If I'm in Chicago, then I'm in Illinois. I'm not in Chicago, therefore I must not be in Illinois.
In the field of logic, that's an example of what's called "denying the antecedent" -- a logical fallacy that assumes that because a implies b, then not a implies not b.
The fault in the logic is obvious in the example above, but the reasoning underlying such fallacies is not so uncommon in our daily lives.
Many of us would probably agree, for instance, that parents who buy organic food products for their children must care a great deal about their kids' health and well-being. So do we believe the opposite to be true as well? I've heard parents say they would never feed their children any non-organic dairy product, and the unspoken implication seemed to be that a parent who would is bordering on being unfit.
But on the southwest side of Chicago, where I live, you have to go on a bit of a wild goose chase to even track down a gallon of organic milk. And if you're a parent struggling to make ends meet for your family, you're probably going to choose to spend $1.99 for a gallon at Aldi rather than $6.99 for organic at Whole Foods. Does that mean you don't care as much about the health of your child as organic-buying parents do?
Similar logical fallacies can sometimes be heard in teachers' lounges, school hallways, and graduate education classes -- especially when the topic of discussion is low-income students and their families.
A teacher friend once told me of a counselor at her school who, during a lunch-time discussion, expressed dismay at what she perceived as the limited experiences of some of her school's low-income Mexican-American students. "I can't believe these kids haven't been to Navy Pier," the woman said, referring to a downtown Chicago tourist attraction. "Their parents don't take them places. When I was little, my mom would pack up the car and take us to Grant Park." She added, "And we weren't rich, either. But she still took us places."
The unspoken subtext was pretty clear to my friend: Since the counselor's mom had taken her on excursions, that meant she was a caring parent. And because her students' parents didn't take them places (at least according to the counselor), they must not be. Again -- if a implies b, not a must imply not b.
Never mind that many parents at the school work low-wage jobs and may not own a car to pack for a day at the park. Besides, how much did the counselor really know about her kids' lives outside of school? How much of her comment was based on careful observation and listening, and how much on ill-formed assumptions?
Another area of school life where logical fallacies can paint poor parents as unconcerned or uncaring is their perceived involvement -- or lack of it -- in school activities. If we believe parents who participate at school in traditional ways -- showing up for open houses, volunteering to chaperone field trips -- do so because they value their child's education, then we may also believe that parents who don't participate in those ways simply don't care enough to do so. In fact, I've heard teachers voice this opinion, or something similar, a number of times.
But it's important to take a closer look. A parent with a salaried position who takes a half day off to attend his daughter's school play likely wouldn't be penalized financially, and might even be congratulated by colleagues for being an involved parent. A dad who works as an hourly-wage security guard would get docked pay, and possibly reprimanded or worse, for doing the same.
As a teacher of teachers, one of the assignments I sometimes give my students is a "literacy autobiography," in which they reflect on their own memories of learning to read and write. In a typical class, where most students are from middle-class backgrounds and many grew up in two-parent families, common themes often show up in their essays. Students often recall being read to by a parent before bed each night, having a wide selection of books in their homes, or practicing their writing or spelling with a family member (usually their mother) before entering school as a kindergartener.
Based on these memories, teachers in my classes usually conclude that their caregivers placed a high value on literacy and education. And in most cases they're probably right about that. But in their papers and their comments in class, it becomes clear that some also believe the inverse to be true: Parents who don't read to their kids nightly or have dozens of books in their home -- some of the parents of the kids they teach -- must not care much about their children learning to read and write.
When I hear this assumption surfacing, I try to engage my students in discussing how our own experiences of literacy act as lenses by which we may judge others. We also talk about other, perhaps less visible, ways that low-income parents might be assisting in the literacy development of their children (for much more on this, see Catherine Compton-Lilly's Re-Reading Families). But for some of the teachers in my classes, especially those who grew up in families with plenty of resources, it can still be hard to let go of a long-held belief: that parents who truly value education demonstrate it with certain actions and choices -- individual and societal circumstances be damned.
In an educational climate where the "no excuses" mantra is hailed by everyone from charter school operators to President Obama, such views may not be so surprising. But they are a troubling starting point for any teacher, and a recipe for misunderstanding when it comes to working respectfully with low-income students and families.
The good news is that many teachers who work with poor children and families choose a more productive approach. Instead of denying antecedents, they begin with far different assumptions: that every parent cares, that every parent wants good things for their child, that every parent values education -- even if they don't all show it in the same way.
I'm honestly starting to think these Post bloggers are trying to suppress any future competition with these bogus opinion articles. And I can assure you 100% of them had access to books as children.
Last week I had a mom in my class who was holding her one-year-old baby on her lap. I asked, What kind of books do you share with your child?" She said, "Oh, he ain't old enough to look at a book and I don't really read." When I took the child and demonstrated how he can point at pictures and she could just "make up" a story, she was amazed. A little education can go a long way.
Other people have different values. Some cultures value "hard work", because that is the lesson they learned in their family - hard work trumps education at a certain point. They have a point - in the last neighborhood we lived in, most people were better off than we were, and almost universally their level of education was "some college" or "no college". Hard work was more important, and most of them read to their kids once a month of less.
What's the best strategy? We don't really know - we don't know what the economy will be demanding a year from now, let alone 18 years from now.
Clearly, Asians make the best parents. Asian children are dominating...utterly destroying the pathetic competition. They often laugh at middle class white/black/hispanic parents...
They are raising kids which will take over the elite universities, elite corporations, elite positions.
The rest of you parents need to wake up. Most of you suck, and you're screwing your kids.
The American popular culture is destructive.
I would point out that academic work at this level of achievement requires hard work. My daughter probably studies well in excess of 40 hours a week (not including the robotics competition).
It's no one's fault but their own. They should have waited until they could be a good parent, before procreating.
Their children will simply get crushed in the competition which is 'life'.
That's why I've saved 3x my annual salary so far, before having kids. That cushion (and more) will help manage this inherent risk.
But I hear ya.
http://changeonechild.org/blog/importance-of-early-literacy/
From Jim Trelease's Read Aloud website:
• We read to children for all the same reasons we talk with children: to reassure, to entertain, to bond; to inform or explain, to arouse curiosity, to inspire. But in reading aloud, we also:
•
• Condition the child’s brain to associate reading with pleasure
• Create background knowledge
• Build vocabulary
• Provide a reading role model
http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/rah-ch1.html#sosimple
Yes, reading to your child is very important to your child's academic future.
And that includes the "discipline" (NOT punishment) to follow through. I spent a lot of time reading to our son, and it did pay off. Also, we would take turns--I read him (Charlotte's Web) and equally age-appropriate "chapter books", and yet he read to me as well.
Bedtime always consisted of Daddy reading to him every night before bedtime. It started out as a "night time bottle", as recommended by his pediatrician, and evolved into a bonding moment for both of them, and it was a time of quiet transition for bedtime. Our little "night owl" has taken my lead, and it's always been a challenge! A limp, sound asleep child would require a "drink of water, monsters under the bed, etc, etc..--surprisingly about one minute (if that--as soon as his little head hit his pillow)!
Little did we know that "punching the time clock" at 7:00 AM has cured him of it, or . . . let's say he is entering his third year on the job, so it can't be all bad! Plus, he has become a voracious reader!!
And, BTW I first volunteered at his elementary school working with several grade levels (at all levels of ability) by listening to them read, proved to elevate a child's esteem in doing so. I became employed there, and worked with kids for several years.
THAT'S how we rise to "No Child Left Behind"--NOT some catchy phrase that lost meaning as soon as it was uttered!
But as to the title, and one of the central examples, I disagree. Reading to your child is one of the most important and effective ways to promote their education. The best predictor of reading ability, and academic achievement as a whole, is how much a child is read to. Furthermore, it is a factor that is totally within a parent's control. And unlike organic milk, reading is free and to anyone, regardless of income level, race, or even citizen status through our public libraries.
So while I agree with a lot of the article, I would say that not reading to your child does indeed make you a bad parent.
Assuming that you have a library near you.
Assuming that this library is open when you are not at work.
Assuming that you do not ever get sick or incapacitated and find yourself unable to return books... and also unable to pay the fine, so unable to take out NEW books.
Assuming that you have the free time to read to your child - and the energy to do so after you've worked 10 hours, commuted 3, cooked dinner, and made sure that all physical needs were taken care of.
Assuming, of course, that you know how to read fluently. Plenty of adults cannot read well, and struggle to read even basic things. Most picture books are not easy to read, because they assume that the person reading them IS A GROWN-UP.
Adults need to think a bit more before procreating.
I always figure that whatever the parent I'm about to judge isn't doing (reading, volunteering at school), they are probably doing something else that I'm not doing (taking their kid to baseball games, buying organic produce). Not everyone parents the same way.
By the way, I grew up in a household where no one read to me. My parents barely read anything themselves. Too busy working. So tired at the end of the day they watched tv. Yet somehow, miraculously, I managed to become an avid reader. Hmm. Probably because they worked so hard to afford to live in a good school district, etc.
I think we need to teach, above all else, empathy. Most parents do a great job and kids are quite resilient. I do try to read daily to both our kids but it is not always easy.
It's quite possible to stimulate your child's curiosity and open-mindedness without a penny in your pocket, I do it every day.
Omnilingual by Henry Beam Piper
http://librivox.org/omnilingual-by-h-beam-piper/
http://www.feedbooks.com/book/308/omnilingual
Star Surgeon by Alan E. Nourse
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Surgeon-Alan-Nourse/dp/1598180657
http://librivox.org/star-surgeon-by-alan-edward-nourse/
http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=1299
So with the right electronic device:
ASUS Eee Pad Memo Hands On
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV3MCzPHMLs
These little computers can play MP3s and display the text at the same time so children can get do it yourself reading lessons. It is just a question of selecting material now.
http://librivox.org/the-insidious-dr-fu-manchu-by-sax-rohmer/
That's not to suggest that they're not engaging in bad parenting. They are. It's to suggest that some of them aren't so much CHOOSING to be bad parents as they are arriving at it through ignorance, and through values that just differ from those of people whose parents read to them at least occasionally.