interest in drawing and scribbling before they reach school age.
• Formation of character. Students who have been taught the importance of hard work and responsibility are much more likely to get good grades. Such ideals and habits take root before the school years. They settle into young minds and hearts through the standards that parents set, the exhortations they offer, the expectations they establish, and the examples they place before their children.
• Shaping of personality. Most students of human development agree that the foundations of an individual’s personality are laid early. Attitudes and dispositions may change in later life, but early childhood experiences are crucial contributors to the complex mix of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that make up each person.
• Social development. Modern psychology tells us that childhood experiences have an enormous impact on the ability to form close emotional ties with others. In their earliest relationships with parents, in particular, children gain understandings of how others will treat them and how they should treat others. These expectations are long lasting, helping to shape social behavior throughout adulthood.
• Brain development. A child’s brain structure continues to develop after birth. Cells are growing. Microscopic nerve connections are being formed. Some research suggests that early childhood experiences—the images a youngster sees, the language he hears, the books he’s exposed to—may affect the actual wiring of the brain.
• Language development. The amount of language learned during the first few years is awe-inspiring. By the time a child is three years old, he should be able to understand most of the words he will use in everyday conversation for the rest of his life. Language skills honed in the preschool years have a heavy bearing on whether or not a child gets off to a good start in school.

In some respects, the chances of your child’s doing well in school are determined before he reaches kindergarten. Likewise, your greatest contribution to what you hope will be a lifetime of learning comes now, in the preschool years. If you do your job well at the beginning, your child is likely to thrive when he comes into contact with other teachers. If you provide a loving and safe home; if you give him the feeling that he is cared about and cared for; if you provide a stimulating environment and ample chances for him to explore it; if you set sensible limits and the right examples; if you read to him, play with him, talk to him, and answer his questions—if you do all these things, schoolteachers should be able to serve him well. If you do not do these things, it will be immensely difficult for professional educators to save your child from academic mediocrity.

You may find that assertion disconcerting. Of course there are exceptions. But the weight of a vast body of education research, as well as the experience of countless teachers and parents, stands behind this statement: much of your child’s learning potential is set for life at a very early age.

It is important to understand that early developments are under considerable genetic control. We all come into the world with some inborn abilities, limitations, and predispositions. Youngsters are malleable, but not infinitely malleable. To some extent, parents must work with the unique faculties that nature has given their children. Still, nurture—your nurture—has a great deal to say about how your child’s natural gifts will unfold and grow.

C H A P T E R 1

Fostering a Love
of Learning

GETTING YOUR CHILD’S EDUCATION OFF TO A GOOD START does not take extraordinary efforts or extravagant stimulation. You do not need a degree in child psychology. Raising a child does not require “trained caregivers” to supply expertise that parents lack. On the contrary, you are the most qualified person to teach and guide your young child, because he is a part of you and loves you.

You should supply five basic ingredients in these years before school: your love, protection, and care; your time; a positive learning environment; an attitude that values learning; and strong moral training.

Your Love, Protection, and Care

All children come into the world fragile and helpless. In order to survive even a few hours, they need adults to supply food, shelter, warmth, and care. But meeting their physical needs is just the start. To develop well, from the very beginning children need a family. A deep commitment from at least one responsible, caring adult is crucial. (Obviously, having both a mother and a father in the home is the best arrangement.) Every child needs someone who gives uncompromising love and boundless devotion, someone whom that child can learn to love back. This is a basic fact of human growth and emotional development. Nothing is more crucial than giving your young child the feeling of being loved and cared for, and instilling a basic sense of trust that he can depend on you for nurture and protection.

The emotional bond between parent and child has powerful effects on education. Preschoolers who feel loved are more likely to be confident, and confidence makes exploring a new world much easier. A strong, loving relationship increases youngsters’ eagerness to learn new things. For example, a child wants to learn how to read in part because he wants to please his parents, whom he sees reading and who encourage his own efforts to read. Children like to learn because they love their parents, and know their parents love them back!

Forming a close bond with children is a natural part of the parenting process. Most moms and dads need no urging and little guidance here; these manifestations of love spring from the heart. The kinds of actions and gestures you instinctively want to offer your child are exactly the kinds he needs to gain a sense of nurture and protection. Holding and cuddling him from the day he is born, talking to him, playing with him, setting rules that are good for him, telling him over and over again that you love him—such actions and expressions have a profound impact on his development now, and on the kind of student he’ll be later. Children thrive when they have parents who are loving and dependable, when they know that, no matter what may happen in their lives, someone will look after them, keep them safe, and show them the limits of good behavior. When it comes to young children, loving and learning go hand in hand.

Your Time

The best way to show your love and help your child learn is to spend time with him. Shaping good attitudes and habits takes time. Setting good examples takes time. The encouragement your youngster craves—whether it’s for learning how to climb the stairs, how to read his first word, or how to write his name—requires your time and presence. You have to be available, perhaps more than you imagined.

It has become popular in recent years to distinguish between “quality time” and “quantity time.” Some parents want to believe that they can spend fewer hours with their children so long as they put that shared time to good use. The fact is that children do not flourish on small, concentrated doses of attention from mothers and fathers. They need your frequent company if they are to learn from you. This may be a hard truth to accept in these modern days, but it is reality. For children, quality time is quantity time. When it comes to teaching and learning, there is no substitute for lots of time together—and children know it.

In the eyes of your child, your presence in his life is proof that you are interested and that you care. It shows that he comes first—not your work, or your friends, or a ball game on TV. In his book The Hurried Child, Professor David Elkind tells this anecdote about a conversation he overheard when visiting his son’s nursery school class:

Child A: “My daddy is a doctor and he makes a lot of money and we have a swimming pool.”

Child B: “My daddy is a lawyer and he flies to Washington and talks to the President.”

Child C: “My daddy owns a company and we have our own airplane.”

My son (with aplomb, of course): “My daddy is here!” with a proud look in my direction.¹

Keep in mind that one reason the preschool years are unique is that, in all likelihood, this is the period when your child wants your company more than he wants anyone else’s. He’s interested in what you have to say (most of the time, anyway). You’re his best pal. Later, he’ll often be elsewhere: in class, with his friends, or in his room, away from mom and dad. The preschool years offer the most opportunities to be together. Don’t neglect them.

Chore Time Is Teaching Time

If you’re like most parents, much time with your child is also chore time. Sure, you’d like nothing more than to spend most of the day reading aloud, taking trips to the zoo, and playing “educational” games that will help him grow. Unfortunately, you’ve also got to get an oil change, rake the backyard, take out the trash, and clean the spare bedroom before Uncle George comes to visit.

The good news is that those pesky chores also have teaching value. With a little effort, you can turn many household routines into good learning opportunities for your child. He learns an enormous amount in your company if you simply talk to him as you work. Never mind feeling slightly foolish. Explain what you are doing. Tell him why you are doing it. He’ll pick up all sorts of vocabulary and absorb knowledge about what things are and how they work.

Almost any household activity can become an informal lesson. Writing a grocery list can be a perfect chance to practice recognizing some letters. (“I’m writing the word butter. Do you remember what that first letter is?”) Cooking invariably involves weighing, measuring, counting, and grouping. (“I have to fill this cup until it is half full. Will you tell me when the milk gets to this line right here?”) Doing the laundry can be a sorting game. (“Why don’t you help me put all the socks in this pile, and the shirts in that pile?”) Sprinkle your routines with questions. Running errands in the car: “Who can count the green cars on the road?” In the study: “How many books do I have on my desk?”

Daily routines draw on a whole range of organizational and problem solving skills, the same skills your child will someday need to complete a school assignment or project at work. He can learn the value of planning ahead, and then executing the plan. He gradually comprehends that every large job is really a series of smaller tasks. He sees that work is a means to an end. When he helps, he learns about teamwork.

Certain character lessons will seep in, too. By watching you, he learns about sticking with a task until it’s finished. He sees how to perform a duty thoroughly and responsibly. If given the chance to make even small contributions, he begins to learn the satisfaction of a job well done.

Above all, keep talking. The stimulation, the exchange of ideas, and the responses elicited will all serve to build up...