On December 16, 2023, the 8th International Symposium on Child Development, hosted by the China Development Research Association, was held in Beijing.
James Heckman, a professor at the University of Chicago and winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Economics, delivered a speech at the conference.
Professor Heckman's long-term cooperation with projects such as the Chinese Development Research Association's "Wisdom Education in China" led him to shift his focus to early childhood development?
[Click on the speech**].
The full text of the dialogue between Fang Jin, Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of the China Development Research Association, and Professor Heckman is attached for the benefit of readers.
Early childhood development shapes the future
The early stages of life set a trajectory for the brain to develop, either the brain becomes efficient and constantly Xi learning, or it may not be able to open up its mind and lack curiosity. ”
Fang Jin:Professor Heckman,You have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for your pioneering contributions to the analysis of personal and family behaviour. After that, youfor human capital and skills developmentIn particular, the research on early childhood development has shown a strong interest and has achieved many results. I'm curious, what sparked your interest in early childhood development?
Heckman:Back in the '60s, one of Lyndon Johnson's greatest hopes for the war on poverty was to help vulnerable children"Vocational Training Program".The project intervenes from the adolescent stage to help build human capital, hoping to bridge the gap between the advantaged and the disadvantaged.
I did a lot of research on job training, but I came to the conclusion that the effect of this intervention was not significant, which led me to think further about whether it is possible to alleviate the wealth gap and skills gap between groups.
As a result, I began to study more and more cases and projects on improving employability skills, including some of the previous research done by Herrnstein, the author of The Bell Curve, in Venezuela. I found thatIt is possible to improve these skills, as long as the intervention is early enough.
At a lecture at the Erikson Institute in Chicago, a neurosurgeon saidNeural plasticity, that is, the brain can be continuously developed, and the quality of the environment affects brain development. This was very enlightening to me, so I started researching this question. Huttenlocher, in Neural Plasticity, argues that even near the end of life, neurons are still developing and their brains are able to Xi.
I linked human capital to economics, working with the Perry Project, the ABC Project, and conducting extensive data analysis on these projects.
I was interested in the home visiting program for 0-3 year olds, and there weren't so many people studying it at the time. I thought I could contribute to technical research, and I started a business that continues to this day.
Fang Jin: Based on your research, why is early childhood development so important?
Heckman:Early childhood is important because:Most Xi behaviors occur in the early stages of the human life cycle.
The brain develops a large number of neurons at this stage, and the degree to which these neurons develop depends on whether the child can use them actively, otherwise they are weakened. Therefore, the early stages of life have a special ability that sets a trajectory for the brain to either become efficient and Xi, or it may not be able to open up its mind and lack curiosity.
After the age of 9-11, it is difficult for a person's cognitive abilities to be changed, and the ability to socialize, emotionally and self-regulate is malleable until the age of 20.
William Bowen, the head of a New York conference, was the president of Princeton University. He proposed,Scholarships to help disadvantaged children should be spent when children are 3 years old, not 18 years old.
"Smart Education China": Parent-child interaction and cost-effectiveness are key
Home visiting programs are low-cost and adaptable to help caregivers engage with their children in constructive, supportive parent-child interactions and give them emotional attachment. ”
Fang Jin: Professor Heckman, you have been emphasizing that the purpose of research is to provide viable solutions to early childhood development problems. Based on our cooperation, what key aspects do you think makes WiseEducate China viable, and what are the key findings of your assessment of WiseEducate China?
Heckman:Every child should have the opportunity to explore new things, of course he may fail, but failure is also part of growth.
It is important for young children to be emotionally attached and supported as they explore the world, to ensure that they know that they are loved and protected, and that parents play a fundamental role in this.
"Wisdom Education China" gives children a sense of attachment by encouraging them to engage in constructive and supportive parent-child interactions. One-on-one interaction between parents or caregivers and their children is a very important factor in my opinion, and "Smart Education China" is empowering this.
Professor Heckman conducted research in Bijie, Guizhou.
Through research we found thatThe Wisdom of China program fosters the growth of children's cognitive, non-cognitive, and other skills, including language, art, and motor skills.
In addition,Another unique feature of Wisdom Education China is its focus on home visits, which means lower costs and better adaptability. The project's home visitors do not need to be PhDs or university students, but they receive training from PhDs or university graduates, especially if they are in a similar family situation to the respondents, which helps to reduce social barriers in practice and make the program more acceptable to local families.
Children's non-cognitive skills are improved by attachment relationships
Parent-child interaction and encouragement are fundamental ways to improve children's non-cognitive skills, rather than relying on a set curriculum. ”
Fang Jin: Nowadays, some parents only focus on their children's academic Xi and performance when raising children, and ignore the development of social and emotional skills. What public policies do you think are aimed at developing these skills, especially non-cognitive skills?Do you think policies should be adjusted to promote the full development of the human being?
Heckman:There is a fallacy that dominates much of the work in the field of human development, namely that if you want to develop a particular skill, you have to create a program to teach it.
In the past, people tended to think only of IQ as a metric, which sparked discussions about developing skills in the United States and around the world. For example, Arthur Jensen, a well-known psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, evaluated the American "Start Program" and concluded that the program did not improve children's IQ. Jensen also influenced Charles Murray (another author of The Bell Curve) to believe that IQ is genetically determined and cannot be changed. They completely ignore their child's social and emotional skills.
Things like self-awareness, concentration, innovative behavior, and working memory are not things that are strictly measured by IQ tests, but are extremely important skills in a person's life. The improvement of these skills is not achieved by a single curriculum, but by attachment relationships. Therefore, the practice of interacting with and encouraging children in the process of parenting is a fundamental way to improve children's skills.
One of the most important findings of the study of children Xi is "imitation", and parents are the most important factor in imitation, children imitate parents, and parents' personal behavior is a powerful lesson in itself.
At this stage, early childhood development programs can promote the advancement of family parenting styles, provide children with attachment, and role models, and the impact of this love and interaction is very powerful.
Artificial intelligence is not creative
The most important thing about humans is that we are able to think outside the box and think in a creative way. ”
Fang Jin: Many people are worried that the development of artificial intelligence, especially ChatGPT, will have a huge impact on the labor market. In your opinion, what kind of skills should be mastered and developed by the workforce of the future?Does this mean that early childhood development is more important than ever?
Heckman:I think flexibility, creative thinking, and those non-cognitive skills that I talked about earlier, these qualities have to do with people's ability to take risks and experiment, which chatbots don't have.
Personally, I don't have much fear of AI technology, but we also know that ordinary workers who basically rely only on manual labor for their livelihood will be replaced by robots. ThereforeOur goal in cultivating human resources should be to be free from heavy manual labor, to value high-level thinking, and to the human activities that make us called "human."
The concept of "stylized activity" is being diluted, while the concept of "creative activity" is gaining popularity. I don't think AI is yet far from creative.
AI is very good at certain stylized activities, and anything that requires a memory search in a regular way, it can do it. But it can't create something completely new, it can only assemble what already knows.
The most important thing about human beings is that we are able to think outside the box and in a creative way, and creativity keeps us alive for a long time.
Recall that 30 years ago, how much would you be willing to spend on an Amazon **??
The guy named Bezos said, "I want to build a store like this." 30 years ago, you would have thought that everything he was going to do sounded too strange.
But it's an entrepreneurial instinct, an ability, a willingness to bet on the unknown, or even a sense of "this thing will work out", and AI is far from being able to do that.
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