Do teachers make better parents? Do children of teachers have better chances of working and beating the system?
This might sound like a provocative question – particularly if you are not a teacher – but it’s an interesting one.
The answer is that teachers do make ‘better’ parents. Most tellingly, the results of a comprehensive study by the Geary Institute in UCD (www.geary.ucd.ie) reveal that mothers who are teachers have a greater direct influence on their children’s education than fathers who are teachers.
In Ireland, children of teachers get much more out of our education system than children of other (including better-off) professionals. Teachers themselves earn 25 per cent more than the median income, yet the real payback for teachers is in the incomes and opportunities of their children.
In many ways, from a family perspective at least, teachers are the great sacrificers.
Foregoing income themselves, through their attention to education at home, they give their children an invaluable head start. This is particularly the case when the mother is a teacher.
The significance of that head start is now becoming apparent. Evidence from all over the English-speaking world suggests that the single biggest factor affecting children’s chances in school is not income, but parental participation.
There are, in essence, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ parents. This might appear self-evident, but it is amazing how simple language has been banished from public debate.
Instead we are treated to a barrage of pieties about income inequality, poor facilities and the like. While all these are contributory factors, it is the home environment, created, fostered and moulded by parents, which is the crucial factor.
Take the three economics professors at the Geary Institute in UCD, where this pioneering work is being done. All three were born and bred in Ballyfermot – reinforcing the idea that family counts more than other factors.
There are three reasons why these observations are important for the country.
The state relies on the brains of our people.
If we can get the most out of all our children, society will be much better off, not only in terms of economics, but in terms of crime, health and general quality of life.
Second, starting early is crucial. American research shows that one dollar spent on intervention in the education of a four-year-old is seven times more productive than the same amount spent on a 14-year-old.Evidence from psychology and neuroscience also shows a reinforcing mechanism whereby skills beget skills, motivation begets motivation and failure begets failure.
Irrespective of income, gaps in educational ability emerge early and widen. So it is crucial – as the Jesuits said – to get them young.
Third, last week the Central Statistics Office (CSO) revealed that the biggest change in Irish society over the past ten years is the number of women at work.
Close to 60 per cent of women are working, as opposed to 43 per cent ten years ago. Many of these are mothers and, while they are better educated than their own mothers, they might not have the time to juggle homework, housework and keeping the sales targets on track.
These three factors argue for a significant change in our education system.
What is the point, for example, in getting rid of university fees if the majority of those who get that far come from families who can afford to send their kids to college in the first place? The real advantage in this would be if a lot of kids from poor backgrounds thrived in pre-school, primary school and secondary school so as to be in a position to go to college.
In Ireland, we have made enormous progress in this regard in the past few years, with university attendance almost doubling in 15 years, but there is still the problem of persistent underachievement in certain areas.
So if Dad doesn’t care about little Tommy’s maths and is more concerned about watching Celtic, or if mum is too knackered to contemplate reading with little Shannon, what should the state do?
Quite simply, the state has to invest more in the education of these children to replace lack of parental investment, because it is the state and society that will ultimately have to pay for the violence, crime and welfare dependence of these kids when they grow up.
Again, evidence from the United States (see the Perry Pre-school Project, www.geary.ucd.ie) shows that early intervention in pre-schools for poor kids and more active teaching of the very young yields enormous benefits.
Taking control of a toddler’s and young child’s education, telling them they are smart, encouraging them, motivating them, allowing them to use and develop their brains is eight times more beneficial than trying to sort things out later with programmes such as reduced pupil-teacher ratios, Fas job courses or prisoner rehabilitation programmes.
If we are to go down the road of more and more women in the workforce, and accept the CSO’s findings that only 1 per cent of Irish men describe themselves as full-time house husbands, there will be less time for helping kids with homework.
There will be less parental influence and among the underclass, no one will tell them that if they help their kids today, the benefits to the whole family in 15 years’ time will be enormous.
We should plough more state resources into education of both children and their parents, explaining that we are all in this together and the earlier we get the kids on the right track the better. This demands a revolution in the Department of Education.
At the moment we seem to be beguiled by fourth-level education – masters degrees and doctoral programmes and the like. This may well be necessary, but I suspect the enthusiasm is also being driven by seeing it as a product to be flogged to Chinese, Indians and others.
It is now time to use the education system actively as a part of social policy and, as away of preventing crime and disillusionment in 20 years’ time. After all, this is about the future of the country and it’s far too serious to be left to the sons and daughters of today’s teachers alone.
If anyone finds the above article interesting, then you’d love the book, Raising Babies, should the under 3s go to nursery, by Steve Biddulph.
In it he predicts that in 20/30 years we will treat our over use of creches the way we now treat smoking, ie look back and think my god what were we doing.
He also laments the fact that at so many creches (book is based on the UK) top of the range cars are used to drop kids off at 730am and parents are sub contracting out the important job of parenting.
Very good article David. All the research I have read shows that the more children are spoken to and read to the better they perform at school. Personally I think that a crech with highly trained professionals (a la Sweden or Finland) can provide a great environment but childcare in the rest of Europe is generally well behind. My wife minds our kids at the expense of her career but we made that choice because we want our kids to have the best start in life. I recently refused a chance to move toa betteter job because I didn’t want… Read more »
Glad to see you have read “Freakeconomics” ………..
David & C0.: What kind of crap is this when you state that “that American research has shown shown that intervention in the education of a four-year old is more productive when spent in the education of a 14-year-old.” What the research has shown (as you very well know) is that intervention can give a “momentary and transitory” head start which quickly disappers with age, Of course this is all wrapped up with the disparity of blacks vs non-black IQs in America which stilll stands up despite the wishful thinking (hopes) of intellectualoids. And despite my somewhat accusatory tone –… Read more »
Hi Tony…and the Freakonomics guys dubner and levitt have read Heckman, an he read Becker and he read Freidman and he read Hayek…it just goes on. everyone is just updating and adapting the pioneering work of other, best regards David
Great article yesterday. What we secondary teachers have always known.Some of us learned how to parent by observing the parenting given to our pupils. We learned what not to do. Parents bake the cake. Teachers can only hope to do the icing. The Geary research was interesting in what it said about parents taking over the teachers’ role in the Summer holidays. Visiting places like Pompeii, Stratford, Haworth Parsonage, the Yeats Country and Vinegar Hill brings what is done in school to life. Teachers are lucky in that the holidays allow them to live as humans should a propos their… Read more »
I think the Geary study and the other ideas you propose here are quite intuitive. It’s hardly anything shocking to suggest a kid who has had a lot of intellectual stimulation from a caring, stable home environment turns out to be a good student. So – what are the lessons teachers learn from parents bad practice? Can they be published as a guide to best practice? I know my sister, a primary teacher, encounters 5 year olds who can’t mechanically understand how to handle a book. While in the same class there are already 5 year olds who can read… Read more »
@Rita I liked your comment very much. On the issue about books in the home I definitely notice that television has a very big undermining influence with that (actually a plus point for creches). With the choice of children’s’ channels like CBeebies or Nick Junior it is very easy to park the kids and not bother to read or otherwise engage with them. Personally I don’t think that any child will find books a waste of time if they are exposed to reading from a very young age. There are brilliant books for children by authors like Julia Donaldson and… Read more »
Hi all, Interesting article. It reminded me of a documentary I had seen previously on feral children. Basically the documentary detailed the cases of several feral children and in particular it examined why some of them were never able to learn how to speak. The theory proposed to explain this was that the lingusitic part of the brain needs to be stimulated at a very young age in order to develop properly. Once a child reaches a certain age it is too late to start and the child will never be able to speak or communicate verbally. This would support… Read more »
Jonathon, I agree with what you are saying except that both parents working and a sky-high mortgage is a choice. It is always possible to make do with less but in Ireland most people don’t want to give up the lifestyle they aspire to or are accustomed to in order to look after their kids. In Holland you actually have the opposite phenomenon, the government wants more women to take career jobs and put the kids in the creche but the culture here is that women generally works part-time or not at all when the children are born. Here most… Read more »
Aidan, I see your point about both parents working to pay a sky high mortgage being a choice. There is kind of social rat-race going on. Nevertheless, consider the family where the main earner can only find a job in Dublin say, or even in say Cork city. The average house price within an hour’s commute of the city centre is near 400k in Dublin. This requires a mortgage of more than 350k which is unaffordable to the vast bulk of one-income families, and indeed is out of reach for many two income families. Yes, both parents could move to… Read more »
I was with you up to this article. Now I think you are smoking crack. The notion that Irish education is any good is just that. Only a notion. It is good in the minds of the Not Invented Here folks but out in the wider world it is just another example of Irish folklore. We teach kids great ways of jumping through byzantine hoops but nothing about how their own brain or bodies work. Not allowed and “off the curriculum” We still teach them the revolutionary fodder of Irish and Religion. Neither of which is relevant to the modern… Read more »
Ciarán,
You are right that houses are expensive in Dublin or indeed Cork. Renting is now relatively cheaper. My point is that a given family can live in say Dublin in a rented apartment and have no commute and more time for the family. People don’t do this because Irish people tend to want to own property at all costs even if it means living a major commute from their work in a housing estate on the edge of nowhere.
Aidan
Aidan, Your point is well taken. I lived in France for a while and home ownership wasn’t quite the obsession there that it is here – though of course most people would prefer to own their home. But one difference between France and Ireland is the level of protection that renters enjoy. In Ireland I certainly wouldn’t like to have two or three kids in my appartment and be at the mercy of the landlord. There have been some improvements in Ireland recently but there’s a long way to go. Besides, though some modern appartments are better, much of the… Read more »
What I would like to here is some theories as to why reading is so good for children and the counter why is TV so bad.
It is something I have heard said many times but never a compelling reason as to why.
David; interesting point. Can I add another dimension to this argument: I published an article in The Irish Times (15 December 2006) arguing that individualisation is arguably in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights and may also be contrary to the Constitution. Lets not forget that individualisation, in whatever form, in the tax system today, imposes a tax penalty on one income married couples. When two income married couples are due to have their first child they must choose whether to leave one spouse in the home to mind that child; the government individualisation package means that those… Read more »
John, I read your article and this is indeed a very interesting take on the subject. For salaries in a range that is probably typical, however, I find that the economic incentive still favours the single income family if you compare two families with the same total income. For example, one-income family with kid total income 50k. They pay about 11% of earnings in tax and prsi. Another family with total income also 50k, let’s say in this case one earner is on 30k and another on 20k. Their tax burden is lighter for sure – but only marginally. They… Read more »
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Brian, Your points about the Gaelscoileanna and the religious interference in education are bang on. Also, I would agree that it’s a shame that the Irish education system has so little time for philosophy or ‘thinking’. And indeed speaking – for example public speaking. Though these are slowly getting better and transition year children get some exposure to presentation skills and so on. Having said all that – our writers continue to enjoy a good reputation abroad, so our literary capital seems to be replete. Regarding the Irish language – your comment is rather unfair. It is a minority language,… Read more »
Ciarán, Your comment about the need for a broader educational focus made me think of something I was talking about with an English colleague yesterday. He was telling me that his son was interested in Asian languages and we were talking about the secondary schools in the Leiden area (where we both live and work). I was amazed to find that the public secondary school in the area I live in offers not only a bilingual education program (half of the subjects through Dutch, half through English) and offers Mandarin Chinese and Spanish as subjects. This is taken from the… Read more »
I’m all for children becoming bi-lingual or even tri-lingual as early as possible. Like most people educated in Ireland, I learnt Irish from primary school level and any other languages were learnt at second level. Unfortunately languages were badly taught in my secondary school. The standard of Irish taught in 2nd year in secondary school was behind that taught in 6th class of primary school. I learnt French in secondary school and did night classes in German, but no matter how hard I work at these languages I will not have the fluency of someone who has been taught these… Read more »
Ciarán Mc., you raise a valid point, however the differential may not be as insignificant as you think in a given case. Let me give you the following example based on one married couples’ situation that I encountered: He is earning 46k She is earning 20k Their combined income means they fall into the lower tax bracket (now 68k since the Budget). However, they have just had their first child and she has decided she wants to stay at home and mind the child. In that way they lose one income (20k pa). Now, because they are only a one… Read more »
John, Good example. Another side of this is that over the last number of years childcare has moved up the political agenda. People have started demanding much more government support for childcare provision, something like they have I’m led to understand in Scandanavian countries. If the government were to act on this demand (so far there have only been token gestures) and were to provide say higer subsidies for the industry to make care cheaper, then in effect, they’d be subsidising further the double income couple. They’d be taking (more) tax from single income families and distributing it to double… Read more »
Brian is getting to be a bit of a joke, particularly with the same old sleeven comments against Irish language training. The American education system is useless, I have met university graduates who could not find significant European countries on the Map, or know their own history – nevermind the history of the rest of the world. heck, a large portion of the country cannot find the US on the map. Of course the Irish system is way better on history, English, Science, mathematics etc. we even get to write essays rather than multiple choice; anyone who does not believe… Read more »
I am a woman/mother/teacher but I believe that the state now wants control over the little ones to brainwash them and to de-humanise them.There was a time when children were hugged when they fell, but not now with all the FEAR of abuse charges.Fear of showing love to children is very damaging to the little ones.They sense it.It confuses them. Take America the other day where a 4 yr old was given detention for hugging a teacher at the end of the day ..because he snuggled into her bosom.How utterly crazy is that??? I took my children out of state… Read more »
For anyone still tuning in to this page I want to draw your attention to an extended essay on individualisation entitled: Whisper the Dirty Word:’Individualisation!’ which can be read in full here http://www.johnpbyrne.ie/catalog.23.html
Thank You
Hi John P Byrne, I read your article on individualisation and I completly agree with you. Individualisation is a Socialist concept and it is introduced first in order to bring in equal rights. It is a way of getting rid of marriage in order to bring in equal rights for everybody i.e. single people, couples not married, gay couples not married, couples married and gay couples marrried. Just look at the new bill of cohabitation that just came out. The government thinks that it is doing right but in the long term they are destroying society as the children will… Read more »