FULL REFERENCE: Clark, J.A. (2015). Early childhood education: Fracture lines of social context and neural development. NZ Research in Early Childhood Education Journal, 18, 80 – 86.
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ABSTRACT: The debate between academics in the Listener about early childhood education raises issues which warrant further critical examination. One issue concerns the weight to be given to families over schools/ centres when it comes to children’s learning. Too often the matter is considered in terms of within school and beyond school dualism of factors but there are significant problems with this way of seeing things. A better way is to adopt a proximal/distal continuum whereby all factors are taken into account, regardless of their importance. A second issue centres on what is required to maximise the learning of young children. Given the centrality of their neural development and the links to family circumstances, it is essential that teachers and parents have a sound grasp of the underlying neural structure of learning to underpin successful learning by all children.
Key words: Learning; home-school factors; curriculum, Te Whariki, brain development.
Introduction
A Listener article (Woulfe, 2014) would not usually elicit an academic response, but when it involves the likes of Professors John Hattie (Auckland/Melbourne), Helen May (Otago) and Richie Poulson (Otago) as well as Dr Sarah Alexander and Dr Ken Blaiklock (Unitec) then you know something is afoot. There are two aspects of the academic disagreement which warrant additional comment.
Beyond the family: Proximal and distal causes
Woulfe (2014) remarks: “Always in education, family factors such as socio-economics, the parents’ education levels and the interest parents take in their child’s learning trump whatever a school can do” (p. 16). A strong case can be made that beyond school/centre factors outweigh the impact of within school/centre ones on student achievement. And the most significant within school/centre influence on student achievement is not the teacher. The single greatest factor having a direct and immediate impact on student achievement is what children have in their brains at the time which can be retrieved and brought to bear on school performances which are assessed. Teachers are, causally, one removed from student achievement, being only one of many influences on what goes on in a child’s head where learning occurs (Clark, 2014). Even in the classroom it is plausible to conjecture that other factors are at work which have greater effect on the learning which goes on in a child’s brain, such as interaction with other children, digital sources of information of various sorts and so on. By comparison, the direct influence of the teacher on learning itself may be less than conjectured.
The stance presented by Woulfe must be significantly revised in two crucial respects. First, the factors beyond the school must be enlarged to sheet home a wider causal set. Certainly, family conditions cannot be ignored for they play a pivotal role in shaping the experiences from which children learn. Plenty of money provides new opportunities for travel, sports and hobbies, books and digital technology and the like. A dire shortage of money invariably leads to poverty, inability to pay for doctor’s visits and pharmacy prescriptions, and so on. However, family life, whether it be rich or poor, does not exist in a social/political/economic vacuum. Rather, family circumstances are very much shaped by forces beyond the control of families, such as government decisions on policy which are translated into things like budget allocations to health, welfare, employment and education and business decisions which increase or decrease commercial activity and concomitantly raise wages or make workers redundant.
