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Aug 27, 2007

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots; the other is wings. — Hodding Carter, U.S. journalist.

Category: General

Posted by: webmaster

Article by: Geoff Johnson, Special to the Sun

My dad left school at 13, began working on a road crew and, with no further formal education, raised his three younger brothers and sisters and retired as a senior executive in a large steel company.

Those days are gone. Long gone.

A 2003 report on Earnings and Employment Trends in B.C. by BC Stats reveals that between 1995 and 2000 those without post-secondary credentials, much less secondary school completion, are falling further and further behind their co-workers.

In fact, an overall decline in earnings during that period was experienced only by those with less than high school completion (minus 2.5 per cent) and those with high school completion only (minus 2.7 per cent.)

True, only about 15 per cent of those completing high school ever go to, much less graduate from, a university. But according to the same BC Stats report, those who make it through an undergraduate degree earn, on the average, 68 per cent more than their co-workers without post-secondary credentials of any kind.

That's not to say that the "school success equals life success" equation can't be challenged -- just that it is more likely in an age where knowledge workers are replacing other workers. Especially for unskilled male workers, adequately paying jobs are getting harder to find.

So staying in school, even beyond secondary completion, seems to be a better and better idea.

That said, and based on the assumption that success at various levels of education is likely to influence later quality of life, a good look at some of the major factors that influence school success seems worthwhile.

And parents play an enormous, maybe pivotal and defining, role in all this.

There is an overwhelming body of research that indicates that the most likely indicators of potential school success for any child -- regardless of socio-economic status, race or ethnicity -- are early oral language skills, and the role parents play therein.

The same prodigious research emphasizes that the achievement gap between kids who are ready for what kindergarten has to offer and those who aren't may be related to the amount and ways parents talk to their children in the home. The influence of parenting, the researchers say, is greater than the influence of early childhood programs alone on children's subsequent school success.

But a further startling statistic describes what happens when parents and early childhood educators work together.

The "Title 1" Chicago Child-Parents Centers, which provide child-centred development programs along with parent education, have tracked long-term benefits to the community of $7 for every dollar spent in terms of reduced need for later educational intervention, criminal justice costs and higher taxes paid by higher earning capacity of those originally involved.

Other studies confirm that early childhood programs that include strong support for parents and care-givers are the most effective.

As an example, these programs teach parents to talk to children asking "wh" questions (who, what, where, when, why) which require more vocabulary that a simple "yes" or "no" response. These questions challenge children's language development and enrich vocabulary which, in turn, are preparations for early literacy.

Moving ahead to early adolescence, a 1998 Human Resources and Social Development Canada study establishes clear connections, again, between school achievement and parental attitudes towards school.

Drawing a nice line between placing value on school and pressure on kids the study states "positive associations were found [between school achievement] and children's school attitudes, teacher support, parent hopes for school accomplishment and a lack of parental pressure for school success."

A second HRSDC study connects "family climate" -- interactions about school issues, support and monitoring -- with a child's intellectual effectiveness, effort and school marks.

The bottom line seems to be that family influence could be much more of what makes the difference than we ever thought in preparing a child for life in the knowledge economy.

David Bly, the Calgary Herald writer, had it right when he wrote: "Your children will become what you are; so be what you want them to be."

Geoff Johnson is retired superintendent of schools who lives in Mill Bay, B.C.

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