1. Upgrading Genetic Code
Cutting edge research
released this month shows that education doesn’t just affect your brain – it can
rewire your entire being. A school screwing around with genetic codes might
sound like something out of the X-Men, or exactly like the X-Men, but the
results aren’t things like laser eyes and lightning bolts. They’re improved
health and quality of life which, when you think about it, are far better powers
to have in the real world.
The study “Associations with early-life socioeconomic position in adult DNA methylation” shows that early childhood conditions affect your epigenetic programming. Epigenetics are a layer of biochemical information controlling your DNA. If your genes are a book of instructions, you can think of epigenes as markers telling you which pages to read.
The study found that changing conditions after age seven didn’t affect the epigenetic instructions in the same way – if you get the advantages early, you benefit from them forever.
2. Education Amplification
You can’t have too much of a good thing, especially education. Early childhood education has been shown to improve the effects of subsequent learning. The Harrisburg Preschool Program recently released results demonstrating how early education improved results all the way up to fifth grade, and they only stopped there because that’s how old the kids are now. Further improvements will doubtless be shown as soon as the children grow more!
The conclusions of these studies are as inescapable as they are obvious. Humanity is designed to improve itself. Our hugely extended childhoods are based on our ability to learn and adapt to the environment. Tiger cubs quickly grow and leave home because “run, catch, kill, eat” might be strenuous but it’s not hard to learn the concept.
Human children seem helpless for a decade or more, but that’s because they’re spending all their energy learning how to deal with this world. If they find themselves in a world of watching TV, playing games, and drinking soda, they will adapt to that by becoming fat and lazy. If the find a world full of information, where thinking leads to improved rewards, then they’ll develop into people to take advantage of that.
