Chapter 6 supported the unexpected findings that an early start to school did not increase longevity of life, but instead decreased it. These results from the Terman participants differ from many other study’s findings. The findings from the Terman subjects was also surprising to me, but not because I thought an early start to education would directly correlate with longevity. Instead, I would assume families that valued an early start to school, would also value other health promoting behaviors. I would assume that parents who put their child into kindergarten at age 4, were also more likely to value exercising, nutritious food, good sleep habits, etc.
I was talking to my roommate, who was homeschooled until 5th grade, about this chapter in the book. We were laughing at the fact that she should live a long life due to the fact that she did not enter traditional schooling until 5th grade.
I thought it was also interesting that starting school would decrease long life. In an education class I took in the past, I did a project on “red shirting”, meaning that students are held back a year from starting kindergarten, because their parents either think that they are not ready for school or they think it will give their child an advantage. This is different than starting early- sort of the opposite. The research showed that red shirting and having a delayed start could be bad because students who were relatively old for their grade were less engaged in school, and had lower rates of homework completion. The initial advantage of being more academically advanced drops by the time the students are in middle school. It would be interesting if there was some way to measure both academic and social maturity of 4 and 5 year olds in order to make the right decision about when to start school.