Baby College

An important social science research project was conducted in Kansas City in the 1980s. It involved two sets of families: one whose parents were on welfare and one whose parents worked professional jobs. The project discovered that the biggest difference between the families' children was language. The kids of the parents who worked professional jobs learned 20 million more words during their first three years of life than the kids whose parents were on welfare. In addition, the middle class children heard 500,000 words of encouragement and 80,000 words of discouragement. The welfare children, on the other hand, heard 80,000 words of encouragement and 200,000 words of discouragement. Most of this was the regular jibber jabber that parents talk to their little ones.

This discrepancy has huge effects, of course. The middle class kids' emotional and cognitive developments tend to be better than those of the welfare ones. Patience and self-control are also more difficult to acquire for those on welfare. And the earlier you come in contact with more and positive words, the better; it becomes increasingly difficult and nearly impossible to be emotionally stable, be a good problem-solver, and demonstrate self-discipline once you pass your kindergarten years without learning enough positive words.

That's where the one and only Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children’s Zone steps in. He developed a program called Baby College, which takes place over nine consecutive Saturdays, designed to teach lower class families how to properly raise their children. The class is more of a group of parents and instructors feeding off of each other new ideas and tips instead of instructors telling the young parents what to do. They educate them on the psychological needs of the children and how to foster those needs to make it work to the youngsters' advantages. For example, misbehaving, or at least how the adults see it, isn't necessarily a child's way of ignoring the rules. Children won't always sit still, they need to explore their worlds. That's a big step to brain development. Another extremely beneficial thing to do is to read to your kids every night. It doesn't matter if it's the same book day after day, as long as they love it their imaginations are enhanced and they build up their vocab.

This American Life broadcast of Baby College.