The impact of early education on future generations

[Kimba15]

I Just blogged about this and I was wondering what the other parents on here thought. Below is my blog. Would love to know what you think.

I was watching a talk on Ted the other night when one of the talks really struck a chord with me. The lady was speaking of a very good friend who was part of a Native American Tribe. She said when the Elders of a tribe went to make a major decision that would affect the tribe today they would meditate on how the decision would effect 7 Generations to come as they understood while they a the stewards of the earth while they are here the future generations would inherit the earth from them and have to live with the decision that they have made today.

So, how does the decision of many parents today to educate their babies and toddlers impact the future generations to come. I have wondered about this over the past couple of days. I thought well the chance that my children will then go on to teach their own children is quite high as they will hopefully see the benefit of being taught to read and do maths early.

Will they have a deeper compassion and understanding for others as they have been exposed or taught 2nd or 3rd languages at home and therefore understand others from different cultures by being able to converse with them or at least understand what they are saying.

Will the emergence of these children whose parents have taught them at an early age push the government/child care centres to think about education in a completely new and different way. Could we teach children to read at a younger age and start them at age 3 instead of 5 and by the time formal schooling begins we could focusing on other things and therefore have children finishing school earlier and entering the workforce earlier? and if we can teach such a huge amount of information to the under 5 in a very short space of time does that mean there is more time for play, art and craft, drama, sport and music? Things that have been cut or reduced from the school curriculum as the academic load increases.(and also found to have a huge positive affect on the brain) If a child has time to pursue its own interests after the academic stuff is done then we are giving them a gift that lasts a lifetime and that is the love of learning rather than an obligation to learn.

I remember being at school having to read a book for English and it usually being some dry, boring book and then usually reading the comprehension questions first then skim reading the book to find the answers rather than really sitting down and enjoying the book or getting out of the book what the author intended.

I also think of what the future generations would be like if they could pursue what truly interested them because they had been given the chance to learn everything they could early and had techniques to learn quickly. What would those future generations be like and how much would they know the subject they were interested in? More than likely they would be experts.

As we speak today the first time we are given any real choice in what we would like to study is University or if we take an apprenticeship. By then because we have a huge amount of choice it is hard to know what to pursue because you might have alot of things you would like to try? If we gave children the choice and trusted in the fact that they would learn and gave them the freedom to learn by the time they are ready to leave school they would more than likely know what there interests are and are likely to follow them with a passion. Which would drop university drop out rates significantly and leading to a happier and more peaceful society.

Kimba

PS the above blog is my opinion and none of the above has been proven scientifically.

[andreasro]

My husband and I have talked today about how the clinics offering water births are rising in popularity and in number here in Romania.
And hubby said: “If there’s demand and the demand is so big, there will be a bigger and wider offer too.”

I was just thinking about how school is going to be for our son in few years time, depending on the circumstances. I can homeschool him, but let’s say some circumstances make us enroll him to school. What will that mean to him? Will the system let him advance in his own pace or consider him either hyperactive or genius or whatever or a freak?

Maybe it’s the same with everything, including education systems: if more and more parents want and offer something different for their children, the society will have to change bit by bit the education systems too. In fact, as Dr. Montessori stated, the education enviroment was adapted to the Industrial Revolution. Now we are in the Information(al) Revolution, but the schools or systems, most of them, are still in the Industrial Revolution.
What’s the next Revolution going to be like? And how will the system react? (Alvin Toffler, a futurist, predicted many changes happening today as we speak. And in his books we find a lot of information sustaining some of Dr. Montessori’s affirmations.)

PS:
For now, I don’t know about the society, but beginning with my husband and I, in a way we’ve started a whole new generation of parents in our family. None of our present or past family member has ever done what we’ve been doing, either regarding our belief systems, the health of our bodies, the pregnancy period and raising children, the way we educate ourselves etc.
It’s just that we have much to choose from and we’re more aware of what we’re doing and what’s happening to us, in our lives, with our children etc. And the communication and understanding between our family members is so different than what our parents or grandparents had as partners.
We’re changing something in our DNA, I believe. And if we do that, and your family does that to yours, and more families do that, than I guess some things will be changed profoundly for generations ahead. (Look for the monkey experiment, if I recall, where they’ve discovered that when a critical number of monkeys did one thing, another group in some other part of the world did the same thing too…)

I mean, my son is free to choose his religion, his hobbies and whatever is possible in his life. We couldn’t have done that in our time. But what we can do now didn’t just came out of nothing. There were causes leading to that. The same will happen to our future, whatever that may be.