This is a very, very good book. If I recorded all the excerpts that I found interesting and helpful, I'd be copying practically the whole book (and probably get in some copyright trouble). Here's a sample from my reading this morning in which the author, Jane Healy, talks about how children learn problem-solving skills from the adults (hopefully, parents) in their life. Sadly, these adult-child activities, such as mealtime conversations, cooking together, relaxing, playing games, doing errands, working with tools, cleaning the house, are joining "the dinosaur category", as Dr. Healy puts it.
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Disadvantages in models of thinking are obviously not restricted to the children of the poor...I would like to stretch this point with one personal experience.
This year I spent a lovely fall afternoon with some friends who live in a modest house in a rural area that has recently become the setting for a number of large, expensive new homes. The husband, a math teacher, had confided to me that he was beginning to feel self-conscious because he suddenly realized, observing his new neighbors, that he couldn't afford to give his son many of the advantages of their children. He admitted to particularly uneasy feelings when he watched his son's new friends being trundled off to the expensive schools, camps, computer and music lessons, etc.
On the day I visited, this dad and his son were heavily engaged in a tactical war with the family dog, an accomplished escape artist who had systematically broken out of every pen every constructed for her. Armed with tool kit, boards, and wire mesh, they spent the entire afternoon contriving an escape-proof enclosure. As his wife and I sat in the yard, enjoying the autumn sun, I observed them reasoning together. "But Dad, if we...she might..." "What do you think will happen if...?" "Why don't we try... because..."
As an unregenerate speculator about growing brains, I found myself having visions of pathways being forged between the hemispheres as parent and child talked about and physically manipulated the three-dimensional problem at hand. Their efforts inevitably linked verbal and visual-spatial systems in the way the brain learns best - with a firsthand problem. When one solution didn't work, the son got frustrated and wanted to give up, but his father patiently suggested they try yet another approach, while I fancied prefrontal neurons joyously reaching out to each other to strengthen systems for planning, attention, and problem-solving.
Meanwhile, on the large grounds next door, another youngster of about the same age amused himself for the entire afternoon zooming at top speed - and top volume - around house, stable, and swimming pool on a four-wheeled motorized vehicle that he propelled by pushing a pedal.
"Yeah," said my friend's son with just a trace of envy in his voice. "He rides it all year-round. His mom's usually at a meeting or something, but sometimes his dad takes him out to play golf with him on the weekends. Their maid doesn't speak much English, so she never even makes him do his homework."
"It's really a shame," my friend remarked. "His parents are so worried about that child. He's quite intelligent but they found out he has a learning disability. They have to send him to a special school because he got such poor grades and couldn't concentrate long enough to do his assignments."
"Learning disadvantaged" children are found everywhere.
from "Endangered Minds: Why our children don't think", Jane M. Healy, PhD, p. 252, 253
