"Teaching will harm the child..."
The arguments of Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff in the book Einstein Never Used Flash Cards, and BrillBaby's response:
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff:
Too much pressure to display empty knowledge and show off what she knows can even cause a child to feel depressed because so much rides on getting it right… Remember what it feels like to take a test? Would "anxious" be the best adjective? Yet we are doing more and more testing.
BrillBaby's response:
We wonder if the authors have read or viewed any of the information or teaching materials put out by Glenn Doman, the world's foremost pioneer in teaching babies with flash cards. Ironically, Doman is probably the educator who most frequently reminds parents not to test their child's knowledge.
Unlike at school, where certain skills have to be learnt within certain timeframes, babies don't need to learn anything in particular - and parents should not have any expectations regarding knowledge acquisition. There is certainly a danger that some parents will introduce testing and so exert pressure on their children. We strongly advocate against this approach, as do all the experts.
At the same time, it's quite nice that some parents have managed to record their children's feats of intelligence, as it means we have the evidence to prove that babies can read and do math (in the Doman sense of "perceiving" quantity without counting).
In this regard, it is important to distinguish between testing and gently encouraging a child to display his knowledge. Otherwise, if asking a child to display any sort of knowledge is bad, where do we draw the line? Wouldn't asking "How old are you?" or "Where's Mommy?" also be testing?
We can reinforce what our children know without exerting pressure on them by asking normal questions such as those above, or playing games that reveal knowledge learned. So, for example, if you wanted to see how much your child can read, you might get out a book and ask, "Shall I read it for you, or do you want to read it yourself?" Or, you might follow Robert Titzer's example, and get out a bunch of toy animals for your child to match up with their written names.
Or, if you wanted to see how well your child can perceive quantity, you might do something along the lines of one mom on YouTube who plays "the candy game" with her son - rewarding him for choosing the card with the correct number of dots by placing a candy underneath it.
At BrillBaby, we feel that it's okay to ask your baby what some words or numbers are - provided you approach the asking in the right way. If, when you ask your baby to demonstrate her knowledge, she doesn't want to, then leave it be. She will show you what she has learned in her own time.
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