heartbreaking...
heard on 6th St x Howard today:
a mother walking hand in hand with her 2 or 3 year old.
child points up at a building, wanting to share something he saw
her response:
fuck shut the fuck up marcus
you don't fucking know fuck.
shut the fuck up or i'll punch your face
i looked over, she wasn't particularly angry, just annoyed. didn't look like she'd be violent. i kept walking. i'm half a block away and i can still hear her
shut the fuck up.
fuck. just shut up.
fuck marcus fuck.
*by age four, the average child in a welfare family has heard 32 million fewer words than the average child in a professional family
*by age three, children from families on welfare have a cumulative vocabulary
of 525 words; three-year-olds from professional families have a vocabulary of 1,116 words
*The average child in a professional family receives 32 affirmatives and five prohibitions per hour, a ratio of 6 encouragements to 1 discouragement.
The average child in a working-class family receives 12 affirmatives and seven prohibitions per hour, a ratio of 2 encouragements to 1 discouragement.
The average child in a welfare family, though, receives five affirmatives and 11 prohibitions per hour, a ratio of 1 encouragement to 2 discouragements.
*...In a 5,200-hour year, that would be:
166,000 encouragements to 26,000 discouragements in a professional family, 62,000 encouragements to 36,000 discouragements in a working-class family, & 26,000 encouragements to 57,000 discouragements in a welfare family.
this is all by the time a child is four.
source, inspiration, and possibly hope:
http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/spring2003/catastrophe.html
http://www.powells.com/biblio/7-9780618569892-0
http://www.hcz.org/home
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1262
a mother walking hand in hand with her 2 or 3 year old.
child points up at a building, wanting to share something he saw
her response:
fuck shut the fuck up marcus
you don't fucking know fuck.
shut the fuck up or i'll punch your face
i looked over, she wasn't particularly angry, just annoyed. didn't look like she'd be violent. i kept walking. i'm half a block away and i can still hear her
shut the fuck up.
fuck. just shut up.
fuck marcus fuck.
*by age four, the average child in a welfare family has heard 32 million fewer words than the average child in a professional family
*by age three, children from families on welfare have a cumulative vocabulary
of 525 words; three-year-olds from professional families have a vocabulary of 1,116 words
*The average child in a professional family receives 32 affirmatives and five prohibitions per hour, a ratio of 6 encouragements to 1 discouragement.
The average child in a working-class family receives 12 affirmatives and seven prohibitions per hour, a ratio of 2 encouragements to 1 discouragement.
The average child in a welfare family, though, receives five affirmatives and 11 prohibitions per hour, a ratio of 1 encouragement to 2 discouragements.
*...In a 5,200-hour year, that would be:
166,000 encouragements to 26,000 discouragements in a professional family, 62,000 encouragements to 36,000 discouragements in a working-class family, & 26,000 encouragements to 57,000 discouragements in a welfare family.
this is all by the time a child is four.
source, inspiration, and possibly hope:
http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/spring2003/catastrophe.html
http://www.powells.com/biblio/7-9780618569892-0
http://www.hcz.org/home
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1262