The primary job of education is to equip all children with the "basic tools" needed to function in society -- namely, the ability to read, write, solve basic math problems, and use digital technologies (4). Virtually all children, regardless of their IQ, can acquire these skills.
In developed nations it's easy to see the enormous role that genes play, as we cannot easily say that differences in academic abilities are due to schooling, as all children receive the same basic education.
The secondary job of education. Once students have learned these basic skills, we must help children to develop "their unique talents and interests" (9). This means that some children will continue to pursue a more traditional academic track, while others will pursue other tracks.
Genetics Overview
Three types of genotype–environment correlations:
- Passive genotype–environment correlation -- e.g., "low-achieving parents with low aspirations pass on not only their genes but also an educationally unstimulating rearing environment to their children."
- Evocative genotype–environment correlation -- "where children evoke certain behaviors on the basis of their genetic propensities," e.g., "a teacher sees that a child is naturally quick with numbers" and offers "more opportunities to that child to develop their mathematical skills and knowledge and keep pushing them forward regardless of what is expected of them on the basis of age alone."
- Active genotype–environment correlation -- "children actively seek out experiences and opportunities on the basis of their genetic propensities" (9).[1]
Twin studies are the most popular way to study behavioral genetics. Identical twins share 100 percent of their genes, while fraternal twins share 50 percent of their genes. If we see that identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins on a particular trait, "we can estimate the degree to which that trait is influenced by genes" (15).[2]
"Shared environment represents nongenetic influences that affect children growing up in the same family in the same way. These might include the shared effects of a particular home or neighborhood, school, diet, access to TV or the Internet, pocket money, parents' relationship, parents' education, family income, a piano or books in the home, or a shared family pet. Anything that exists for both twins in a pair (or for non-twin siblings growing up together), and is experienced in the same way by them, is a shared environmental influence. This is the branch of nurture that has typically been credited with either making us great or screwing us up" (16).
Molecular genetics has taught us that "most human attributes are influenced by a combination of many genes, and that the individual genes involved each have a small effect, making them exceedingly difficult to find" (18). The Loci (QTL) hypothesis, which is based on a huge amount of supporting data. The Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) hypothesis "proposes that, apart from a group of mainly rare and severe single-gene disorders, all common human traits are influenced by many genes and each gene has only a tiny effect" (25).
Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic
Reading is not innate -- we would not learn to read if we were not taught -- and yet "research shows that genes can in large part account for the differences between children in how well they can read" (23). Many skills needed to read -- e.g., the ability to see, to hear, to make a mental link between sounds and their physical representations on the page, etc. (23).
Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic
Reading is not innate -- we would not learn to read if we were not taught -- and yet "research shows that genes can in large part account for the differences between children in how well they can read" (23). Many skills needed to read -- e.g., the ability to see, to hear, to make a mental link between sounds and their physical representations on the page, etc. (23).
"Our ability to read is heavily influenced by our genes: estimates of heritability tend to hover between 60 and 80%. This means that a significant proportion of the differences between individuals in how well they can read can be explained by genetic influence, leaving as little as 20% to be explained by the environment in some studies" (24).[3]
Our need to be sensitive to genetics. For instance, studies show that SES predicts reading ability: "children from low-income families where the parents have low levels of education [and whose parents speak to them less and expose them to less vocabulary words] appear to be at risk of becoming struggling readers" (31). But this doesn't mean that environment is the culprit: "Do parents who don't talk to their children very much cause a lack of vivacious chat in their offspring or are their offspring uncommunicative because they are genetically similar to their parents? Or is there some combination of both factors at work?" (32).
Writing Ability. One twin study found that, with regards to writing, "genes accounted for two-thirds of the differences between individual children, shared environment only 7%, and nonshared environmental influence the rest" (39).
Mathematics. Yulia Kovas, a twins researcher, "estimated the heritability of mathematical ability among 10-year-old children, as rated by their teachers, as about two-thirds. Shared environment accounted for 12% of the ability differences between children, and nonshared environment accounted for 24%. She had carried out a similar analysis when the TEDS twins were 7 years old and reached a very similar conclusion: teacher-assessed mathematics achievement was 68% heritable, with shared environment accounting for 9% and nonshared environment 22% of the differences between children. Similar results also emerged when the children were 9 years old. In this sample at least, which is representative of the wider UK population, a heritability estimate of 60 to 70% appears to be robust throughout the early school years. This mirrors our results for reading and writing" (44).
IQ
Intro. IQ "can reliably predict all kinds of success -- academic, professional, social, marital, income, and even physical longevity" (89). And yet IQ scores are among young children are not static and "most children will score differently as they grow older and experience different environments. Some will improve, while others see their scores dip" (90).
Preschoolers. Genes explain just 20-30 percent of cognitive ability in preschoolers. "A far more significant influence at this stage is the environment shared by siblings growing up in the same family, which can explain around 60% of individual differences between young children's cognitive abilities. The children who are being read stories, chatted to, shown how to play with developmentally appropriate toys, and introduced to their world in an informative, stimulating way do better than the children who aren't." But "the influence of the home learning environment wanes as children grow, and genetics comes to the fore" (91).
IQ and Achievement. IQ does not determine achievement. "If IQ and achievement were the same thing, perfect predictors of each other, then they would correlate 1.00, a perfect correlation. In fact they correlate more like 0.50."[4]
Self-Confidence. "Before genetic researchers became involved, a body of evidence had already been amassed showing that how good you believe you are at something -- your self-perceived ability -- can predict how good you actually are at it. If little Johnny thinks he's a great reader (whether he can sound out Cat in the Hat or not) he can improve his chance of becoming a great reader."
Self-Confidence and Genetics. "[I]t turns out that 51% of the differences between the TEDS twins (when they were 9 years old) in terms of their self-perceived ability in academic subjects was explained by their genes. Self-perceived ability is at least as heritable as IQ and almost as heritable as achievement. It is not, it seems, solely a consequence of praise." But "just as IQ has a genetic basis but a person can be taught to perform better on an IQ test than they naturally would, the same is true of self-confidence. Someone who doubts themselves or their abilities can be given confidence training that will help them over particular hurdles."
SES
Uncomfortable truth #1: SES, "which in this context usually refers to parents' educational qualifications and occupational status, is as good a predictor of academic achievement as IQ (with which it is also correlated). This has been shown in studies all over the world (127).
Uncomfortable truth #2: SES is partly heritable.[5] Although we know that "environmental factors influence SES at least as much as genetic factors and that the environment can be used as an agent for change" (128).
Low-income parents are under more stress and have fewer resources (e.g., less money to pay for swimming lessons, educational outings, IT equipment, books) (129). / Children in low-SES families are talked to less than kids in higher-SES families and "often start school with significantly less linguistic knowledge" (129). Low-income children spend less time with their children and are less responsive to their needs. This might be due to lack of time, excessive stress. This appears to be linked with their children's cognitive development. Some researchers believe that the key factor here is lack of stimulation (129).
Other aspects of the home environment that have been shown to adversely affect cognitive development and academic achievement: chaos and crowding. Children from crowded homes experience higher levels of stress, behavior problems, and delayed cognitive development. Moreover, parents in crowded homes are less responsive to their children (130). / Children who do well in school "tend to come from relatively quiet, orderly homes with predictable routines. It has been shown that children in noisy, chaotic, disorganized homes tend to withdraw from academic challenges and show low expectations and low levels of persistence with their schoolwork. The more chaotic children perceive their homes to be, the poorer their performance in school" (130).
Head Start. Nobel Laureate in Economics James Heckman argues that we need to invest more in preschool. Head Start does not improve IQ in the long term. But perhaps such programs serve an important purpose: they might produce children with higher test scores because they turn children on to reading, and consequently these children grow to be more motivated (135). Great example: Perry Preschool Program.[6]
Another way to help low-SES children is to encourage sensitive, responsive parenting (136). "The evidence from nongenetic studies suggests that teacher quality matters significantly more than quality of school buildings or resources...The message coming forward is that interventions focused on active learning between parent and child, and teacher and child, are the most promising" (138).
Solutions
Learning Must Be More Personalized. E.g., computers.[7] Also, "Each pupil should have an Individual Education Plan which should be reviewed and revised each year. Every child should receive a personalized school-leaving certificate at the end of their compulsory education."
Require all children (except the severely disabled) to pass a basic skills exam . All students can acquire the basic skills with personalized support. "These pupils need to be taught in a way that makes sense to them, and their precise level of understanding at the beginning of the learning process has to be identified in order for education and skill formation to progress in a logical, hierarchical sequence. Supporting these children should be the top priority for all schools."
Give students more subjects to choose from.[9]
Get rid of labels. "We also recommend that labeling children as “Gifted and Talented” is stopped. In a personalized classroom the label is unnecessary as each child should have their individual needs met. Appropriate opportunities should be offered to all children and, in the ideal scenario, every child will be found to have a gift, a talent, or a passion worth nurturing."
Require weekly thinking skills class. Here kids will be helped to improve IQ and self-confidence/growth mindset. Dweck described fix and growth mindsets. "Over the course of scores of experiments she and her colleagues and collaborators have shown how a growth mindset yields better results for everybody and, importantly, how the growth mindset can be taught."[8]
Free preschool to low-income families.[10]
Equalize extra-curricular activities.[11]
Increase vocational training.
Notes
[1] "Research into all three types of genotype–environment correlation shows us that sensitivity to genetically influenced differences between children represents the most promising means available to schools and teachers who wish to offer a genuinely personalized education" (9).
[2] When twins correlate 1.00, we say that there are no differences between them. "If MZ twins correlate 0.75 on a particular behavior, say shyness, and DZ twins correlate 0.50, we double the difference between the two correlations (2 × 0.25) and estimate the heritability of shyness as 50%. This leaves the remaining 50% to be explained by the environment that children are growing up in" (15).
[3] "It is all very well to say that reading ability is 60 or 70 or 80% heritable, but such a statement does not make the pivotal role of teaching apparent. Children with a genetic predisposition to be good at reading would not learn to read if they were not taught to do so, or at least exposed to lots of print" (30). "Research has shown that reading difficulties run in families (DeFries, Vogler, and LaBuda, 1986). Behavioral geneticists have in fact identified specific genes that may be linked with reading problems (Scerri et al., 2011)" (35).
[4] "IQ and achievement are no more the same thing than car design and motor racing success. They're closely related; the best driver in the world would struggle to win the Monaco Grand Prix in a Fiat Panda (unless that Panda were super-enhanced by a whole lot of nurture and perhaps a sprinkling of magic dust). But equally, the most powerful and sophisticated engine in the world, encased in the most beautiful, ergonomic racing car ever made, would be completely wasted on most of us. We would lack the personality, skill, training, practice, and instincts to drive it quickly enough or expertly enough to win a top-level race."
[5] "Genes can explain approximately half of the differences between people in the educational qualifications they gain, and 40% of the variability in the status of the jobs that they do. It sounds odd to say that an aspect of a child's environment, such as their family's social status, is influenced by genes but really it is unsurprising when one considers genetic influence on academic achievement and how this has to feed into educational and occupational status. We also know that genes can explain 30% of income differences, sometimes included in measures of SES...Given that parental SES is heritable, and that children's academic achievement is also heritable, it is not especially surprising that genetic research has found the links between SES and achievement to be partly mediated by genes. In sum, SES is influenced by genetic as well as environmental factors and this, for many, represents an uncomfortable truth" (128).
[6] "Heckman argues that this interpretation misses the bigger picture. To illustrate his case he refers to the Perry Preschool Program. This was a two-year experimental intervention carried out in the early 1960s for 3- and 4-year-old disadvantaged African American children identified as being at risk for school failure. It was a case-control study in which the subjects attended nursery for 2½ hours every weekday morning and once each week had a 1½-hour afternoon visit from their teacher at home. This was designed to involve the mother in the educational process and to help to implement the preschool curriculum at home. The children learned through play rather than formal instruction, and the focus was on developing noncognitive skills. By age 10 the case children's IQs were no higher than those of the control children. However, their achievement test scores were significantly higher because, argues Heckman, they were more motivated to learn. This is interesting given that achievement shows higher heritability than cognitive ability (and genotype–environment correlations are often hidden within heritability estimates). The program had no long-term effect whatsoever on IQ, but the effects on achievement and wellbeing were significant. These children were followed up at age 40 and the treated group had higher rates of high school graduation, higher salaries, higher percentages of home ownership, were in receipt of fewer welfare benefits, and had fewer criminal charges than the controls (Schweinhart et al., 2005). In sum, they had higher SES than the controls, and their new and improved SES is what will predict their own children's achievement, rather than the social status they were born into: social mobility in action. There is no doubt that their genes still resembled those of their parents but the environment was used in a way that appears to have given them a leg up, provided them with new experiences with which their genes could interact in a positive way. Behavioral genetic research supports Heckman's argument that the best time to invoke shared environmental influences to affect children's achievement, perhaps via their self-confidence, motivation, and aspirations, is before school begins. From this point onward the influences of shared environment tend to diminish. We can also say that one correlate of SES which shows promise for improving the chances of disadvantaged children is sensitive, responsive parenting and that preschool initiatives can usefully focus their attention on this, as was done in the Perry Preschool Program. Interventions in which educators bring education into the real-world home environments of disadvantaged children may seem expensive, but the evidence suggests that, over the course of a life, they might pay for themselves. Nurturing natural potential in the preschool years needs further consideration as a strategy for promoting social mobility and drawing out individual potential."
Our need to be sensitive to genetics. For instance, studies show that SES predicts reading ability: "children from low-income families where the parents have low levels of education [and whose parents speak to them less and expose them to less vocabulary words] appear to be at risk of becoming struggling readers" (31). But this doesn't mean that environment is the culprit: "Do parents who don't talk to their children very much cause a lack of vivacious chat in their offspring or are their offspring uncommunicative because they are genetically similar to their parents? Or is there some combination of both factors at work?" (32).
Writing Ability. One twin study found that, with regards to writing, "genes accounted for two-thirds of the differences between individual children, shared environment only 7%, and nonshared environmental influence the rest" (39).
Mathematics. Yulia Kovas, a twins researcher, "estimated the heritability of mathematical ability among 10-year-old children, as rated by their teachers, as about two-thirds. Shared environment accounted for 12% of the ability differences between children, and nonshared environment accounted for 24%. She had carried out a similar analysis when the TEDS twins were 7 years old and reached a very similar conclusion: teacher-assessed mathematics achievement was 68% heritable, with shared environment accounting for 9% and nonshared environment 22% of the differences between children. Similar results also emerged when the children were 9 years old. In this sample at least, which is representative of the wider UK population, a heritability estimate of 60 to 70% appears to be robust throughout the early school years. This mirrors our results for reading and writing" (44).
IQ
Intro. IQ "can reliably predict all kinds of success -- academic, professional, social, marital, income, and even physical longevity" (89). And yet IQ scores are among young children are not static and "most children will score differently as they grow older and experience different environments. Some will improve, while others see their scores dip" (90).
Preschoolers. Genes explain just 20-30 percent of cognitive ability in preschoolers. "A far more significant influence at this stage is the environment shared by siblings growing up in the same family, which can explain around 60% of individual differences between young children's cognitive abilities. The children who are being read stories, chatted to, shown how to play with developmentally appropriate toys, and introduced to their world in an informative, stimulating way do better than the children who aren't." But "the influence of the home learning environment wanes as children grow, and genetics comes to the fore" (91).
IQ and Achievement. IQ does not determine achievement. "If IQ and achievement were the same thing, perfect predictors of each other, then they would correlate 1.00, a perfect correlation. In fact they correlate more like 0.50."[4]
Self-Confidence. "Before genetic researchers became involved, a body of evidence had already been amassed showing that how good you believe you are at something -- your self-perceived ability -- can predict how good you actually are at it. If little Johnny thinks he's a great reader (whether he can sound out Cat in the Hat or not) he can improve his chance of becoming a great reader."
Self-Confidence and Genetics. "[I]t turns out that 51% of the differences between the TEDS twins (when they were 9 years old) in terms of their self-perceived ability in academic subjects was explained by their genes. Self-perceived ability is at least as heritable as IQ and almost as heritable as achievement. It is not, it seems, solely a consequence of praise." But "just as IQ has a genetic basis but a person can be taught to perform better on an IQ test than they naturally would, the same is true of self-confidence. Someone who doubts themselves or their abilities can be given confidence training that will help them over particular hurdles."
SES
Uncomfortable truth #1: SES, "which in this context usually refers to parents' educational qualifications and occupational status, is as good a predictor of academic achievement as IQ (with which it is also correlated). This has been shown in studies all over the world (127).
Uncomfortable truth #2: SES is partly heritable.[5] Although we know that "environmental factors influence SES at least as much as genetic factors and that the environment can be used as an agent for change" (128).
Low-income parents are under more stress and have fewer resources (e.g., less money to pay for swimming lessons, educational outings, IT equipment, books) (129). / Children in low-SES families are talked to less than kids in higher-SES families and "often start school with significantly less linguistic knowledge" (129). Low-income children spend less time with their children and are less responsive to their needs. This might be due to lack of time, excessive stress. This appears to be linked with their children's cognitive development. Some researchers believe that the key factor here is lack of stimulation (129).
Other aspects of the home environment that have been shown to adversely affect cognitive development and academic achievement: chaos and crowding. Children from crowded homes experience higher levels of stress, behavior problems, and delayed cognitive development. Moreover, parents in crowded homes are less responsive to their children (130). / Children who do well in school "tend to come from relatively quiet, orderly homes with predictable routines. It has been shown that children in noisy, chaotic, disorganized homes tend to withdraw from academic challenges and show low expectations and low levels of persistence with their schoolwork. The more chaotic children perceive their homes to be, the poorer their performance in school" (130).
Head Start. Nobel Laureate in Economics James Heckman argues that we need to invest more in preschool. Head Start does not improve IQ in the long term. But perhaps such programs serve an important purpose: they might produce children with higher test scores because they turn children on to reading, and consequently these children grow to be more motivated (135). Great example: Perry Preschool Program.[6]
Another way to help low-SES children is to encourage sensitive, responsive parenting (136). "The evidence from nongenetic studies suggests that teacher quality matters significantly more than quality of school buildings or resources...The message coming forward is that interventions focused on active learning between parent and child, and teacher and child, are the most promising" (138).
Solutions
Learning Must Be More Personalized. E.g., computers.[7] Also, "Each pupil should have an Individual Education Plan which should be reviewed and revised each year. Every child should receive a personalized school-leaving certificate at the end of their compulsory education."
Require all children (except the severely disabled) to pass a basic skills exam . All students can acquire the basic skills with personalized support. "These pupils need to be taught in a way that makes sense to them, and their precise level of understanding at the beginning of the learning process has to be identified in order for education and skill formation to progress in a logical, hierarchical sequence. Supporting these children should be the top priority for all schools."
Give students more subjects to choose from.[9]
Get rid of labels. "We also recommend that labeling children as “Gifted and Talented” is stopped. In a personalized classroom the label is unnecessary as each child should have their individual needs met. Appropriate opportunities should be offered to all children and, in the ideal scenario, every child will be found to have a gift, a talent, or a passion worth nurturing."
Require weekly thinking skills class. Here kids will be helped to improve IQ and self-confidence/growth mindset. Dweck described fix and growth mindsets. "Over the course of scores of experiments she and her colleagues and collaborators have shown how a growth mindset yields better results for everybody and, importantly, how the growth mindset can be taught."[8]
Free preschool to low-income families.[10]
Equalize extra-curricular activities.[11]
Increase vocational training.
Notes
[1] "Research into all three types of genotype–environment correlation shows us that sensitivity to genetically influenced differences between children represents the most promising means available to schools and teachers who wish to offer a genuinely personalized education" (9).
[2] When twins correlate 1.00, we say that there are no differences between them. "If MZ twins correlate 0.75 on a particular behavior, say shyness, and DZ twins correlate 0.50, we double the difference between the two correlations (2 × 0.25) and estimate the heritability of shyness as 50%. This leaves the remaining 50% to be explained by the environment that children are growing up in" (15).
[3] "It is all very well to say that reading ability is 60 or 70 or 80% heritable, but such a statement does not make the pivotal role of teaching apparent. Children with a genetic predisposition to be good at reading would not learn to read if they were not taught to do so, or at least exposed to lots of print" (30). "Research has shown that reading difficulties run in families (DeFries, Vogler, and LaBuda, 1986). Behavioral geneticists have in fact identified specific genes that may be linked with reading problems (Scerri et al., 2011)" (35).
[4] "IQ and achievement are no more the same thing than car design and motor racing success. They're closely related; the best driver in the world would struggle to win the Monaco Grand Prix in a Fiat Panda (unless that Panda were super-enhanced by a whole lot of nurture and perhaps a sprinkling of magic dust). But equally, the most powerful and sophisticated engine in the world, encased in the most beautiful, ergonomic racing car ever made, would be completely wasted on most of us. We would lack the personality, skill, training, practice, and instincts to drive it quickly enough or expertly enough to win a top-level race."
[5] "Genes can explain approximately half of the differences between people in the educational qualifications they gain, and 40% of the variability in the status of the jobs that they do. It sounds odd to say that an aspect of a child's environment, such as their family's social status, is influenced by genes but really it is unsurprising when one considers genetic influence on academic achievement and how this has to feed into educational and occupational status. We also know that genes can explain 30% of income differences, sometimes included in measures of SES...Given that parental SES is heritable, and that children's academic achievement is also heritable, it is not especially surprising that genetic research has found the links between SES and achievement to be partly mediated by genes. In sum, SES is influenced by genetic as well as environmental factors and this, for many, represents an uncomfortable truth" (128).
[6] "Heckman argues that this interpretation misses the bigger picture. To illustrate his case he refers to the Perry Preschool Program. This was a two-year experimental intervention carried out in the early 1960s for 3- and 4-year-old disadvantaged African American children identified as being at risk for school failure. It was a case-control study in which the subjects attended nursery for 2½ hours every weekday morning and once each week had a 1½-hour afternoon visit from their teacher at home. This was designed to involve the mother in the educational process and to help to implement the preschool curriculum at home. The children learned through play rather than formal instruction, and the focus was on developing noncognitive skills. By age 10 the case children's IQs were no higher than those of the control children. However, their achievement test scores were significantly higher because, argues Heckman, they were more motivated to learn. This is interesting given that achievement shows higher heritability than cognitive ability (and genotype–environment correlations are often hidden within heritability estimates). The program had no long-term effect whatsoever on IQ, but the effects on achievement and wellbeing were significant. These children were followed up at age 40 and the treated group had higher rates of high school graduation, higher salaries, higher percentages of home ownership, were in receipt of fewer welfare benefits, and had fewer criminal charges than the controls (Schweinhart et al., 2005). In sum, they had higher SES than the controls, and their new and improved SES is what will predict their own children's achievement, rather than the social status they were born into: social mobility in action. There is no doubt that their genes still resembled those of their parents but the environment was used in a way that appears to have given them a leg up, provided them with new experiences with which their genes could interact in a positive way. Behavioral genetic research supports Heckman's argument that the best time to invoke shared environmental influences to affect children's achievement, perhaps via their self-confidence, motivation, and aspirations, is before school begins. From this point onward the influences of shared environment tend to diminish. We can also say that one correlate of SES which shows promise for improving the chances of disadvantaged children is sensitive, responsive parenting and that preschool initiatives can usefully focus their attention on this, as was done in the Perry Preschool Program. Interventions in which educators bring education into the real-world home environments of disadvantaged children may seem expensive, but the evidence suggests that, over the course of a life, they might pay for themselves. Nurturing natural potential in the preschool years needs further consideration as a strategy for promoting social mobility and drawing out individual potential."
[7] "The most obvious solution currently available to us is computers. Using technology to personalize teaching and learning is an approach that has proved somewhat contentious, and its benefits have not been proven, but in terms of practical potential computers are pretty hard to beat. It's certainly enticing to think that there could be technology out there capable of drawing out children's skills and understanding at a precisely calibrated pace and with a precisely calibrated method of address.
"Computerized personalization should support, not replace, school personnel (although some misguided political number-crunchers might think otherwise).
"It is disappointing that the software developed so far is not supported by scientific evidence, but we think that this should provide a spur to make such programs, and their implementation, more effective rather than ditch the approach as a whole."
[8] "People with a fixed mindset believe that intelligence and talent are innate and cannot be changed. This leads to beliefs along the lines of “naturally clever or talented people shouldn't have to try” and “If I fail, people will think less of me.” Dweck and her team have shown time and again that adults and children with this mindset shy away from challenges because they don't believe they can learn to do what doesn't come naturally to them; they don't want to make an effort because having to do so undermines their self-worth; and moving from their comfort zone puts them at risk of what they see as failure, and this is intolerable to them."
[9] "We believe that, particularly as pupils get older, it makes good genetic sense for them to have the opportunity to weight their education in favor of their passions and talents. We also believe that there should be much greater opportunity for primary school pupils to make choices and direct their own education. For instance, a child with a developing talent or interest in music, game design, sport, history, astronomy, or art should be able to use some of the school day to develop their interest or talent further, and should be able to access resources and (ideally) a teacher who can help them to develop their particular interests and talents."
[10] In addition to these measures, children from low-SES families should be offered extra support from birth. Behavioral genetics teaches that all human beings are born different and that differences in our environments—our nurture—increase the differences we are born with. This is usually a negative thing, born of inequality of opportunity, but we propose that it doesn't have to be. In fact, we can use environmental differences, and their effects, to reverse the tide and enhance equality of opportunity. By offering more opportunities to children in disadvantaged families, and making it easy for them to take up the opportunities, we can make progress in leveling the playing field and increasing social mobility...So, for example, we recommend the development of a Portage-like service aimed at all children growing up in disadvantaged families. These children would receive regular home visits in which play-based activities to assist and consolidate their development would be introduced to them and to their parents."
[11] "One of the ways in which the playing field is not currently level is in access to extracurricular activities. A child with the potential to be a jockey, for example, who grows up in a city with a family of modest means will probably never discover his potential because horse-riding lessons and access to horses is prohibitively expensive. The same is true for the child who could have been a pianist, a rock climber, or a ballet dancer. Lack of funds gets in the way of equality of opportunity and so does parental will and ability to get children to and from extracurricular activities. It's too hard if both parents have to work and don't have the right sort of childcare; don't drive; have several children; or suffer from disabilities. However, this is one of the ways in which potential is wasted and, therefore, one of the ways in which education can be used to draw out individual strengths and passions. We propose that the children of poorer families are provided with vouchers that can be exchanged for extracurricular activities based in schools or elsewhere. By basing more high-quality private lessons on school sites we would probably ensure better access for families and this, therefore, would be our preference."
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