On the issue of early development (K. Karpenko)

In «School Psychologist» No. 2, 2010, Alexander Savenkov’s article «Early Development and Learning» was published. As Igor Vachkov noted in a review of Pedagogical Psychology by the same doctor of pedagogical sciences, “one can not agree with all the author’s judgments, sometimes one wants to argue” (I. Vachkov. Bookcase // School psychologist. — 2010. — No. 8. — S. 45.). Alexander Savenkov argues with aplomb that the generally accepted opinion about early development is erroneous, that early development is the future of pedagogy. And he characterizes the negative effects of these methods as mythical. In order to transfer them from the category of myths to the category of facts, we will give a specific example taken from the series of films “Born in the USSR”.

«Born in the USSR»

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The Born in the USSR project was launched in 1989. Sergei Miroshnichenko, at the initiative of the British producer Gemma Jupp, conducted interviews with 20 seven-year-old children from different regions of the USSR. The director asked the children questions about politics, religion, money, power, war, plans for the future, etc. The film also provides brief information about the living conditions of the project’s heroes. The highlight of the project is that follow-up interviews are conducted every seven years. In fact, this is a longitudinal study, with a video report about which anyone can see. To date, three parts have already been released, called, respectively, «Seven Years», «Fourteen Years» and «Twenty One Years».

In the first film of the Seven Years project, we meet Katya. She is a Russian girl living in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. She goes to school, but only for selective classes, the rest is taught by her mother at home. From the materials of the project, we can conclude that Katya began to develop very early and very intensively. For example, when asked about what she knows about God, Katya replied: “In Hindus, God is represented in the form of Buddha. The ancient Romans and ancient Greeks had polytheism. In Africa… what in Africa, I don’t know. Christians have Jesus Christ. Muslims have Allah. The «Little Prince» Antoine de Saint-Exupery, there, here, the drunkard has God — wine, the businessman — money, the astrologer — numbers, the king — power. Like this. Every person has their own god inside. It even predicts fate in the palm of your hand.» Impressive, of course! Not only will no ordinary seven-year-old child answer that way, many adults will not be able to show themselves as worthy. Katya, at the age of seven, reads fluently and plays the piano. The first film ends with the dreams of children. Katya was the only one who dreamed not in her native language — she spoke English.

In the second film of the «Fourteen» project, Katya continues to delight us. Here the author of the film openly characterizes her as a «wunderkind». We learn that she dropped out of school completely in the first grade. Exams are taken externally. Already finishing school. Fluent in English, learning Japanese.

Starting to watch the third part of the «Twenty-One Years» cycle, we expected to see our heroine at the zenith of fame. Maybe young promising scientists who wrote their first monograph at the age of 21, like Jean Piaget. Maybe a professional translator fluent in a dozen languages. But we are in for a disappointment. Katya says that she used to have a feeling that in the future everything will be fine, there will be something impossible — now this feeling is gone. After graduating from school, Katya entered the university with a degree in psychology. But “it became hard for me there, and I left there. I feel guilty. I don’t know why. So just in case. I was mentally ill then. And this was felt for a long time, for a long time I moved away from this: probably for three years. And I still have moments when I feel completely exhausted both physically and internally. It took Katya several years to gather her strength and enter the university for the second time. The host asked: “Do you have such a moment that your bar is set high?” Katya replied: “Now I have begun to get rid of it. Maybe I’m just growing up and learning to accept myself for who I am. And don’t jump so high that I know in advance that I won’t make it. And before, yes, it was.

In 2010, the heroes of the project turn 28, which means that in the coming years we should expect the release of the fourth part. I hope that Katya was able to overcome her difficulties over the years, graduated from the university, achieved at least an average level of well-being both in family and professional life. We are no longer talking about outstanding successes.

It should be noted that even in the first series of the Seven Years project, one can see disturbing signs of trouble in Katya’s development. For example, local tics of the facial muscles, when the skin tightens for a moment in the nose area, which is a clear sign of a mental and (or) neurological disorder. To the question «Do you have friends?» Katya answered without any irony: “I don’t have real friends yet. I have uniplanets and uniplanets.” At the age of fourteen, she described her education as follows: “How they loaded this cramming on a donkey, and take how much your back can withstand. Once every three months, go and check how much luggage you are carrying. This is the system of education.»

Concepts

Alexander Savenkov notes that if we agree on concepts, then the subject of the dispute will simply disappear. Indeed, often this is enough to stop the discussion. But for some reason, the author did not even attempt to define the concepts he uses in his article. Early development is often understood as “the activity of adults that forces the child to acquire knowledge that is usually acquired by children at later stages of development” (G. Kraig “Psychology of Development”. — St. Petersburg, 2002. — P. 293.). We have given a definition, but disagreements remain. Aleksandn Ilyich believes that «it is not so much what we teach that is important, but how we do it.» And from the above definition it is clear that how we do it does not matter, it is important what we do. From this definition it is clear why we are not talking here about the famous system of Maria Montessori, nor about the Waldorf system of Rudolf Steiner. These technologies do not involve teaching preschoolers to read, write, or do math.

The author points out that in the 90s of the last century the ideas of Glenn Doman became popular in our country. This is true, as well as the fact that back in the 80s, our Western colleagues, for the most part, unanimously came to the conclusion that there were serious negative consequences for the social and emotional development of children who were subjected to the methods of Doman and other specialists in early development (G. Craig «Psychology development». — S.-Pb., 2002. — P.293). Such children often lose the ability to communicate informally. This was clearly manifested in Katya: answering every question, she went into philosophical reasoning already at the age of seven. Ironically, such programs cause defects in cognitive development in some children. Although precocious children may shine with special knowledge and skills, they may not have elementary ideas about the physical world. All this in adolescence, youth or adulthood leads to disastrous consequences. A young man may know several languages, play the violin, but since there was no time to “loose” in the sandbox, he may not know that in a dispute a cast-iron scoop is a more compelling argument than a plastic scoop. In early adulthood, the most important are communicative competencies, emotional and volitional qualities. And with this, geeks often have great difficulties: all the forces were spent on the development of intelligence.

Alexander Savenkov, of course, is right that the boundaries of sensitive periods are always individual. Indeed, both the physical and mental capabilities of a person can be very wide. But does this mean that you need to strive for these boundaries, especially when it comes to children? Professional athletes show us the amazing possibilities of the human body. But one Olympic champion noticed that professional sports do not improve health. On the contrary, the constant approach to the limits of human capabilities leads to regular injuries. It is very dangerous.

The voice of the people — the voice of God?

As a final argument, Alexander Savenkov points out that mothers of babies, contrary to the opinion of well-known scientists in the field of pedagogy and educational psychology, strive in every possible way for early education of their children. It’s right. But since when did the voice of the people begin to proclaim the truth? After all, mothers do not draw knowledge about educational psychology from scientific literature, but mainly from TV and partly from popular Internet resources and popular magazines. And there they see endless stories about indigo children, about child prodigies and about various other extraordinarily gifted children. Naturally, there is a desire that her child should also be worthy of being shown on TV. On the other hand, mothers see advertisements there and are subjected to other more subtle methods of brainwashing. Therefore, they know for sure that they and their children must keep up with the times. And they can specifically explain what it means to keep up with the times: what to wear, what and where to eat, where to live, where to rest, what to ride, how to speak.

This attitude to keep up with the times seems to me very controversial. This approach to life is characteristic of Western civilization. It certainly has its advantages, but also colossal disadvantages. In India, for example, the standard of living is much lower than in Russia and even more so in the United States. But the suicide rate is oddly higher in Russia, the US and Europe. Everything is there, but I don’t want to live, because the most important thing is missing: happiness and peace. And the Indians have.

William James, more than a hundred years ago, in lectures to teachers, told how educated Indians came to them in Cambridge. “I don’t understand,” said one of them, “how you can live the way you live: without taking a single minute a day to think in a calm position. With us Hindus, a necessary part of our life is those at least half an hour a day that we spend in silence, in complete peace, holding our breath and contemplating eternity. Every Hindu child is taught this from a very early age.” The good fruits of such habits are manifested in physical calmness, in the absence of tension, in an amazing pleasantness and evenness of facial expression, in the equanimity of Hindus. And I felt that my compatriots themselves are depriving themselves of an important pleasant trait of character” (W. James. “Psychology in Conversations with Teachers.” — St. Petersburg, 2001. — P. 61.).

James’s call to instill in children a similar habit was not heard by either American or Russian teachers. Maybe you should still think about it? Wouldn’t it be better to teach children to stay calm while facing a rapidly changing world, rather than teaching them to keep up with the times and overtake this time, setting a new pace for everyone else?

Many mothers are not interested in neuropsychology, and often do not even know that there is such a science, according to which “there are peaks of maximum readiness of different brain structures for work. One of the most significant of them, associated with the maturation of a number of structures, occurs at the age of 6-7 years ”(Korsakova N.K., Mikadze Yu.V., Balashova E.Yu. Poor children: neuropsychological diagnosis of learning difficulties junior schoolchildren. — M., 2002. — P. 53.). We are talking in particular about the visual, auditory, motor and skin-kinesthetic analyzers. Neuropsychological studies show that only 50% of children reach the level of school maturity at the age of six (Korsakova N. K., Mikadze Yu. . — S. 2002.).

Mothers striving for the early development of their children probably do not think about the fact that in the first seven years of life the child must learn more than in the rest of his life. Even a simple listing of all the milestones in the development of a preschooler would take up more space than this entire article. And it is unlikely that a four-year elementary school program can be inserted into this extremely tight schedule without prejudice to other areas of development.

I am a school psychologist, my duties include attending a psychiatric examination of school students. Not so long ago, I saw a picture when a doctor diagnosed a first grader with “asthenic neurosis-like syndrome”, wrote out a referral for treatment in a day hospital of a neuropsychiatric dispensary and handed it to his mother with the words: “Why did you send a six-year-old child to school. He could not stand the school load. At the age of seven, the child should be sent to school. The mother sits, shedding tears, she can’t say anything: after all, she wanted to get a happy ticket to life for the child, but she received a referral to a psychiatric clinic.

Zankov’s will

If Alexander Savenkov or someone else proves the safety of some method of early development, then humanity will only benefit from this. But in conclusion, I will tell an episode from the life of Leonid Vladimirovich Zankov. When the first results on his system were received, the Ministry of Education ordered a large print run of his textbooks. Leonid Vladimirovich asked with surprise:

— On what basis did you undertake to replicate my experience ?!

— Well, how? You have developed an excellent system, got good results!

— Results?! The results of my work will be known when the students are at least 30 years old. And what results can we talk about now? (Yurkevich V. S. «Round table» on the problems of early development of children. — Issues of psychology. — 2002. — No. 6.)