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Spoiler Alert: Smart Kids Become Successful Adults
itwbennett writes "Researchers from the University of Edinburgh set out to test the long-held assumption that kids who performed well in school at a young age carried that early success through to adulthood. And prove it they did! Specifically, 'Math and reading ability at age 7 may be linked with socioeconomic status several decades later.' Early success even correlates 'over and above associations with intelligence, education, and socioeconomic status in childhood.'"
And this is why we need good teachers in the school system when the kids are at a young age. This is how I would re-organize the Canadian school system in Ontario:
1) Religion in schools need to be cut. Replace Religion with math and science, math and science promote logic, God promotes making up stories because we want to.
2) Teach math and science harder, really push them as corner stones of education, if students aren't getting the concepts increase class length. I would say by grade 5 you should be comfortable with variables.
3) Every day should have a gym component where kids are FORCED to participate,
4) Science class should contain hands on experiments and labs. If you can't test it, don't teach it.
5) Find a way to make homework interactive, not just copy question out of a book.
6) Computer Programming should become a mandatory class starting in grade 4, get kids playing with visual languages, they massively help you learn and work out logical problems that be applied in other areas.
7) Music class, make kids learn instruments or at least get involved with Music, this will allow there creative abilities to expand.
8) Don't let the kids sit more then 1 hour at a time, make sure they're moving around and getting involved in the class.
Those would be the initial adjustments I would make, I'm sure it's not perfect but it's a FAR better system then one currently in place.
Actually, the article says the exact opposite of the title. The title should say
Spoiler Alert: *SUCCESSFUL* Kids Become Successful Adults
because the article says:
These findings imply that basic childhood skills, independent of how smart you are, how long you stay in school, or the social class you started off in, will be important throughout your life," say Ritchie and Bates.
In my hometown the percentage of kids on meal assistance at their schools is so high ...
Sorry, but "being on meal assistance" does not in any way whatsoever imply "does not get enough to eat."
In fact the opposite is true: obesity rates are negatively correlated with income, and kids at the very bottom of the poverty scale are the fattest.
America has a serious nutrition problem, but we certainly do not have a systematic hunger problem, and claiming or implying that we do is just diverting attention from the actual problem.