Hothousing is a form of
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
for
children
A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...
, involving intense study of a topic in order to stimulate the child's mind. The goal is to take normal or bright children and boost them to a level of intellectual functioning above the norm.
Advocates of the practice claim that it is essential for the brightest to flourish intellectually, while critics claim that it does more harm than good and can lead a child to abandon the area studied under such a scheme later in life.
Development
It was Irving Sigel who first introduced the term "hothousing" in 1987 after the greenhouse farming method. It was an analogy with the way vegetables are forced to ripen in this condition.
Sigel, who worked for the
Educational Testing Service
Educational Testing Service (ETS), founded in 1947, is the world's largest private nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization. It is headquartered in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, but has a Princeton address.
ETS develops var ...
in
Princeton
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...
, used it to refer to a child who is drilled in academic fields such as reading and math long before other children begin learning them in school. The child is likened to a "hurried student" induced to acquire knowledge with emphasis on how it fits into a broader scheme of knowledge instead of acquiring bits of information. Some scholars have criticized hothousing, labeling it as early maturity of learning.
Famous people who underwent hothousing
*
Charles S. Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism".
Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for t ...
*
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chance ...
*
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP) and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to ...
*
Aubrey de Grey
Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey (; born 20 April 1963) is an English author and biomedical gerontologist. He is the author of ''The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging'' (1999) and co-author of ''Ending Aging'' (2007). He is known ...
*
Val McDermid
Valarie "Val" McDermid, (born 4 June 1955) is a Scottish crime writer, best known for a series of novels featuring clinical psychologist Dr. Tony Hill in a grim sub-genre that McDermid and others have identified as Tartan Noir.
Biography
M ...
[
*]Ruth Lawrence
Ruth Elke Lawrence-Neimark ( he, רות אלקה לורנס-נאימרק, born 2 August 1971) is a British–Israeli mathematician and an associate professor of mathematics at the Einstein Institute of Mathematics, Hebrew University of Jerusale ...
References
External links
Hothousing Young Children: Implications for Early Childhood Policy and Practice
by Tynette W. Hills, published by ERIC
The given name Eric, Erich, Erikk, Erik, Erick, or Eirik is derived from the Old Norse name ''Eiríkr'' (or ''Eríkr'' in Old East Norse due to monophthongization).
The first element, ''ei-'' may be derived from the older Proto-Norse ''* ain ...
Educational Reports - article urging parents to be cautious about hothousing
Child prodigies 'damaged for life by hothousing'
- article by Judith Judd from Independent (London)
Education by method
Pedagogy
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