It's not what I intended the first post of this blog to be but this is part of my story and what came up this morning.
Boy, it is not often that I agree with David Brooks of the New York Times. But I suppose that this time I am REALLY agreeing with his reading of Robert Putnam's research on the "Requiem for the American Dream: Unequal Opportunity in America". For Brooks' column: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/opinion/brooks-the-opportunity-gap.html?src=me&ref=general
What Brooks writes is: "Decades ago, college-graduate parents and high-school-graduate parents
invested similarly in their children. Recently, more affluent parents
have invested much more in their children’s futures while less affluent
parents have not."
College educated parents are spending more time reading to their children, going to games, etc. College educated parents (make more money so) spend more money on their children for opportunities like summer camp and sports and books and and and.
Robert Putnam: “It’s
perfectly understandable that kids from working-class backgrounds have
become cynical and even paranoid, for virtually all our major social
institutions have failed them — family, friends, church, school and
community.”
David Brooks: "As a result, poorer kids are less likely to participate in
voluntary service work that might give them a sense of purpose and
responsibility. Their test scores are lagging. Their opportunities are
more limited."
Now Brooks can't resist putting in a dig at the decay of marriage and family that he sees in the poor. His story further suggests that tax credits can help solve the money gap. There we cannot agree. But I value the story we share at the beginning: all kids need the world expanding opportunities that are open to the rich kids in America. We all need the words of plays and poetry and books, the music of symphonies and music lessons, the thrill of whacking a ball and the pump of the blood as we run. And the absence of those things creates a gap of experience that makes interactions harder between people. We need, as a nation to make those things happen.
David Brooks: "Political candidates will have to spend less time trying to exploit
class divisions and more time trying to remedy them — less time calling
their opponents out of touch elitists, and more time coming up with
agendas that comprehensively address the problem. It’s politically tough
to do that, but the alternative is national suicide."
This is a bit tangential but I'll say it anyway: I just heard a report challenging the idea that reading to your kids increases their ability to read at an early age. The study looked at where kids focused their eyes when being read to. It was almost always on the picture rather than the words. So then the question arises: why does all of my anecdotal experience point in the direction of lots of story time = early love of reading? Is it simply that parents are making books a part of the child's milieu -- kid friendly and entertaining? Or is it that the kids see their parents read and seek to emulate that? I suppose -- (to salvage a bigger question out of this detour) it makes me wonder what are the real causes of the achievement gap. Something parents do/don't do or something that they provide in their environment...or maybe something else? Michael R.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it is tangential. But I haven't got any answers that don't boil down to class opportunity.
ReplyDeleteI think the study is right from my anecdotal view since kids respond so differently to learning to read and approach words so differently (whole language, phonetically, etc).
I don't have a good answer except to suggest that it has to be a combination of so many things. Yes, reading to your child gives them the love of stories. Sound. Practice. Habit. Warm, snuggly, total attention aimed directly at them aspect of it. And yes, modelling (though I think you also have to show kids that YOU read for pleasure in order to have the modelling work).
And this is NOT in any way to suggest that poor folks don't have this for their children. But it clearly takes time and commitment and if you're working 2 jobs to make ends meet, then the time and energy go to that. AND I would think that if everybody you know well--in your house, extended family, neighborhood, school--is also poor and overextended, then there's a devaluation placed on reading as a choice. (Brooks would likely make the point that these less well educated folks also then turn their limited time and energy to selfish choices like cheap attention grabbing mass-market TV and video games, sex out of wedlock, disregard for matrimony, etc etc. but then this is where Brooks and I disagree).
I still see it as a culture of change, from many prongs: living (not minimum) wage, adequate (not emergency or subsistence) health care, neighborhood change, school support OUTSIDE of school time (bring the culture out of the ghetto of the school building). Changing habits takes time.
People should not read David Brooks. People should read Ta-Nehisi Coates.
ReplyDelete