Edward Seaga, Contributor
THE BACK-TO-SCHOOL trek begins the annual ritual of buying uniforms and books, finding school fees, bus fares and lunch money for each student.
For the great majority of parents, this is their involvement in the education system. The process of education is left in the hands of the schools which are expected to produce the successful scholars which parents expect at the end of ten years of schooling, or more, if you count basic school time.
In the view of most parents, real education begins at the primary school age. The pre-primary or early childhood years used to be considered the 'play-play' period where small children could be usefully occupied in supervised play with some basic mental (memory) work added.
However, over the past decade, there has been a wider realisation in Jamaica that there is greater importance to be attached to the learning experiences of the pre-school years. Many parents are not quite sure why, but there is enough talk to convince them that it is important for the child not to miss the early years of training.
Scientific advances have been laying the foundation for this new look at early childhood focus. The new mantra is that the brain is most open to learning in the first few years of life. Thereafter, up to 12 years, the window for enhanced learning is still open, but with less effectiveness. After 12 years, it is much harder to learn.
The scientific reason offered is that the human brain in the very early stage has some 200 billion brain cells which are available to be linked into a communication network with each other and the central brain mechanism. These linkages are made through experiences involving the use of the five senses.
Half of these brain cells will die in a few years because they were far in excess of what was needed. Those that are linked form the functional brain.
The greater the exposure to experiences for learning, the sharper the brain. Conversely, if experiences are limited, the brain will be dull.
I spoke extensively on this as far back as 1997 in Parliament and, thereafter, on many
occasions in trying to build public awareness on the need for ensuring that the small child is exposed to as many different experiences as possible in the earliest years to maximise its brain development.
GOOD, BAD EXPERIENCES
Recently, science has been moving even further ahead. There are good and bad experiences. The experiences of greatest value is the tender, loving, care of caregivers, particularly mothers, who interact with the child. If these caring environmental experiences are further enriched by a physical environment which is not a stressful obstacle course, together they build a bigger and better brain.
Conversely, stressful conditions - poverty, separation from family, aggressive contacts, - have the opposite effect. They create an environmental impact which limits the development of the brain in size and capability.
A still further step has been taken in recent scientific research. Chemical messengers that control certain emotional centres in the brain which regulate responses of the individual to the environment, have been identified. These responses can calm potentially aggressive action or can be hostile and, given other negative environmental factors, become violent.
These findings are unravelling a new gateway for dealing with violent behaviour and opening a promising door to stabilising emotional responses which can, in turn, enhance the capacity of the brain to learn and more importantly, reduce the disposition to violence.
The scientific research which supports these findings can be found in the Pulitzer Prize winning book Inside the Brain by Ronald Kotulak, from which I first quoted in 1997. Other quotations from this penetrating prize-winning book, will further illustrate the arguments advanced:
"Faced with new evidence about how the brain develops and functions, many scientists are concluding that the society is wasting a tremendous amount of brain power of its young, and creating a lot of unnecessary problems including crime, aggression and depression, later on in their lives. We are underinvested in our children", says Frederick Goodwin, former Director of the National Institute of Mental Health in the U.S.A.
Bruce McEwen of Rockefeller University makes a very clear statement on the neurological environmental connection:
"Bad experiences affect the brain primarily through stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Designated to respond to psychological or physical danger, these hormones prepare the body for fight or flight. Normally such changes are smooth: The brain and body are prepared for action when needs be and then put back on an even keel when the danger is over.
"But when these hormones are overactive as a result of persistent stress encountered during foetal development or early childhood, they can take over greater regulation like a band of terrorists. The terrorised genes then set up aberrant networks of connections between brain cells imprinting how the brain has mislearned: an epileptic seizure instead of a clear signal between cells, a depressive episode instead of a happy thought, a surge of rage instead of a willingness to compromise."
Dr. Michael Merzenich of the University of California at San Francisco says, "We can now see how a learning disability could arise from a child's bad experience."
On the other hand, the author, Ron Kotulak, notes that the brain is very resilient and maintains an even course in the face of the most outrageous experiences. That is why most children born in conditions of poverty and violence come out okay. Scientists suspect that the reason some children, regardless of their social or economic status, come out with damaged brains may be that they are genetically more vulnerable to stress.
Furthermore, their bad experiences are not neutralised by a caring parent or involved adult.
CARING PARENTING
Emphasis throughout the presentation of Inside the Brain is on caring parenting and avoidance of stressful experiences. Continuation of scientific research along these lines will one day reinforce good parenting with medication that can reduce the disposition to aggressiveness and violence and the impairment of the brain to learning. This medical solution to social problems like violent behaviour is on the horizon of the research agenda.
Where does Jamaica stand in this revolutionary approach? The Education Reform Programme is soon to be launched. There is
little or no money to meet the $22 billion required for the average annual additional expenditure. The reform programme is designed principally to deal with the traditional problems of the primary and secondary levels of education. These do not address the most critical problem of all: 70 per cent of students entering primary schools fail the readiness test. These students are almost entirely from basic schools. They come from stressful environments in great part. Building a primary and secondary educational programme on this weak base produces shocking results: only 15 per cent success at the end of the road.
There is a critical need to shift the focus to a scientifically-oriented programme of reform of early childhood education, dealing not only with the needs of the classroom but the environment which moulds the child. There is a clear case for a separate and different treatment for early childhood education in any national reform programme. If it is to achieve the revolutionary results that are critically needed to produce the solid base on which the superstructure of education can rest: 85 per cent passes, 15 per cent failure, the opposite of what now occurs.
The first step is to split off early childhood education into a separate educational entity governed by its own foundation. Second, restructure the programme on the basis of a bold design to deal not just with the needs of the classroom but the stressful conditions of the social environment. Third, finance the entire early childhood education reform programme as one national project.
The Caribbean Development Bank would be my target for financing. The World Bank has always focused on secondary education, the IADB on higher education and USAID on
primary education. It is time for a special internationally-funded programme targeting early childhood education. I am confident that funds would be attracted if we adopt a comprehensive approach by packaging it as a national programme, perhaps the first of its kind, to create the footprints of a new generation of Jamaicans and those to follow.
It is the only way to guarantee a future as an educated nation.
Edward Seaga is a former prime minister. He is now a Distinguished Fellow at the UWI. Email: odf@uwimona.edu.jm.
