<p>Youngest kid, smartest kid?</p>
<p>Against</a> Redshirting: Why It Pays to Be the Youngest Kid in Class : The New Yorker</p>
<p>This is flawed research like the effects of coffee drinking on your health. Every 6 months they report the opposite results.</p>
<p>^^ Care to elaborate on why it is "flawed’?</p>
<p>I didn’t see where they separated optional/discretionary redshirting – the kind where a parent decides to hold back a high- or medium-achieving child – from redshirting done for “cause” or a perceived need due to a child underperforming with children the same age.</p>
<p>So, with these two groups commingled, it seems almost axiomatic that children who were held back do not perform as well as those who weren’t. I’m not sure that it follows from these populations that we can say that being younger pays off. The younger kids who were not held back might simply have been doing well to begin with. Reduce their numbers by kids who were not thriving in that class year and, guess what? The group that remains in that class will do well. Add to their numbers the children who are a year older who weren’t doing well with their age cohorts and, voila!, they get instantly brighter – all without learning a damn thing to boot! Maybe I missed the part where they account for this dynamic or maybe they did and just didn’t bother to tell us. If not, then I’d say that this is flawed.</p>
<p>I imagine the learning dynamic is different for kids redshirted in kindergarten who are assigned coursework according to GRADE, as compared to ‘repeat’ kids in elite prep schools who are assigned coursework according to ABILITY.</p>
<p>Thanks for posting this. It’s a nice balance to Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers.” Our child (N=1) is one of those who had always been the youngest but is also high performing academically and athletically. While we have often wondered if we should have redshirted, simply because of peer pressure, at this point (Junior Year) it seems like a moot point. Perhaps all this article would have done for us years ago is alleviate guilt. Now it just validates what we think we knew intuitively. Ultimately, it’s about doing what your child is developmentally ready for. And if parents can’t be objective about their child (few can), they can seek support from those with experience. It’s also important to consider the impact on the classroom - it’s very hard on teachers to have an age range of 18 months+, particularly in the early grades.</p>
<p>From my outside the box perspective (I homeschooled my boys until they were older), I now watch many little boys in my daughter’s classes exhaust themselves trying to sit still and pay attention all day, well before they’re developmentally ready, I wonder how many smart boys are redshirted by their parents because they are simply physically and emotionally unready to be in a formal school setting at five or even six, sitting at desks for hours; writing and drawing when they want to be building with legos and wrestling; and learning to read to read whether their brains are ready or not for that huge step. I remember feeling nothing but relief that I didn’t have to send my boys off to a full school day when they were little. </p>
<p>In Finland–the school system du jour–children don’t start formal schooling until age seven. In my local public school, we start intensively teaching reading when children are five. Without access to good subsidized childcare or good parental leave, parents demand earlier full-time school and that, coupled with our obsession with creating Baby Einsteins, creates a too much, too fast environment that may be at least partially responsible for the redshirting of little boys. In our case, an hour (in fifteen minute spurts) of direct instruction in math and reading/writing coupled with lots of read-aloud time and even more active play was all the boys needed to develop their minds and bodies at an age appropriate level until they were 7 or 8–and I remember what a challenge it was to even get them to sit and concentrate for those short spurts! I remember teaching my oldest (currently at Exeter) basic addition and subtraction through hopscotch. :)</p>
<p>It’s not age IMO–it’s hard for teachers to have students with a wide range of learning readiness. From my observation (I’m a teacher and I’ve spent lots of time volunteering in my daughter’s classroom), readiness has very little to do with age–I’ve seen 7 1/2 olds who could barely read cat and those who were just over 6 voraciously reading chapter books. In fact, I had two sons who fit that description–both of whom are successful high school students today.</p>
<p>As usual, when it comes to kids, one size never fits all–but formal ed. starting at a later age is a norm in those countries whose education systems we love to compare with our own.</p>
<p>I was always young for my class and finally took a redshirt year in college. At Cambridge. Best damn year of my life.</p>
<p>We did not intentionally “redshirt” our son but essentially he moved to a new school in 6th grade and he repeated 6th. The school he entered was a year ahead of the school he was leaving so it all balanced out. His birthday is in March so he was one of the older kids in his class. The only advantage I saw was in the area of maturity. He is definitely more mature than his peers but that may also have to do with his personality in general. He is currently starting his 9th grade year at Andover and the adjustment has been smooth. The question was part of the application process- was he held back and why? We did intentionally hold our second son back, August birthday and diagnosed with an extreme case of AHDH- Hyperactive, Impulsive and inattentive. All studies aside, I think boys benefit from an extra year of maturity. I believe that the education system is getting so rushed that we are overlooking the value of learning that takes place from play and the development of the imagination. When I talk to parents who are taking this under consideration my advice is always that I have never met a parent who regretted holding a
a child back but I have met many parents who wished they did. I would always err on the side of caution.</p>
<p>I redshirted 2 kids - a Sept. girl who would not have been kindergarten eligible in about 30 states (our state had a Dec cutoff at that point, but has changed it) and a June boy who was no developmentally ready for K at 5. I have no regrets, but sometimes the questions and demands to justify our decisions from other parents are rather surprising. I sought professional advise - and I took it. We all try to do what is best for our individual children, right?</p>
<p>The study–at least as reported in the magazine–does not seem to account for students who were redshirted by parents for developmental reasons that might well still be affecting their academic progress in high school. Same is true for the other cohort–younger kids are often sent to school because their parents recognize that they are ready for school, even if on the young side. So I’d say that blaming the lower achievement levels of the older students on the fact that they were redshirted is simply a case of faulty causation.</p>
<p>Bingo, classicalmama. I tried to say that but you posted what I would have posted if I had another year to work things out in my head.</p>
<p>The bottom line, I think, is that there is no single best way. The failure to emphasize that is the biggest flaw. Parents should make these decisions based on their own child, not based on a sample population from a research study.</p>