When my daughter was 1 year old, I tried to teach her how to put big Lego-ish bricks on each other properly. She randomly rotated the brick in her hand, and tried to put it on the other brick. When the brick in hand had the hole at the bottom, sometimes the bricks connected successfully; when the brick in hand was rotated differently, she tried to push them together, and then threw the brick away in frustration. I tried to explain, by talking and showing repeatedly, how the brick in the hand needs to be held with the hole facing down… and then I just gave up, because there was no progress. I decided to simply ignore the Lego.
A week or two later, my daughter found the Lego bricks again, and this time she was putting them together correctly.
There were a few experiences like this, when I concluded that sometimes the right thing to do is to wait. Things that are difficult now may become simple later. If instead I stubbornly tried to teach her the Lego bricks every day, likely making us both frustrated, one day she would learn to do it properly, and I would congratulate myself for my patience. But I would be wrong, because simply not doing anything would have achieved exactly the same outcome.
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When my daughter was 2 years old, I taught her a few words in English, and also how to draw. People were impressed by both outcomes. Later I didn’t have time and patience to practice the English regularly, so she gradually forgot most of what she knew. But drawing remained her favorite activity, and she kept drawing almost every day. People continue being impressed with her drawing skills.
This suggests that when you teach a specific skill (after you have waited enough to make teaching it possible), the important thing is to keep going. If you keep going, the Matthew effect will bless you; if you stop, you will start reverting to the mean. This may not be immediately visible when you are at the age when “the mean” also means progress, only much slower than it could have been otherwise.
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So, I think that both Zvi’s or moridinamael’s conclusions may be correct, depending on the situation. Sometimes the problem is trying to teach a skill too soon. Sometimes the problem is teaching the skill and then letting it revert.
Also, the right timing for the skill may depend on child’s IQ. Some children are ready to start reading at 3, others are ready at 6. The kindergarten trying to teach reading at 4 or 5 may fail to achieve long-term improvement with different kids for different reasons.
You don’t know that doing nothing would have achieved the same outcome with the Lego bricks. Perhaps what she needed was to have someone show her what to do and then have some time elapse.
(That’s not an argument for trying to teach her every day, of course. But if you did and she eventually figured it out, you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong to give your teaching some of the credit. Explaining once and waiting might be just as effective, but that doesn’t mean that explaining not at all and just waiting would have been.)
Yeah, the correct conclusion is probably to give me partial credit. First, to account for the fact that my intervention was only a part of a larger causal chain (some credit rightfully goes for buying the bricks, right?), some parts of which I don’t even know about (this becomes prominent now in kindergarten, where I have no idea about all the little things they do). Second, because that’s how one deals with probabilities (if you assume 20% chance you caused something, take 20% of the credit, it will work on average).
But I try to be humble, because I believe that people overestimate their impact. First, because they forget about many other influences (including the genes, and the child’s own work); second, because they assume 100% probability whenever there is a plausible story (and there usually is one). So, whenever I see an opportunity to impart some knowledge painlessly, I go for it, but in far mode I believe I deserve much less credit than it feels I do. (Not “less credit” as in “less than other parents”, but as in “parents in general deserve less credit than they feel they do”.)
Related: Bryan Caplan’s Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids.
When my daughter was 1 year old, I tried to teach her how to put big Lego-ish bricks on each other properly. She randomly rotated the brick in her hand, and tried to put it on the other brick. When the brick in hand had the hole at the bottom, sometimes the bricks connected successfully; when the brick in hand was rotated differently, she tried to push them together, and then threw the brick away in frustration. I tried to explain, by talking and showing repeatedly, how the brick in the hand needs to be held with the hole facing down… and then I just gave up, because there was no progress. I decided to simply ignore the Lego.
A week or two later, my daughter found the Lego bricks again, and this time she was putting them together correctly.
There were a few experiences like this, when I concluded that sometimes the right thing to do is to wait. Things that are difficult now may become simple later. If instead I stubbornly tried to teach her the Lego bricks every day, likely making us both frustrated, one day she would learn to do it properly, and I would congratulate myself for my patience. But I would be wrong, because simply not doing anything would have achieved exactly the same outcome.
*
When my daughter was 2 years old, I taught her a few words in English, and also how to draw. People were impressed by both outcomes. Later I didn’t have time and patience to practice the English regularly, so she gradually forgot most of what she knew. But drawing remained her favorite activity, and she kept drawing almost every day. People continue being impressed with her drawing skills.
This suggests that when you teach a specific skill (after you have waited enough to make teaching it possible), the important thing is to keep going. If you keep going, the Matthew effect will bless you; if you stop, you will start reverting to the mean. This may not be immediately visible when you are at the age when “the mean” also means progress, only much slower than it could have been otherwise.
*
So, I think that both Zvi’s or moridinamael’s conclusions may be correct, depending on the situation. Sometimes the problem is trying to teach a skill too soon. Sometimes the problem is teaching the skill and then letting it revert.
Also, the right timing for the skill may depend on child’s IQ. Some children are ready to start reading at 3, others are ready at 6. The kindergarten trying to teach reading at 4 or 5 may fail to achieve long-term improvement with different kids for different reasons.
You don’t know that doing nothing would have achieved the same outcome with the Lego bricks. Perhaps what she needed was to have someone show her what to do and then have some time elapse.
(That’s not an argument for trying to teach her every day, of course. But if you did and she eventually figured it out, you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong to give your teaching some of the credit. Explaining once and waiting might be just as effective, but that doesn’t mean that explaining not at all and just waiting would have been.)
Yeah, the correct conclusion is probably to give me partial credit. First, to account for the fact that my intervention was only a part of a larger causal chain (some credit rightfully goes for buying the bricks, right?), some parts of which I don’t even know about (this becomes prominent now in kindergarten, where I have no idea about all the little things they do). Second, because that’s how one deals with probabilities (if you assume 20% chance you caused something, take 20% of the credit, it will work on average).
But I try to be humble, because I believe that people overestimate their impact. First, because they forget about many other influences (including the genes, and the child’s own work); second, because they assume 100% probability whenever there is a plausible story (and there usually is one). So, whenever I see an opportunity to impart some knowledge painlessly, I go for it, but in far mode I believe I deserve much less credit than it feels I do. (Not “less credit” as in “less than other parents”, but as in “parents in general deserve less credit than they feel they do”.)
Related: Bryan Caplan’s Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids.
I’d read Viliam as agreeing with your comment.