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skills"</title></head><body>
<div>Here is a ling to a report in the Observer on recent work carried
out in the UK. The results suggest that skill-differences between
working-class and middle-class children are already significant at the
age of 22 months.</div>
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<div
>http://observer.guardian.co.uk/education/story/0,12554,837171,00.html</div
>
<div><br></div>
<div>An article in today's Guardian looks at other findings by the
same researcher (Leon Feinstein)</div>
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<div>http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1034403,00.html</div
>
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<div>She writes :</div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Geneva" size="-4"
color="#000000">very bright children from poor homes and dim but rich
babies at the other end of the scale were already on a steep
trajectory in the opposite directions, the poor/bright travelling fast
downwards, the rich/dim moving up. By nursery school at three, they
have nearly converged. At the age of six, the children's lines cross
and then diverge for evermore as they head off into opposite
futures.</font></blockquote>
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<div>This suggests that whatever schools or stupid teachers may be
doing, the social factors underlying educational inequalities cannot
all be blamed on the educational system. It also seems that language
is a cognitive skill like any other, that skill in this domain is
variable and that it varies for the same reasons as others do.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Personally, this does not surprise me ; I worked for ten years
training French primary-school teachers ; while much could be said
about their recruitment and training, it was clearly the case that the
majority of them cared about the children they were to teach, were
aware of the difficulties faced by those in the underprivileged
suburban schools that most young teachers start their careers in, and
did their best to ensure that their young charges succeeded in
mastering the material on the curriculum.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>School labeling processes coupled with a system of triage that
puts children under increasing levels of stress may well play a role
in the widening of the skill gap. But schooling alone does not account
for it.</div>
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<div>Best wishes</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Timothy Mason</div>
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