Thursday, December 17, 2009

A worthy post

An ambitious social experiment: the Harlem Children's zone - Life Matters - 11 December 2009

I happened to hear part of this radio documentary on the Harlem Children's Zone, a project designed to make a difference to the socially disadvantaged kids of that area.

It was really quite interesting, explaining how adult work training programs don't generally work, yet some relatively simple interventions in very early childhood show clear and lasting benefits for the kids.

I've always felt a bit suspicious of some of the claims of the early childhood intervention academics. It just sounded like a field of study which wanted to carve out a new niche industry of toddler teachers.

But this documentary sounded very convincing, at least if you talking of the advantages early intervention shows in really poor/disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

It's well worth a listen, which is your only choice as there is no transcript.

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