At first glance it seems curious to think that being born at the end of the year can condition life of a person.
Statistical studies sometimes offer frankly disappointing results, in other cases they can help us, at least, to reflect on the way in which external conditions can influence the lives of our children. Today I found a job that relates the born at the end of the year with a more complicated schooling and even with lower salary compensation In adult life.
Julien Grenet's study on France
This is a study referring to France, published in the Revue économique and available on the Internet, but I think that it can also serve as a point of reflection in the absence of specific works on the Spanish reality.
Children born at the end of the year it seems that they have, statistically, worse results throughout their schooling and also worse jobs in adult life.
This, in the mentioned work carried out by the researcher Julien Grenet, is considered not related to worse aptitudes but to an educational system that penalizes the youngest children in the class by not taking into account, from the early stages, their maturation age compared to other partners born in the previous year.
Children born in the first months of the year can have up to eleven months longer than the little ones in a class and that gets to have a reflection in your evaluations, and all are evaluated with the same criteria despite the differences. And that creates an effect that is fixed, rather than attenuated, throughout their schooling. Bad students are bad students even if they grow, weighed down by the initial results.
According to the data handled in the study, for example, a child at 15 would have, in the neighboring country, a 51% chance of being delayed in his course if he was born in December but only 35% if he was born in January. The data shown in graphs show that difficulties increase as the courses pass, although are evident from the beginning of Primary.
Those born in December also show more possibilities to go to vocational training and those born in January, to be directed to the equivalent of our Baccalaureate.
And all that, finally, comes together in the data on remuneration in working life and the type of work they have.
Is chronological age taken into account at school?
Considering that it is a work on the neighboring country, however, I consider it very interesting, since many parents find that their children, when they start school, can be struggling to be the little ones in the class and not logically achieve the same academic and motor achievements as their peers, not always taking this into account in evaluations or comparatives.
It would be good if the educational system included protocols that took into account the chronological age of the students when evaluating them and also, of course, in order to give them a more personalized training.
When they start Primary, with six and a half years some but another still with five, it becomes difficult to expect the same assimilation of concepts. Maturation is different and, if they are already given grades, it should be possible to at least compensate for this difference or seek more flexible pedagogical alternatives. At least, this is my opinion that I share with the author of this study.
In some Early Childhood Education centers there are adapted classes, in the first years, and unfold according to the chronological age of the children. You cannot expect or offer the same to a child who is still two years old than one of three years and ten months. At least, and despite the fact that my son was verbally very advanced, it was hard for us.
When they start Early Childhood Education, teachers tend to take more into account the particularities of each child, but anyway, I have often found that children who begin with less than three years of age are in difficulties to adapt to the general class precisely because of that motive
I would like you to share your experiences in this regard and your opinion on whether being born at the end of the year can really condition your life in a certain way.
