once a bunch of us were sitting around talking about babies. my friend liz said that she was not into breastfeeding and i said that breastfeeding is better for your baby's brain development (or something) and she said "well, my baby will just have to be a little bit dumb then."
so this morning i was reading the Anchorage Daily News and came across this headline: "Study links poetry and lower achievement test scores." naturally i read on, and this is what it had to say (this is from the Washington Post orginally, so if someone without dial up wants to link to it, that'd be great. i don't have the patience):
"Fill your house with books if you want little Billy or Beth to grow up to be an academic all-star. Shakespeare is good. But stay away from poetry [side note: since when is Shakespeare NOT poetry? maybe they're thinking poetry equals e.e. cummings "anyone lived in a pretty how town" or whatever that is. anyway.] -- it may dumb down your child.
A research team headed by demographer Jonathan Kelley, of Brown University and the University of Melbourne, analyzed data from a study of scholastic ability in 43 countries, including the United States.
The researchers found that a child from a family have 500 books at home scored, on average, 112 points higher on the acheievement test than one from an otherwise identical family have only one book -- and that's after they factored in parents' education, occupation, income and other things associated with academic performance.
The researchers say a big home library reflects the parents' dedication to the life of the mind, which probably nurtures scholastic accomplishment in their offspring.
They also found that not all books are created equal: 'Having poetry books around is actively harmful by the same amount,' perhaps because it signals a 'Bohemian' lifestyle that may encourages kids to become guitar-strumming, poetry-reading dreamers."
in the great words of my friend liz, "well, my [kids] will just have to be a little bit dumb then."
3 comments:
That's such crap! So art and philosophy don't count in quantifiable intelligence tests? Because "intelligence" is all about not questioning the norm... And I'm guessing similar "studies" would show that works like the Rubaiyyat or The Tale of Genji just aren't up to par...
Incidentally, I used to hate e e cummings (I thought he was trying too hard with the anti-punctuation), but then I read really do like "anyone lived in a pretty how town" in high school and have been a fan since. Not a huge fan. But a fan.
Rainster- read "ViVa" by Cummings. It's awesome.
The anti-poetry thing is dumb. I've been reading poetry to my son for 9 months now, and he's outperforming all other 9 month old babies on the SAT.
Oh, and while I was typing that, he was playing with Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the U.S." How's that for smarts? (And maybe left-wing hippie instincts, too.)
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