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The Mayor's Dream
What goes on inside the brains of babies – and how much are we shaped by the first few years of our lives? Scientists have new insights into how children think, and some claim we're not acting on their discoveries and are wasting lives.
In the first of our ‘Early Life’ programmes, we visit the Andes where Mayor Amilcar believes that stimulating kids’ brains early on can make for a more prosperous, and less violent, society. We visit the labs of Boston USA where Harvard scientists are trying to determine whether science really is on the Mayor’s side. We show how some Kenyan mums have realized that the old parenting ways – like not talking to babies - have to change in today’s world. And we talk to a young architect in Turkey who believes her own life proves the Mayor's dream can be a reality.
Ayacucho in the high Andes.
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High in the Andes in Ayacucho, the mayor of one of the poorest suburbs – Jesus Nazareno - has seized the chance to paint a picture of his plan for the future. He calls it the new path.
"I have a dream," says Amilcar Huanchuari. "We know that poverty is a product of malnutrition, poor education and poor stimulation. And from this we believe that investment in education, health and nutrition is important, and we believe in the early stimulation of our children. We’re convinced we should work with children from the earliest age and we’re going to form a new society of children. We’ll build a new generation of children. They’ll be more successful and prosperous children and they’ll contribute effectively towards a peaceful future for our country."
Mayor Amilcar joins in with the kids.
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The Mayor’s dream is simple - a better world because every child gets a better start. Zero to five. But does science support his dream?
Across the world evidence on both sides - is mounting up. Thirty years ago the Gusii who live in the western hills of Kenya were the subject of a remarkable study, which changed views of traditional parenting.
Sarah LeVine, author of a book on child care in Africa, explains: "There were two things which they didn’t do. One was that they barely spoke to their children. The other thing was that they hardly ever looked at their children. The reason that the mothers didn’t do this was they had so many responsibilities, domestic responsibilities. And so by the time a child was about one he or she would have stopped trying to get the mother’s attention and that was the most astounding thing for me."
This approach seemed to work - in a society without schools. "I believe that the older traditional Gusii approach doesn’t work in a world with schools," says Robert LeVine. "And that schooling is a tsunami around the world that we have to adapt to, there is no way of going back."
In Turkey, there is evidence of how traditional childrearing can be changed for the better. This is a training centre for mothers organized by the NGO ‘ACEV’. Mums are trained to stimulate and interact with kids, because it was found that many still don’t do so. Failing to interact can be a global phenomenon.
Thirty years ago Rabia was a working mum from an Istanbul shantytown. In 1983 Rabia and Ceren became part of a famous study. There was now pre-school for Ceren, and Rabia was trained to interact, play and read more.
For over two decades researchers followed as many of the group as they could. They compared the children to peers in a control group - whose mothers had not been trained.
Prof. Cigdem of Koc University tells what happened: "Young adults who had the early intervention were more successful than the other group, and this was really a remarkable finding. They had more schooling and therefore they joined the labour force later, which meant better jobs, higher paying and more specialized jobs using computers more, participating in knowledge society, and using credit cards more, meaning that they were indebted but they were a part of the modern economy."
Ceren is passing on the parenting skills her mother was taught to the next generation.
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Today Ceren’s a successful architect. She has her own child. She’s passing on the parenting skills her mother was taught to the next generation.
In North America, research is showing the importance of early childhood experience. Prof. Jack Shonkoff, head of the Harvard Centre on the Developing Child, says: "A lot of people think not much is going on inside a baby’s brain, they figure a baby is just laying their crying. What science is telling us more and more every day is what an incredibly rich and exciting and complex environment the inside of the head of a baby is. Babies are voracious learners, they are eager to kind of master the world. We don’t have to do something to make that happen."
Scientists have long had evidence to suggest babies learn by interacting with carers. In a classic experiment babies seemed able to imitate their mothers’ smiles within forty minutes of birth. In another baby primates bonded with cloth dummies that rocked them. They ignored other machines even if they gave the babies food. Human babies, it was reckoned, needed interaction too. And, more recently, the Romanian orphans. In this inadvertent experiment young children deprived of early interaction struggled even after being adopted. The lack of early stimulation was only too apparent.
Sonia sells cheese on the market in Ayacucho to help pay for pre-school for her older child.
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Mayor Amilcar has helped fund a new pre-school for poor children. He says: "We want to create a new society of children who love peace and who are working for their prosperity. We want to improve their self-esteem, improve their conditions so that we can see a better future for our children in our region and in our country."
Mayor Amilcar with the kids.
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TRANSCRIPT
Read the full transcript of The Mayor's Dream
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