Why the Name Birth2Work Is Important to Us

In our last E-card message to you, we shared the text of a presentation Birth2Work Co-Founder Rick Stephens was asked to give in Washington, DC. Political leaders had asked that he give them greater insight, from a corporate leader’s point of view, into the continuing performance decline of US students in math, science and technology advancement.  Rick spoke plainly to them about the fact that he has been working this problem for 10 years and yet has seen no real progress.  He was disappointed to report about student’s slow progress and declining interests in math/science careers, especially when considered next to the millions and millions of dollars spent, the hundreds of thousands of hours invested in time, and the thousands of programs and policy initiatives put out for public consumption. 

One’s first inclination might be to ask, “what can be done about the declining performance of young people in math and science classes?”  But at Birth2Work, we have been asking a different question: Of the students who do well in math/science classes, what is the difference in their background and life experience from the many who continue to show weak performance?  This kind of question yields a very different answer with bigger, broader implications for parents, early child development, community life, work outside of the classroom, and engagement in enriching activities.  To look at schools as the main place where education occurs in the life of a child is to dismiss the impact of the whole rest of the world in which that child is engaged.   After all, being good at solving textbook math problems is valuable only if the next achievement is the ability to solve real living complex problems.   But that takes practice and some real life experience; not just pushing a plastic computer button to change the screen when something goes wrong.  

In a recent ABC News feature, a leading scientist was being interviewed about recent reports on animals and adaptive learning behavior.  The scientist reported plainly that as animals can be shown to be adaptive learners, it is likely man is that way and more.  In fact, mankind is likely more of a product of his experiences and his environment than his genes.  He will adapt to whatever circumstances life hands him.  Doesn’t sound radical until you consider closely the life of most young people today—indoors, sitting on their bottoms, endlessly pressing small, smooth buttons that require little more than the jittery movement of fingers for up to 12 hours a day.   This is compared to robust time outdoors, running, biking, climbing, and creating.  For kids of yesteryear, outdoor time wasn’t just play time, it was work time.  It was the time to create home made adventures.  They worked within the context of their environment, problem solved, tested their understanding about how things worked, and talked about solutions to problems.   This isn’t an indictment against technology or media.  It is a statement about what human beings need at different stages of their lives to thrive and how we have tried to take so many shortcuts in raising our children.

The time from birth to work is a precious, invaluable and unforgiving period in the life of human beings.  What you learn first about anything in this time frame stays with you in your heart and your brain forever.  It serves us well to take heed and think about the many ways we try to short cut our engagement with our children.   Birth2Work subscribes to the belief that the opportunity to work is one of our greatest gifts as human beings.   Through work, we each apply what we know to the production of something that others will want to offer us an exchange for, so that we can, in turn, exchange for something else we may not want to produce for ourselves.  In our culture we spend years preparing ourselves for the work we most want to do and define ourselves by.  It is what we most frequently use as a conversation starter and a basis for friendship.  In our culture and in our natural lives, every stage has its own unique work requirements. 

A man once smiled when I told him my organization’s name was Birth2Work. “Ah ha,” he smiled at me and said, “I am from Ethiopia.  In my country, some children are born, turn 4 years old, and then get to work caring for their family’s sheep.”  Consider that in our country we’ve broadly decided that education need not even begin until age 5.  Is there a way to improve student learning and achievement by improving the life of children from the time they are born?   It is well-documented and well-known, but not so well practiced in time.  Beginning with this week’s show, our Birth2Work team will begin one of the most important series of shows we have done. This series will be dedicated to the thoughtful and practical understanding of how important early child experiences are in shaping the adults we would like our children to become. 

With this show and the documentation that our guest, Ken Collins, is doing with his infant son, we will begin to directly challenge old paradigms about the impact of adult behavior on little ones, what they really need more than toys and computer time, and how small changes in our knowledge and understanding of human development can do more to develop capable learners than most have ever dreamed. We all care about the demands the future will make on our children and whether or not they are prepared.  Meet the new generation of parent who is prepared to get it right with his son from the beginning.

Another quick story: on the January 20, 2010 front page of The New York Times, there appeared a story about Malaysia and Singapore’s warring efforts to attract a 9 year- old boy who has the chemistry and physics capabilities of a 16 year old.  I noticed, however, that buried in the story was a question by the reporter to the family about when they knew he was so bright.  The answer was that he could crawl at 4 months and he had an insatiable appetite to learn.  Maybe that doesn’t have to be unusual.

Meet Ken Collins.
I’ve invited Ken to speak with us on this radio program several times before to discuss topics relevant to his work in media and technology, but for this program I invited him on to discuss his experience at the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential in Pennsylvania where he went for a one-week training in their “How to Multiply Your Baby’s Intelligence” parent course. We recorded this program almost immediately after he returned home and shortly before his son, Jackson, was born. Since then, Ken has kept an extraordinary video blog where he’s documenting his application of the things the Institute taught him. Reading his blog is a terrific follow up to listening to this program! (http://www.bestdadblog.com/)

By sharing his experience with you, my hope is to convey the confidence and optimism that comes with being prepared for bringing home baby. Even if you are past your early child-rearing years, you may be close to, or already, grandparents. As aunts, uncles, or a caregiver of any kind to the future of our country, we owe it to ourselves to move past any defensiveness about how we were raised, and take whatever actions we can to do more. Seventy or more years ago, when kids were born at home, and people had large families for the sake of populating new cities and tending the farms, child birth and new babies were not nearly as foreign as they are to many Americans today. When intelligent, thoughtful, confident people get reduced to frightened, worried puddles over their baby’s care, something is desperately wrong. No one questions that to be an effective professional in the workforce, it takes years of college, maybe graduate school and/or other specialized training to learn the skills necessary to support and advance the business; so I hope that any personal stigma about individuals training to be the best parents they can be is relieved. Stay open and confident parents and caregivers.  

Remember that for all of us who have raised children to those who are thinking about it, the child is not our possession, but someone who passes through our lives.  Our goal is for them to be capable, proven learners who can successfully adapt to any of life’s challenges or opportunities.  Our single greatest opportunity to lay this foundation is from the time they are born to the time they find their own place in society.  Happiness is not the end goal for them.  Happiness is the result of confidence and knowledge that they are able to achieve their goals and give back to the community that provided a safe place for them to grow and be nourished. We must consciously work with our children in order to assure they get the real world experiences they need to build their foundation for success.

Next on Birth2Work Radio:  Elane and Rick welcome two guests discussing athleticism, discipline, and the physical components of professional excellence, Aleks Mihailovic and Kevin Stroud. Aleks, a former professional soccer player and founder of the Chicago-based training group Soccer Made in America, and Kevin, an ultra-marathon runner and founder of the software solutions company NexLAN, speak with the hosts on the parallel strategies they’ve employed for professional excellence and how they’ve developed stakeholder strategies for teaching kids in their communities the same practices. Please join us!