Essential Questions

Newsweek’s recent article, But I did everything right: “DNA discoveries are revealing why even the best parenting doesn’t have the effects experts promise, from breast-feeding to letting kids learn from mistakes” presents genetics as outweighing parenting in the nature versus nurture debate. However, the article closes with wiser, more balanced words:

“In her best-selling book ‘I Feel Bad About My Neck,’ Nora Ephron laments how American society “came to believe in the perfectibility of the child just as it also came to believe in the conflicting theory that virtually everything in human nature was genetic.” Both views—that everything is genetic and that parents can transform a child like a lump of clay—are as wrong as wrong can be.”

There is a story that needs to be told. Genetics do influence - but do not determine - a child’s potential and parents do influence - but do not determine - the course of a child’s life. If perfectibility and determinism are rejected, it is time to chart the course for wise, responsible parenting based on these two assumptions:

1. Parents play the most important role in society by nurturing their children.
2. The first 5 years are the most important window of child development.

How do you speak so that children will listen? Start by speaking slowly.

Audiology professor Ray Hull of Wichita State University points out that adults often speak too quickly for children. Children process speech with a fair degree of understanding up to 120 words per minute. That processing speed begins to improve gradually around fourth grade. Many adults, however, regularly speak at a rate of 160 to 170 words per minute.

Hull suggests that this one of the reasons Fred Rogers, of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood was so appealing to young listeners is that he practiced reading at 124 words per minute. In other words, he spoke at a rate they could understand. Hull’s conclusion for parents and teacher is simple:

“Anybody who works with children will save a great deal of time if they will simply speak at a rate that children can comprehend.” (The Wichita Eagle)

It may seem counter-intuitive, but in speaking with your children slowing down will save you time - and will prevent unnecessary frustration.

Newsweek recently ran an article highlighting the work of Teach for America, which included these bold statements:

The American system of education is broken. . . . The United States truly is a nation at risk—our graduation rate ranks 19th among top developing countries. . . . Note to Obama and McCain: do the math. The impact an uneducated populace has on the integrity of the country’s social fabric and the health of the economy cannot be underestimated. (Newsweek, Aug 11, 2008)

As a teacher trained through the New York City Teaching Fellows (a program similar to TFA, focused on the NYC public schools), I emphatically agree that the system is broken, and that the impact of an uneducated populace on the social and economic health of the nation - to say nothing of its moral fabric - cannot be underestimated.

The Newsweek writer came to a conclusion that has been repeated many times by policy-makers, activists and educators:

It’s the teachers, stupid! The single most important factor in student achievement is the quality of the teacher. And yet, we have no effective system to attract, train, retain and promote high-caliber candidates for our schools.

This is the fundamental assumption that has guided Teach for America, which recruits top graduates from Ivy League schools and anticipates raising $110 million in fiscal 2008 to place them in the neediest classrooms. Yet the retention problem remains - and so does the educational crisis.

The single most important factor in student achievement is not the quality of the teacher, but the quality of the parent. The quality of teacher is correlated with student achievement, because the best teachers want to stay working in schools where parents share a love for learning and take responsibility for their role in the education of their children. In order to address the educational crisis in this country, our fundamental assumptions must shift in two ways:

First, parents must be treated as primarily responsible for the education of their children. Any attempt to reform education must begin by recognizing the indispensable role of parents, and equipping them to fulfill their responsibility.

Second, intervention must focus on parenting during the critical first 5 years. We must recognize that the key to solving the educational crisis is to engage and equip parents long before their children reach school age, since the first 5 years are the most critical years of brain development and is activity dependent. Nurture during this critical stage of life influences intellectual capacity, language, cognitive, social expectations, and patterns for learning.

When parents are engaged and equipped, the courageous teachers of Teach for America and the New York City Teaching Fellows will have their greatest impact - and the critical problem in teacher retention will be solved.