"Raising IQs in Toddlers with Autism" Well Blog/The New York Times 12/22/09
This interview with Sally Rogers of UC Davis and the MIND Institute, as well as one of the people behind an apparently successful intervention called the Early Start Denver Model, really interested me. The key to the intervention is play, something that all kids need, and that I just read about in Elena Bodrova and Deborah Leong's great Tools of the Mind, and am currently reading about in Stuart Brown's Play.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING: WHAT AND WHEN ARE WE READY TO LEARN?
"Studying Young Minds, and How to Teach Them" The New York Times 12/20/09
Great article from the Times' great Benedict Carey, with the focus on the provocative idea that kids can handle simple multiplication and division concepts before first grade, and a provocative aside, "the brain’s ability to link letter combinations with sounds may not be fully developed until age 11 — much later than many have assumed."
Great article from the Times' great Benedict Carey, with the focus on the provocative idea that kids can handle simple multiplication and division concepts before first grade, and a provocative aside, "the brain’s ability to link letter combinations with sounds may not be fully developed until age 11 — much later than many have assumed."
Friday, December 18, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
LARS'S LIBRARY: LITERARY LINKS
More kids' books Christmas gift ideas and some nice preview pictures from those books at PRI's The World's "Children’s Holiday Books 2009".
The story includes two books I just have happily purchased and read—Kate DiCamillo's The Magician's Elephant and Shaun Tan's Tales from Suburbia—so I have evidence that Carol Zall's recommendations here are excellent. She also highlights a new edition of Alice in Wonderland with voluptuously colorful illlustrations by Rodney Matthews, a new edition of Han Christian Andersen's Thumbelina with illustrations by Bagram Ibatoulline, who did such a wonderful job on DiCamillo's previous The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, a pop-up version of The Little Prince, and a picture book, Waiting for Winter by Sebastian Meschenmoser.
Another new, or in this case re-issued, children's book that I'm ordering right now is Alastair Reid's Ounce, Dice, Trice, enthusiastically reviewed here by Daniel Pinkwater. It was illustrated by Ben Shahn!
The story includes two books I just have happily purchased and read—Kate DiCamillo's The Magician's Elephant and Shaun Tan's Tales from Suburbia—so I have evidence that Carol Zall's recommendations here are excellent. She also highlights a new edition of Alice in Wonderland with voluptuously colorful illlustrations by Rodney Matthews, a new edition of Han Christian Andersen's Thumbelina with illustrations by Bagram Ibatoulline, who did such a wonderful job on DiCamillo's previous The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, a pop-up version of The Little Prince, and a picture book, Waiting for Winter by Sebastian Meschenmoser.
Another new, or in this case re-issued, children's book that I'm ordering right now is Alastair Reid's Ounce, Dice, Trice, enthusiastically reviewed here by Daniel Pinkwater. It was illustrated by Ben Shahn!
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING
"When Teaching the Right Answers Is the Wrong Direction" Rebecca Alber Blog/Edutopia 11/12/09
"Getting It Wrong: Surprising Tips on How to Learn" Scientific American 10/20/09
"Decision Making Becomes the Newest Life Science" Edutopia 12/09
Some great stuff by way of Edutopia. My sister has recently been telling me about motivational programs used in Washington state that appear to be about telling kids what they need to do to change their lives. But perhaps a better approach is to let them explore the alternatives without making initial judgments, as in the Decision Education Foundation's program profiled in Edutopia's December issue.
Amber Lamprecht of Literacy and Learning in San Francisco has really made me think about this, recounting her work in helping young people to chart out positives and negatives of possible decisions and having them visualize possible outcomes. Young people, in my opinion, will more often than not make good life choices when they are given tools to make them and are empowered to do so.
The two articles about the problem with "right" answers really hit home with me. I am currently working with a sixth grader and a seventh grader who have homework "study guides" they fill in for literature and social studies. At times, they get frustrated with me because I press them to give me their own interpretation of the material without letting them know if it is "correct," and I get frustrated with the "study guides" because they end up not guiding study, but filling time with empty busy work.
"Getting It Wrong: Surprising Tips on How to Learn" Scientific American 10/20/09
"Decision Making Becomes the Newest Life Science" Edutopia 12/09
Some great stuff by way of Edutopia. My sister has recently been telling me about motivational programs used in Washington state that appear to be about telling kids what they need to do to change their lives. But perhaps a better approach is to let them explore the alternatives without making initial judgments, as in the Decision Education Foundation's program profiled in Edutopia's December issue.
Amber Lamprecht of Literacy and Learning in San Francisco has really made me think about this, recounting her work in helping young people to chart out positives and negatives of possible decisions and having them visualize possible outcomes. Young people, in my opinion, will more often than not make good life choices when they are given tools to make them and are empowered to do so.
The two articles about the problem with "right" answers really hit home with me. I am currently working with a sixth grader and a seventh grader who have homework "study guides" they fill in for literature and social studies. At times, they get frustrated with me because I press them to give me their own interpretation of the material without letting them know if it is "correct," and I get frustrated with the "study guides" because they end up not guiding study, but filling time with empty busy work.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
RECENT NEWS: THE CASE FOR LISTENING
Discussing strategies to use with a struggling reader with whom we both worked, a resource specialist at a local school told me that she let a struggling reader listen to audio books, but insisted (and asked his parents to enforce that insistence) that he also get the text version and always follow along.
Julie Moncton, one of the owners of the fabulous All Ears Audio Books in San Jose, wrote to tell me about parents coming in, “kids in tow,” saying, “'I need an audio book for my son. He has problems with reading. Nope—no audio book for my other kids. They read just fine.”
Sometimes it seems that audio books get no respect, despite the fact that they have been a fairly successful branch of the publishing industry. Many adults I know who stress the importance of children learning to read do much, if not all, of their own “reading” listening to audio books.
Personally, I used to classify myself as a non-audio book person. I told myself I just couldn’t get into them. It was difficult for me to maintain orientation, so much easier on the page, where you can backtrack or pause without all that effort.
Then my sister pointed out that using audio books had increased her listening and focusing skills. Maybe, I realized, the problem wasn’t audio books, it was me. Putting effort and purpose into listening, I have begun to reap benefits, just as I do from reading text.
In my work with kids, I've seen audio books open up new worlds, not to mention develop skills that are applicable to all sorts of learning. The reasons that we have for reading text—enjoyment, edification, and gaining knowledge—are just as valid for listening to it. And there is an added benefit: the deep, inherited pleasure that comes from having someone tell you a story.
Many educators don’t place enough value on audio books (or for that matter, reading aloud to kids beyond the third grade), and view them solely as an aid for readers having difficulty with the process. Really, audio books are another, equally important, avenue for content. The kind of “literacy” involved should be respected in its own right, independent from the skills involved with decoding off the page.
Kids who enjoy listening to a book should be able to enjoy it. Kids who have trouble with decoding and fluency should have access to content to which they might not otherwise have access. Not being able to read does not mean you are unintelligent.
In a presentation by John Ratey, author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, he suggested that we stop paying so much attention to the right/left brain paradigm and start thinking about a front/back model.
I find such a model particularly valuable when thinking about reading. To make a simple distinction, the back brain is where sensory input is processed. The front brain is where we set goals and monitor ourselves as we move toward them, where we evaluate our performance and regulate our reaction to that evaluation.
The front brain is what makes humans different than most of the rest of the animal kingdom. It’s bigger, better, and inchoate until rather late in our lives. The fact that it is not fully organized until well into adulthood is probably a good explanation of why car insurance is more expensive for teenagers than it is for me.
If the front brain is functioning well, higher order cognition is deliberate and measured. To think in profound and sophisticated ways, we need to take the time to reflect on incoming information. The tortoise will beat the hare.
Compare that to the back brain, where speed is a far more valuable commodity. The back brain gets us the information, the raw data we use for our thinking. The reader who automatically processes words, whose back brain instantly recognizes letter and word shapes and the symbol to sound and etymological principles underneath, will not have to waste front brain time monitoring the critical task of literacy called decoding, and can use the saved mental energy for critical thinking. Advantage: hare.
It seems clear that back brain weakness, a lack of automaticity in processing sensory input, doesn’t tell us anything about the front brain. Poor readers can be great thinkers. For that matter, great readers can be poor thinkers. So why should poor readers be denied content that matches their front brain capabilities?
If you can’t automatically process written language, but can automatically process oral language, why should you be denied access to that language? And please, I’m not advocating that we give up on teaching reading skills, so tremendously important.
I work with an eight-year-old girl whose reading of low level material can be halting and laborious. Yet she has listened to Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, and avidly discusses the books, aimed at nine to twelve-year-olds, with full understanding, making connections to Greek mythology and following her curiosity to find out more.
Let’s show some respect for the audio book as its own medium. And let’s show some respect for kids who demonstrate their intelligence as they interact with that medium.
In a piece on NPR extolling the virtues of audio books, children’s author Neil Gaiman contended that critic Harold Bloom’s argument—“deep reading really demands the inner ear as well as the outer ear”—was “astonishingly unconvincing.” Gaiman countered that “you can have a close and perfectly valid relationship with the text when you hear it.”
Let's show some respect for that relationship.
Julie Moncton, one of the owners of the fabulous All Ears Audio Books in San Jose, wrote to tell me about parents coming in, “kids in tow,” saying, “'I need an audio book for my son. He has problems with reading. Nope—no audio book for my other kids. They read just fine.”
Sometimes it seems that audio books get no respect, despite the fact that they have been a fairly successful branch of the publishing industry. Many adults I know who stress the importance of children learning to read do much, if not all, of their own “reading” listening to audio books.
Personally, I used to classify myself as a non-audio book person. I told myself I just couldn’t get into them. It was difficult for me to maintain orientation, so much easier on the page, where you can backtrack or pause without all that effort.
Then my sister pointed out that using audio books had increased her listening and focusing skills. Maybe, I realized, the problem wasn’t audio books, it was me. Putting effort and purpose into listening, I have begun to reap benefits, just as I do from reading text.
In my work with kids, I've seen audio books open up new worlds, not to mention develop skills that are applicable to all sorts of learning. The reasons that we have for reading text—enjoyment, edification, and gaining knowledge—are just as valid for listening to it. And there is an added benefit: the deep, inherited pleasure that comes from having someone tell you a story.
Many educators don’t place enough value on audio books (or for that matter, reading aloud to kids beyond the third grade), and view them solely as an aid for readers having difficulty with the process. Really, audio books are another, equally important, avenue for content. The kind of “literacy” involved should be respected in its own right, independent from the skills involved with decoding off the page.
Kids who enjoy listening to a book should be able to enjoy it. Kids who have trouble with decoding and fluency should have access to content to which they might not otherwise have access. Not being able to read does not mean you are unintelligent.
In a presentation by John Ratey, author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, he suggested that we stop paying so much attention to the right/left brain paradigm and start thinking about a front/back model.
I find such a model particularly valuable when thinking about reading. To make a simple distinction, the back brain is where sensory input is processed. The front brain is where we set goals and monitor ourselves as we move toward them, where we evaluate our performance and regulate our reaction to that evaluation.
The front brain is what makes humans different than most of the rest of the animal kingdom. It’s bigger, better, and inchoate until rather late in our lives. The fact that it is not fully organized until well into adulthood is probably a good explanation of why car insurance is more expensive for teenagers than it is for me.
If the front brain is functioning well, higher order cognition is deliberate and measured. To think in profound and sophisticated ways, we need to take the time to reflect on incoming information. The tortoise will beat the hare.
Compare that to the back brain, where speed is a far more valuable commodity. The back brain gets us the information, the raw data we use for our thinking. The reader who automatically processes words, whose back brain instantly recognizes letter and word shapes and the symbol to sound and etymological principles underneath, will not have to waste front brain time monitoring the critical task of literacy called decoding, and can use the saved mental energy for critical thinking. Advantage: hare.
It seems clear that back brain weakness, a lack of automaticity in processing sensory input, doesn’t tell us anything about the front brain. Poor readers can be great thinkers. For that matter, great readers can be poor thinkers. So why should poor readers be denied content that matches their front brain capabilities?
If you can’t automatically process written language, but can automatically process oral language, why should you be denied access to that language? And please, I’m not advocating that we give up on teaching reading skills, so tremendously important.
I work with an eight-year-old girl whose reading of low level material can be halting and laborious. Yet she has listened to Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, and avidly discusses the books, aimed at nine to twelve-year-olds, with full understanding, making connections to Greek mythology and following her curiosity to find out more.
Let’s show some respect for the audio book as its own medium. And let’s show some respect for kids who demonstrate their intelligence as they interact with that medium.
In a piece on NPR extolling the virtues of audio books, children’s author Neil Gaiman contended that critic Harold Bloom’s argument—“deep reading really demands the inner ear as well as the outer ear”—was “astonishingly unconvincing.” Gaiman countered that “you can have a close and perfectly valid relationship with the text when you hear it.”
Let's show some respect for that relationship.
WORLD OF LEARNING: MY REVIEW OF "CONVERSATIONS WITH JEAN PIAGET"
CONVERSATIONS WITH JEAN PIAGET. By Jean-Claude Bringuier, translated by Basia Miller Gulati. University of Chicago, 1980. 145 pages.
Piagetian ideas have had such an impact on education and child psychology that as with all schools of thought that become popularized, those ideas have been vilified or bowdlerized to fit preconceptions. There are Piagetians and anti-Piagetians who have never read Piaget.
There is a good reason. At the risk of overgeneralizing, it seems to me that genius is rarely warm and fuzzy. Piaget can be prickly, and his writing, rooted in rigorous scientific research and expressed in the language of the academy, is always dense and often inaccessible, at least to a reader like me.
That made this slender volume especially helpful. In the process of talking to Piaget and some of his colleagues in 1969 and 1975, Jean-Claude Bringuier skillfully teases out complex ideas in palatable form.
He also gives us a picture of a real person in a real (and messy) study who likes to make fondue and go on bike rides, listens to Bach and Wagner while he works, and wears his Legion of Honor pin because it helps with French customs officials and restaurant reservations.
For anyone wanting a basic understanding of Piaget, you could do worse than to read 'Conversations' and another short book written by Piaget himself with his collaborator Bärbel Inhelder, 'The Psychology of the Child.'
In 'Conversations,' Piaget is bemused by critics who find his theories rigid and restrictive. His deep and profound respect for children and childhood motivated him, like a child, to continually assimilate and accommodate in the process of constructing knowledge.
'That's the ideal I personally strive for,' he remarks to Bringuier, 'to remain a child to the end. Childhood is the creative phase par excellence!'
That makes it difficult to unequivocally state what his theories are, because Piaget was always growing and changing.
Piaget admits that he wasn't interested 'in individuals' but 'in what is is general in the development of intelligence and knowledge.' His denigrators might be surprised to learn that although Piaget did find evidence for fixed stages of developmental transition, he also came to the conclusion that 'the prime mover of evolution is behavior.'
Indeed, while Piaget wants to stay away from recommending best practices for teaching, Bringuier gets him to acknowledge there are methodologies that are might be more effective.
When Piaget claims that 'the role of the psychologist is, above all, to give the facts that the pedagogue can use and not put oneself in his place and give him advice,' Bringuier presses the issue, noting that theory can influence pedagogy.
Piaget answers by complaining that frequently 'absolutely nothing is done to teach the child the spirit of experimentation. He has lessons, he sees experiments demonstrated; but seeing them is not the same as doing them for himself. I'm convinced that one could develop a marvelous method of participatory education by giving the child the apparatus with which to do experiments and thus discover a lot of things for himself. Guided, of course.'
That sounds awfully close to Vygotsky's ideas, and the zone of proximal development, to me.
'Education,' Piaget goes on to say, 'for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society....But for me, education means making creators....You have to make inventors, innovators, not conformists.'
Inspiring words from the man who also tells his interviewer,'Everything one teaches a child prevents him from inventing or discovering.'
Piagetian ideas have had such an impact on education and child psychology that as with all schools of thought that become popularized, those ideas have been vilified or bowdlerized to fit preconceptions. There are Piagetians and anti-Piagetians who have never read Piaget.
There is a good reason. At the risk of overgeneralizing, it seems to me that genius is rarely warm and fuzzy. Piaget can be prickly, and his writing, rooted in rigorous scientific research and expressed in the language of the academy, is always dense and often inaccessible, at least to a reader like me.
That made this slender volume especially helpful. In the process of talking to Piaget and some of his colleagues in 1969 and 1975, Jean-Claude Bringuier skillfully teases out complex ideas in palatable form.
He also gives us a picture of a real person in a real (and messy) study who likes to make fondue and go on bike rides, listens to Bach and Wagner while he works, and wears his Legion of Honor pin because it helps with French customs officials and restaurant reservations.
For anyone wanting a basic understanding of Piaget, you could do worse than to read 'Conversations' and another short book written by Piaget himself with his collaborator Bärbel Inhelder, 'The Psychology of the Child.'
In 'Conversations,' Piaget is bemused by critics who find his theories rigid and restrictive. His deep and profound respect for children and childhood motivated him, like a child, to continually assimilate and accommodate in the process of constructing knowledge.
'That's the ideal I personally strive for,' he remarks to Bringuier, 'to remain a child to the end. Childhood is the creative phase par excellence!'
That makes it difficult to unequivocally state what his theories are, because Piaget was always growing and changing.
Piaget admits that he wasn't interested 'in individuals' but 'in what is is general in the development of intelligence and knowledge.' His denigrators might be surprised to learn that although Piaget did find evidence for fixed stages of developmental transition, he also came to the conclusion that 'the prime mover of evolution is behavior.'
Indeed, while Piaget wants to stay away from recommending best practices for teaching, Bringuier gets him to acknowledge there are methodologies that are might be more effective.
When Piaget claims that 'the role of the psychologist is, above all, to give the facts that the pedagogue can use and not put oneself in his place and give him advice,' Bringuier presses the issue, noting that theory can influence pedagogy.
Piaget answers by complaining that frequently 'absolutely nothing is done to teach the child the spirit of experimentation. He has lessons, he sees experiments demonstrated; but seeing them is not the same as doing them for himself. I'm convinced that one could develop a marvelous method of participatory education by giving the child the apparatus with which to do experiments and thus discover a lot of things for himself. Guided, of course.'
That sounds awfully close to Vygotsky's ideas, and the zone of proximal development, to me.
'Education,' Piaget goes on to say, 'for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society....But for me, education means making creators....You have to make inventors, innovators, not conformists.'
Inspiring words from the man who also tells his interviewer,'Everything one teaches a child prevents him from inventing or discovering.'
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
LARS'S LIBRARY: LITERARY LINKS
Get some great ideas for books to give as gifts that kids will love from children's author and National Ambassador for Young People's Literature Jon Scieszka on CBS's Early Show.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING: MY REVIEW OF "TOOLS OF THE MIND"
TOOLS OF THE MIND: The Vygotskian Approach to Early Childhood Education, Second Edition. By Elena Bodrova and Deborah J. Leong. Pearson, 2007. 235 pages.
Elena Bodrova and Deborah Leong's well-organized and well-written book is an important reference for those interested in child psychology and development. As well, it is a useful primer for the theories of Lev Vygotsky and followers such as Luria, Leont'ev and Elkonin, presenting those theories in a manner far more accessible and practical than Vygotsky's dense and challenging prose.
I certainly came away an even firmer 'Vygotskian' than I had been before, with a deeper understanding and appreciation of his thinking.
And perhaps a firmer 'Piagetian,' too. Despite the concept of an essential dichotomy instilled during my matriculation through the credential program at SF State, the more encounters I have with Vygotsky and Piaget, the more I am convinced that there are more points of intersection than exclusion in the ways they approached children and learning.
The critical commonality is that learning is constructed in an actively participatory manner. While an argument can be made (and often is—Bodrova and Leong employ it), that Vygotsky is more about personal interaction and Piaget more about physical interaction, neither man would have advocated subtracting culture or object manipulation from any theory of learning.
It makes sense to view any difference as one of emphasis, rather than of fundamental understanding. Both Piaget and Vygotsky make a strong case for learning and teaching that is dynamic, hands-on, and geared to the individual's level of development. Piaget was more interested in universals, looking at the similarities in how all human beings develop. Vygotsky, on the other hand, was more concerned with specifics, examining the differences in environment that affect individual progress.
Piaget's stages—sensory motor to pre-operation to concrete operation to formal operation—are congruent with the developmental accomplishments and leading activities outlined by Bodrova and Leong. What's exciting about Vygotsky, an excitement conveyed by the authors that keeps their work from becoming a dry textbook, is the importance he found in language and play, and his belief that play enables the child to move to more sophisticated levels.
'Play,' he wrote, 'is the source of development and creates the zone of proximal development.'
Bodrova and Leong point out that Vygotsky meant something very specific by 'play.' It is activity that necessarily leads to symbolic representation and thus language, self-regulation, and 'enquiry motivation.' 'When a child squeezes, drops, and bangs a soft plastic cup on the table,' they tell us, 'this is object manipulation, not play. When the child uses the cup as a duck and makes it swim on the table and peck bread crumbs, the actions become play.'
The message that really got to me while reading 'Tools of the Mind,' is that I must worry less about teaching my students what to learn than how they can learn. What is the priority? Bodrova and Leong frame it beautifully: 'It is not enough for the child to create the same product as the teacher or the correct answer. The answer must be the result of the right mental process.'
That means being aware of what is developmentally appropriate, and using the zone of proximal development to help transition to 'higher mental functions.' It means listening to what children say and working hard to figure out what they mean, and listening to what I say and figuring out if children understand why I am saying it. It means making learning engaging and playful, and viewing mistakes that get at purpose and concepts as more valuable than right answers that have no context.
It's a shame when teachers and schools emphasize standards and benchmarks and de-emphasize imagination, creativity and reflective thought. Our culture and educational system too often reward going through the motions at the expense of honoring the motivation of their curious, active young students.
In one of their many wonderful, practical illustrations, Bodrova and Leong note that: 'If every morning before school, Jessica’s parents tell her, "Be sure you do what the teacher tells you to do. Don’t get into trouble," she is much less likely to develop enquiry motivation than if they tell her, "Be sure to learn something today."'
Elena Bodrova and Deborah Leong's well-organized and well-written book is an important reference for those interested in child psychology and development. As well, it is a useful primer for the theories of Lev Vygotsky and followers such as Luria, Leont'ev and Elkonin, presenting those theories in a manner far more accessible and practical than Vygotsky's dense and challenging prose.
I certainly came away an even firmer 'Vygotskian' than I had been before, with a deeper understanding and appreciation of his thinking.
And perhaps a firmer 'Piagetian,' too. Despite the concept of an essential dichotomy instilled during my matriculation through the credential program at SF State, the more encounters I have with Vygotsky and Piaget, the more I am convinced that there are more points of intersection than exclusion in the ways they approached children and learning.
The critical commonality is that learning is constructed in an actively participatory manner. While an argument can be made (and often is—Bodrova and Leong employ it), that Vygotsky is more about personal interaction and Piaget more about physical interaction, neither man would have advocated subtracting culture or object manipulation from any theory of learning.
It makes sense to view any difference as one of emphasis, rather than of fundamental understanding. Both Piaget and Vygotsky make a strong case for learning and teaching that is dynamic, hands-on, and geared to the individual's level of development. Piaget was more interested in universals, looking at the similarities in how all human beings develop. Vygotsky, on the other hand, was more concerned with specifics, examining the differences in environment that affect individual progress.
Piaget's stages—sensory motor to pre-operation to concrete operation to formal operation—are congruent with the developmental accomplishments and leading activities outlined by Bodrova and Leong. What's exciting about Vygotsky, an excitement conveyed by the authors that keeps their work from becoming a dry textbook, is the importance he found in language and play, and his belief that play enables the child to move to more sophisticated levels.
'Play,' he wrote, 'is the source of development and creates the zone of proximal development.'
Bodrova and Leong point out that Vygotsky meant something very specific by 'play.' It is activity that necessarily leads to symbolic representation and thus language, self-regulation, and 'enquiry motivation.' 'When a child squeezes, drops, and bangs a soft plastic cup on the table,' they tell us, 'this is object manipulation, not play. When the child uses the cup as a duck and makes it swim on the table and peck bread crumbs, the actions become play.'
The message that really got to me while reading 'Tools of the Mind,' is that I must worry less about teaching my students what to learn than how they can learn. What is the priority? Bodrova and Leong frame it beautifully: 'It is not enough for the child to create the same product as the teacher or the correct answer. The answer must be the result of the right mental process.'
That means being aware of what is developmentally appropriate, and using the zone of proximal development to help transition to 'higher mental functions.' It means listening to what children say and working hard to figure out what they mean, and listening to what I say and figuring out if children understand why I am saying it. It means making learning engaging and playful, and viewing mistakes that get at purpose and concepts as more valuable than right answers that have no context.
It's a shame when teachers and schools emphasize standards and benchmarks and de-emphasize imagination, creativity and reflective thought. Our culture and educational system too often reward going through the motions at the expense of honoring the motivation of their curious, active young students.
In one of their many wonderful, practical illustrations, Bodrova and Leong note that: 'If every morning before school, Jessica’s parents tell her, "Be sure you do what the teacher tells you to do. Don’t get into trouble," she is much less likely to develop enquiry motivation than if they tell her, "Be sure to learn something today."'
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING: LISTENING IS LEARNING
"Neil Gaiman Asks: Heard Any Good Books Lately?" NPR 11/30/09
More fodder for my upcoming essay on audio books, and the need to respect the listening experience as its own kind of duck (see "What Is Reading, Anyway?" below). It turns out that Gaiman forwarded his argument for audio books previously on his blog in 2005, where he is even harsher on Harold Bloom than in his NPR story. He tells us that Bloom "demonstrates his twerphood to the world" in a comment solicited as part of an New York Times story on the validity of the audio books experience. To wit (quoting from Gaiman's blog):
"Deep reading really demands the inner ear as well as the outer ear," said Harold Bloom, the literary critic. "You need the whole cognitive process, the part of you which is open to wisdom. You need the text in front of you." From this we learn that art and wisdom only go in at the eyes. What comes in by the ear is manifestly a lesser experience. The corollary, of course, is that real writing gets written down by the hand, and only inferior, wisdom-less writing gets dictated by the mouth, which is why Paradise Lost must have been rubbish...
Not to mention The Iliad and The Odyssey. Which brings me to an earlier critic, Socrates. Maryanne Wolf tells us in her wonderful Proust and the Squid that: "In examining written language, Socrates took a stand that usually comes as a surprise: he felt passionately that the written word posed serious risks to society." His reasoning, Wolf informs us, was quite similar to Bloom's. Except that Socrates felt that it was written, rather than oral, language that did not engage "the whole cognitive process" because written language offered less need for using memory and internalizing knowledge.
Maybe by not listening to audio books, Bloom is the one who is not "open to wisdom."
More fodder for my upcoming essay on audio books, and the need to respect the listening experience as its own kind of duck (see "What Is Reading, Anyway?" below). It turns out that Gaiman forwarded his argument for audio books previously on his blog in 2005, where he is even harsher on Harold Bloom than in his NPR story. He tells us that Bloom "demonstrates his twerphood to the world" in a comment solicited as part of an New York Times story on the validity of the audio books experience. To wit (quoting from Gaiman's blog):
"Deep reading really demands the inner ear as well as the outer ear," said Harold Bloom, the literary critic. "You need the whole cognitive process, the part of you which is open to wisdom. You need the text in front of you." From this we learn that art and wisdom only go in at the eyes. What comes in by the ear is manifestly a lesser experience. The corollary, of course, is that real writing gets written down by the hand, and only inferior, wisdom-less writing gets dictated by the mouth, which is why Paradise Lost must have been rubbish...
Not to mention The Iliad and The Odyssey. Which brings me to an earlier critic, Socrates. Maryanne Wolf tells us in her wonderful Proust and the Squid that: "In examining written language, Socrates took a stand that usually comes as a surprise: he felt passionately that the written word posed serious risks to society." His reasoning, Wolf informs us, was quite similar to Bloom's. Except that Socrates felt that it was written, rather than oral, language that did not engage "the whole cognitive process" because written language offered less need for using memory and internalizing knowledge.
Maybe by not listening to audio books, Bloom is the one who is not "open to wisdom."
Monday, November 30, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
LARS'S LIBRARY: LITERARY LINKS
Read a nice profile of Wild Thing author Maurice Sendak in the UK Independent.
Some good examples of recent children's books in translation can be found in the L.A. Times Word Play's "Going global."
As well as The New York Times article about reading workshop referenced in my piece here on classics, I've come across two other essays that eloquently make the case for student choice in elementary, middle and high school reading: Dane Peters's "Who Should Decide What Students Read?" in Education Week, and novelist Susan Straight's disparaging look at the Accelerated Reading program in The New York Times.
Some good examples of recent children's books in translation can be found in the L.A. Times Word Play's "Going global."
As well as The New York Times article about reading workshop referenced in my piece here on classics, I've come across two other essays that eloquently make the case for student choice in elementary, middle and high school reading: Dane Peters's "Who Should Decide What Students Read?" in Education Week, and novelist Susan Straight's disparaging look at the Accelerated Reading program in The New York Times.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING: A FAMILY I KNOW
"Bay Area Mom Creates Online Tool To Tackle Autism" KPIX TV 11/23/09
I work with Pramila--the "Bay Area Mom" here--and her son Siddhu!
I work with Pramila--the "Bay Area Mom" here--and her son Siddhu!
Monday, November 23, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING: WHAT IS READING, ANYWAY?
"The Future of Reading" Library Journal 11/1/09
Found this while researching for a new essay on the website. The essay will be about valuing the attention, focus and comprehension skills involved in listening to an audio book as much as we value "basic" literacy skills--decoding and encoding written language. That means thinking of the audio book as its own kind of animal, and not an add-on, or as so often happens, a remedial tool. Well-meaning adults often tell struggling readers to only listen if they are reading, giving a message that listening and understanding stories and information is less valuable than reading. They are also making what could have been a successful learning moment into one that emphasizes a deficiency, and changing a pleasurable experience into a punitive one.
In Tom Peter's Library Journal essay, he advises librarians to stay on top of what is happening with the way books and and their content are delivered to the audience, and to be willing to adapt. He lists some fascinating possibilities, and notes that audio books are an area of growth in a somewhat moribund publishing industry.
Found this while researching for a new essay on the website. The essay will be about valuing the attention, focus and comprehension skills involved in listening to an audio book as much as we value "basic" literacy skills--decoding and encoding written language. That means thinking of the audio book as its own kind of animal, and not an add-on, or as so often happens, a remedial tool. Well-meaning adults often tell struggling readers to only listen if they are reading, giving a message that listening and understanding stories and information is less valuable than reading. They are also making what could have been a successful learning moment into one that emphasizes a deficiency, and changing a pleasurable experience into a punitive one.
In Tom Peter's Library Journal essay, he advises librarians to stay on top of what is happening with the way books and and their content are delivered to the audience, and to be willing to adapt. He lists some fascinating possibilities, and notes that audio books are an area of growth in a somewhat moribund publishing industry.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING: SCHOOLS NEED TO ENGAGE KIDS FIRST (HIGHER TEST SCORES WILL FOLLOW)
"Schools Need a Culture Shift: Bringing Passion, Fun and Collaboration Back to the Classroom" Education Week 11/16/09
Great commentary that made me remember two books I keep meaning to read: Kelly Gallagher's Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It
and Daniel Willingham's Why Don’t Students Like School?
Great commentary that made me remember two books I keep meaning to read: Kelly Gallagher's Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It
and Daniel Willingham's Why Don’t Students Like School?
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING: EXERCISE AND THE BRAIN
Last night, I went to a Parents Education Network presentation by John Ratey, author of the recently released Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. I came away quite impressed with the correlation demonstrated by research that connects exercise to cognition, behavor, motivation and focus. I also was inspired to brainstorm ways to incorporate more movement into my sessions with children. Ratey pointed out that human evolution owes a great deal to the need to move, and that the bigger the brain animals have, the more they need to play (not video games, but physical, rough-and-tumble play). Thanks to the internet, a similar presentation can be watched on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bmc0ERKfjP0.
Coincidentally, I'm reading Elena Bodrova and Deborah Leong's Tools of the Mind: The Vygotskian Approach to Early Childhood Education. Vygotky's work really tied in to the importance of play and physical interaction with caregivers and peers to cognitive development. In conjunction with that idea, Ratey mentioned a book which I would like to read: Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown.
Updating this on November 18 to add on "Phys Ed: Why Exercise Makes You Anxious" from The New York Times Well Blog.
Coincidentally, I'm reading Elena Bodrova and Deborah Leong's Tools of the Mind: The Vygotskian Approach to Early Childhood Education. Vygotky's work really tied in to the importance of play and physical interaction with caregivers and peers to cognitive development. In conjunction with that idea, Ratey mentioned a book which I would like to read: Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown.
Updating this on November 18 to add on "Phys Ed: Why Exercise Makes You Anxious" from The New York Times Well Blog.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING
"Social Medicine" Olivia Judson Blog/The New York Times 11/10/09
If you haven't ever checked in on Olivia Judson's "The Wild Side" blog and do because of this link, you're in for a treat. She's worth checking in on from time to time, even if you think, like me, you're someone who is not so good at understanding science. In this essay, she makes a clinically convincing case for positivity.
If you haven't ever checked in on Olivia Judson's "The Wild Side" blog and do because of this link, you're in for a treat. She's worth checking in on from time to time, even if you think, like me, you're someone who is not so good at understanding science. In this essay, she makes a clinically convincing case for positivity.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING
"Education dollars spent on pricey seminars instead of kids" Robin Hanson, SF Examiner 11/14/09
Robin is an outspoken advocate for kids and parents navigating the treacherous waters of education politics and individual educational plans (IEPs) because she is a mother who has had to navigate them herself.
It's discouraging when school districts are so pressured to reduce costs that they spend what little money they have on preventing all children from succeeding.
Robin is an outspoken advocate for kids and parents navigating the treacherous waters of education politics and individual educational plans (IEPs) because she is a mother who has had to navigate them herself.
It's discouraging when school districts are so pressured to reduce costs that they spend what little money they have on preventing all children from succeeding.
Friday, November 13, 2009
LARS'S LIBRARY: LITERARY LINKS
Find some classics that are not always on required reading lists, recommended by children's author Lesley Blume, on NPR.
Are children's classics like Where the Wild Things Are and The Fantastic Mr. Fox too scary as movies? A.O. Scott of The New York Times doesn't think so.
Are children's classics like Where the Wild Things Are and The Fantastic Mr. Fox too scary as movies? A.O. Scott of The New York Times doesn't think so.
LARS'S LIBRARY: WHERE THE CLASSIC THINGS ARE
When I first heard that Where the Wild Things was to be made into a movie, I was appalled. As with all adaptations of well-loved works, the question arose, “Why?” Why muck up a masterpiece so perfectly done, so self-contained and so succinct?
Then I read that Maurice Sendak wanted Spike Jonze to make the movie, indeed, urged him to do so for quite some time, despite Jonze having many of the same objections as I did. And that Jonze had collaborated with Dave Eggers on the screenplay.
I got interested and started thinking about what makes me rate a book as “classic” and untouchable. I turned my questions around. Why should any work be sacrosanct? If a work is well-loved, shouldn’t it be re-examined and re-interpreted?
And what makes a children’s book “classic,” anyway?
I wasn’t alone. In the days preceding the release of the movie, The Boston Globe’s Ty Burr examined Hollywood retellings of children’s books in "Where the Wonder Goes." In a provocative essay in The New York Times, “Where the Wild Things Weren’t,” Bruce Handy questioned whether children actually like the books their parents call classics. Some of us, he wrote, didn’t like Where the Wild Things Are or The Wind in the Willows.
So what does make a children’s book a classic? Its appeal to adults or children or both? Or is it the subject matter—profound thematically, or boundary-breaking in the way it deals with childhood struggles (certainly the case with Where the Wild Things Are)?
Maybe it’s best to be flexible. Everything changes. Lists such as the one on Wikipedia, which limits itself to books “published at least 90 years ago…still enjoyed by children today,” are valuable references. But the criteria are so narrow.
I prefer the looser parameters set at by Eden Ross Lipson, former children’s book editor of The NewYork Times Book Review. As paraphrased by Dwight Garner in an excellent piece called “The Reading Life: What Makes a Children’s Classic” (with lots of great reading suggestions in the readers’ comments):
“It isn’t the critics’ reviews. It’s whether your children choose to read the book to their children, and so on, an organic and generational process of elimination.”
That means, though, that it’s adults who are driving the process, as they remember, perhaps misremember, revise, and codify their own childhood experience. Nothing’s wrong with that, and children benefit from exposure to the books in a recognized canon. However, I believe it’s important that we don’t get too stuck in a groove, and too tied into that canon.
At the same time as all the adult-engendered hoopla over Where the Wild Things Are, another cultural phenomenon took place, this one clearly driven by kids. It was the release of the latest book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Dog Days. The day it came out, book stores were jammed with anxious children. Almost immediately, it jumped to the top of bestseller lists. The publisher pushed the initial printing up from three to four million copies.
Is Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days a classic? Using Lipson’s guidelines, we can’t know until the millions of kids who are reading it grow up, since it’s up to adults to decide the answer to that question. What is more important is that millions of kids are reading it.
Parents may complain that Dog Days is “a poor choice for good character building in your children,” but there is no doubt author Jeff Kinney has struck a chord that resonates deeply with the elementary and middle school audience.
It matters that kids see that they can make a book a success, and that reading is worthwhile. How many children are turned off by reading because it’s something they have to do?
Some schools are beginning to allow students to choose their own books. This approach, known as reading workshop, recognizes that what we think children should read is not always what they want to read, and that children, like us, have different tastes.
It’s an approach that requires more work by teachers and parents because they can’t fall back into familiar territory—the “classics.” But it could lead to more reading by more kids, and perhaps to the startling discovery by more adults of new classics.
For the record, Lars’s library contains many of the books on the Wikipedia list of children’s classics, as well as many Newbery Award winners. I believe that a number of the re-evaluated books in “Where the Wild Things Weren’t”—Alice in Wonderland, Winnie-the-Pooh, Eloise—are classics. I don’t see Wimpy Kid as a classic. I have read the first three books (and you can find them in my library), and have been caught laughing out loud in the process. Eventually a young reader will probably get me to read Dog Days. And I really liked Where the Wild Things Are, the movie.
Then I read that Maurice Sendak wanted Spike Jonze to make the movie, indeed, urged him to do so for quite some time, despite Jonze having many of the same objections as I did. And that Jonze had collaborated with Dave Eggers on the screenplay.
I got interested and started thinking about what makes me rate a book as “classic” and untouchable. I turned my questions around. Why should any work be sacrosanct? If a work is well-loved, shouldn’t it be re-examined and re-interpreted?
And what makes a children’s book “classic,” anyway?
I wasn’t alone. In the days preceding the release of the movie, The Boston Globe’s Ty Burr examined Hollywood retellings of children’s books in "Where the Wonder Goes." In a provocative essay in The New York Times, “Where the Wild Things Weren’t,” Bruce Handy questioned whether children actually like the books their parents call classics. Some of us, he wrote, didn’t like Where the Wild Things Are or The Wind in the Willows.
So what does make a children’s book a classic? Its appeal to adults or children or both? Or is it the subject matter—profound thematically, or boundary-breaking in the way it deals with childhood struggles (certainly the case with Where the Wild Things Are)?
Maybe it’s best to be flexible. Everything changes. Lists such as the one on Wikipedia, which limits itself to books “published at least 90 years ago…still enjoyed by children today,” are valuable references. But the criteria are so narrow.
I prefer the looser parameters set at by Eden Ross Lipson, former children’s book editor of The NewYork Times Book Review. As paraphrased by Dwight Garner in an excellent piece called “The Reading Life: What Makes a Children’s Classic” (with lots of great reading suggestions in the readers’ comments):
“It isn’t the critics’ reviews. It’s whether your children choose to read the book to their children, and so on, an organic and generational process of elimination.”
That means, though, that it’s adults who are driving the process, as they remember, perhaps misremember, revise, and codify their own childhood experience. Nothing’s wrong with that, and children benefit from exposure to the books in a recognized canon. However, I believe it’s important that we don’t get too stuck in a groove, and too tied into that canon.
At the same time as all the adult-engendered hoopla over Where the Wild Things Are, another cultural phenomenon took place, this one clearly driven by kids. It was the release of the latest book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Dog Days. The day it came out, book stores were jammed with anxious children. Almost immediately, it jumped to the top of bestseller lists. The publisher pushed the initial printing up from three to four million copies.
Is Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days a classic? Using Lipson’s guidelines, we can’t know until the millions of kids who are reading it grow up, since it’s up to adults to decide the answer to that question. What is more important is that millions of kids are reading it.
Parents may complain that Dog Days is “a poor choice for good character building in your children,” but there is no doubt author Jeff Kinney has struck a chord that resonates deeply with the elementary and middle school audience.
It matters that kids see that they can make a book a success, and that reading is worthwhile. How many children are turned off by reading because it’s something they have to do?
Some schools are beginning to allow students to choose their own books. This approach, known as reading workshop, recognizes that what we think children should read is not always what they want to read, and that children, like us, have different tastes.
It’s an approach that requires more work by teachers and parents because they can’t fall back into familiar territory—the “classics.” But it could lead to more reading by more kids, and perhaps to the startling discovery by more adults of new classics.
For the record, Lars’s library contains many of the books on the Wikipedia list of children’s classics, as well as many Newbery Award winners. I believe that a number of the re-evaluated books in “Where the Wild Things Weren’t”—Alice in Wonderland, Winnie-the-Pooh, Eloise—are classics. I don’t see Wimpy Kid as a classic. I have read the first three books (and you can find them in my library), and have been caught laughing out loud in the process. Eventually a young reader will probably get me to read Dog Days. And I really liked Where the Wild Things Are, the movie.
LARS'S LIBRARY: RECENTLY READ
Ricky Ricotta's Mighty Robot vs. The Mutant Mosquitoes from Mercury by Dav Pilkey--Something some adults may not realize is that Dav Pilkey's phenomenally popular Captain Underpants series is not written at an easy reading level. Sometimes criticized for their bathroom humor and purposely misspelled words, the Captain Underpants books can actually be a motivator for reluctant readers to decode complex words and even deal with complex thoughts--there's much that must be inferred. For those readers for whom they are too difficult, however, Pilkey has put together the Ricky Ricotta series. Kids love them, and if you care, they veer away from the potty jokes. In fact, since each volume features a villain from a different planet, and often contains a few math puzzlers, you might even make a case that they have peripheral "educational" value beyond getting children to read. If, like me, you do like the sudversive nature of Pilkey's work, rest assured that you will still find a good dose of irreverent attitude.
Herbert's Wormhole by Peter Nelson--Borrowing liberally from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series (nerdy, wiseacre protagonist, purposely primitive drawings), this "novel in cartoons" (delightfully drawn by Rohitash Rao) tells the tale of ten-year-old video-game addict Alex Filby, whose parents want to get him outside. They arrange a "playdate" with Alex's even nerdier neighbor, Herbert Slewg. Herbert, it turns out, has invented a way to time travel. The boys end up in a future world ruled by aliens who disguise their disgusting squid-like appearance with toupees and false mustaches. As you might imagine, much hilarity ensues. The final battle scene, where Alex, Herbert and Sammi, their cute and highly competent girl neighbor, team up against the aliens, is a total blast.
The Long Secret by Louise Fitzhugh--It's almost too bad that Harriet the Spy has made such a mark as a "classic," because each of the four novels Fitzhugh wrote during her all too brief life are quite extraordinary and ground-breaking. A sequel to Harriet, The Long Secret contains some surprising revelations about one of the characters in that first book. Written well before Judy Blume's Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret., it presaged the same issues of pubescent rites of passage and religion. It's a fantastic book, as are Fitzhugh's other Harriet book, Sport, and the stunning Nobody's Family Ever Changes.
The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor--Beddor's premise--that Lewis Carroll misunderstood Alice (actually Alyss), who was trying to tell him about a parallel world gone awry--makes for an engrossing fantasy/historical novel with lots of page-turning action. The author's flippant, glib tone borders on too much, but works if you like sophomoric humor, I do. And you won't ever think of the Mad Hatter in quite the same way again.
Herbert's Wormhole by Peter Nelson--Borrowing liberally from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series (nerdy, wiseacre protagonist, purposely primitive drawings), this "novel in cartoons" (delightfully drawn by Rohitash Rao) tells the tale of ten-year-old video-game addict Alex Filby, whose parents want to get him outside. They arrange a "playdate" with Alex's even nerdier neighbor, Herbert Slewg. Herbert, it turns out, has invented a way to time travel. The boys end up in a future world ruled by aliens who disguise their disgusting squid-like appearance with toupees and false mustaches. As you might imagine, much hilarity ensues. The final battle scene, where Alex, Herbert and Sammi, their cute and highly competent girl neighbor, team up against the aliens, is a total blast.
The Long Secret by Louise Fitzhugh--It's almost too bad that Harriet the Spy has made such a mark as a "classic," because each of the four novels Fitzhugh wrote during her all too brief life are quite extraordinary and ground-breaking. A sequel to Harriet, The Long Secret contains some surprising revelations about one of the characters in that first book. Written well before Judy Blume's Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret., it presaged the same issues of pubescent rites of passage and religion. It's a fantastic book, as are Fitzhugh's other Harriet book, Sport, and the stunning Nobody's Family Ever Changes.
The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor--Beddor's premise--that Lewis Carroll misunderstood Alice (actually Alyss), who was trying to tell him about a parallel world gone awry--makes for an engrossing fantasy/historical novel with lots of page-turning action. The author's flippant, glib tone borders on too much, but works if you like sophomoric humor, I do. And you won't ever think of the Mad Hatter in quite the same way again.
WORLD OF LEARNING
"Dyslexia May Make It Tough to Tune Out School Noise" Yahoo! News/HealthDay 11/11/09
"Writing Study Ties Autism To Motor-Skill Problems" NPR 11/11/09
"4th-grade homework: Good luck, kid" Chicago Tribune 11/10/09
"The internet is killing storytelling" London Times 11/5/09
"The Science of Success" The Atlantic 12/09
"For Improving Early Literacy, Reading Comics Is No Child's Play" Science Daily 11/6/09
"A Powerful Identity, a Vanishing Diagnosis" The New York Times 11/2/09
"Teaching students with autism" eSchoolNews 11/1/09
"How students are cheated out of higher math education" Robin Hansen, San Franciso Examiner 10/30/09
"No Einstein in Your Crib? Get a Refund" The New York Times 10/23/09
"'Platooning' Instruction" Harvard Education Letter 11-12/09
"Kids Master Mathematics When They're Challenged But Supported" Edutopia 10/09
"Rediscovering the 'Pygmalion Effect'" Education Week 10/23/09
"No Success Like Failure?: Examining the 'No Effects' Phenomenon in Education Research" Education Week 10/21/09
"For Some Parents, Shouting Is the New Spanking" The New York Times 10/21/09
"Internet addiction linked to ADHD, depression in teens" CNN 10/5/09
"How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect" The New York Times 10/5/09
"Thinking literally: The surprising ways that metaphors shape your world" The Boston Globe 9/27/09
"Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?" The New York Times 9/27/09
"Brain Scans Link ADHD to Biological Flaw Tied to Motivation" The Washington Post 9/22/09
"Phys Ed: What Sort of Exercise Can Make You Smarter? The New York Times 9/16/09
"Why Can't She Walk to School?" The New York Times 9/12/09
"Let the Children Play (Some More)" The New Yorkk Times Happy Days Blog 9/2/09
"Why Do Kids Dislike School?" The Washington Post Answer Sheet Blog 8/31/09
"Students Get New Assignment: Pick Books You Like" The New York Times
"Soothe Back-to-School Anxiety, Teach Kids to Relax" Yahoo! News
"Writing Study Ties Autism To Motor-Skill Problems" NPR 11/11/09
"4th-grade homework: Good luck, kid" Chicago Tribune 11/10/09
"The internet is killing storytelling" London Times 11/5/09
"The Science of Success" The Atlantic 12/09
"For Improving Early Literacy, Reading Comics Is No Child's Play" Science Daily 11/6/09
"A Powerful Identity, a Vanishing Diagnosis" The New York Times 11/2/09
"Teaching students with autism" eSchoolNews 11/1/09
"How students are cheated out of higher math education" Robin Hansen, San Franciso Examiner 10/30/09
"No Einstein in Your Crib? Get a Refund" The New York Times 10/23/09
"'Platooning' Instruction" Harvard Education Letter 11-12/09
"Kids Master Mathematics When They're Challenged But Supported" Edutopia 10/09
"Rediscovering the 'Pygmalion Effect'" Education Week 10/23/09
"No Success Like Failure?: Examining the 'No Effects' Phenomenon in Education Research" Education Week 10/21/09
"For Some Parents, Shouting Is the New Spanking" The New York Times 10/21/09
"Internet addiction linked to ADHD, depression in teens" CNN 10/5/09
"How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect" The New York Times 10/5/09
"Thinking literally: The surprising ways that metaphors shape your world" The Boston Globe 9/27/09
"Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?" The New York Times 9/27/09
"Brain Scans Link ADHD to Biological Flaw Tied to Motivation" The Washington Post 9/22/09
"Phys Ed: What Sort of Exercise Can Make You Smarter? The New York Times 9/16/09
"Why Can't She Walk to School?" The New York Times 9/12/09
"Let the Children Play (Some More)" The New Yorkk Times Happy Days Blog 9/2/09
"Why Do Kids Dislike School?" The Washington Post Answer Sheet Blog 8/31/09
"Students Get New Assignment: Pick Books You Like" The New York Times
"Soothe Back-to-School Anxiety, Teach Kids to Relax" Yahoo! News
RECENT NEWS: CHILDREN AS EXPLORERS
Many years ago, parents smoked and drank in front of their children. People were sympathetic when mothers and fathers spanked unruly children. No one wore seat belts in moving automobiles or safety helmets when riding bikes. Elements of risk, danger and abuse were permitted in child-rearing that are unacceptable today. It’s good that society is showing more concern with its most important mandate: to protect our young.
But we’ve lost something. In an article in The New York Review of Books that previewed his latest work, Manhood for Amateurs, Michael Chabon puts it this way: “The land ruled by children, to which a kid might exile himself for at least some portion of every day from the neighboring kingdom of adulthood, has in large part been taken over, co-opted, colonized, and finally absorbed by the neighbors.”
My parents were not only used to their children being out of the house in undisclosed locations, they sometimes ordered us to get there as quickly as possible. Of course, there were boundaries within which we were to stay (boundaries we might ignore), but there were parts of every day where children determined the activities and established the rules.
We knew our surroundings in an intimate and concrete way—all the hiding places, dark and scary places, comforting and familiar places, who was mean, who was nice, who was neat, who was messy. Well before school lessons about history and geography, we had our own internal schema for those subjects, and our own set of regulations for behavior and social interaction.
Today, it’s harder for kids to learn those things on their own. Chabon mentions the example of a nine-year-old girl in his neighborhood who lives three doors down from a nine-year-old boy. Both of them have lived in the neighborhood their entire lives. Yet they had never met.
This summer, I struck up a conversation with a mother sitting next to me at a presentation on assistive technology. She talked about her son in middle school and a “free night” parents had organized at a community center. She had been surprised at the kids' confusion about what to do, and once that was decided, how to organize things. She complained they were too used to structured activities supervised by adults.
I have been surprised by children who can show me where California is on a map of the United States, but are baffled when I ask them where the bay is. The San Francisco Bay is immediately in front of my office building. Kids who might know the name of their city and street seem unaware they live on a peninsula with a ridge of small mountains running down its center, next to an ocean.
I wish I had a solution, a way for children to escape what Chabon calls the “door-to-door, all-encompassing escort service that we adults have contrived,” that left adults feeling that they have been responsible, that children are safe. It’s a touchy area, as seen by all the controversy surrounding New York Sun columnist Lenore Skenazy’s decision last year to let her nine-year-old ride the subway on his own. Children seen walking alone have prompted adults to call the police.
“If children are not permitted,” says Chabon, “to be adventurers and explorers as children, what will become of the world of adventure, of stories, of literature itself?”
But we’ve lost something. In an article in The New York Review of Books that previewed his latest work, Manhood for Amateurs, Michael Chabon puts it this way: “The land ruled by children, to which a kid might exile himself for at least some portion of every day from the neighboring kingdom of adulthood, has in large part been taken over, co-opted, colonized, and finally absorbed by the neighbors.”
My parents were not only used to their children being out of the house in undisclosed locations, they sometimes ordered us to get there as quickly as possible. Of course, there were boundaries within which we were to stay (boundaries we might ignore), but there were parts of every day where children determined the activities and established the rules.
We knew our surroundings in an intimate and concrete way—all the hiding places, dark and scary places, comforting and familiar places, who was mean, who was nice, who was neat, who was messy. Well before school lessons about history and geography, we had our own internal schema for those subjects, and our own set of regulations for behavior and social interaction.
Today, it’s harder for kids to learn those things on their own. Chabon mentions the example of a nine-year-old girl in his neighborhood who lives three doors down from a nine-year-old boy. Both of them have lived in the neighborhood their entire lives. Yet they had never met.
This summer, I struck up a conversation with a mother sitting next to me at a presentation on assistive technology. She talked about her son in middle school and a “free night” parents had organized at a community center. She had been surprised at the kids' confusion about what to do, and once that was decided, how to organize things. She complained they were too used to structured activities supervised by adults.
I have been surprised by children who can show me where California is on a map of the United States, but are baffled when I ask them where the bay is. The San Francisco Bay is immediately in front of my office building. Kids who might know the name of their city and street seem unaware they live on a peninsula with a ridge of small mountains running down its center, next to an ocean.
I wish I had a solution, a way for children to escape what Chabon calls the “door-to-door, all-encompassing escort service that we adults have contrived,” that left adults feeling that they have been responsible, that children are safe. It’s a touchy area, as seen by all the controversy surrounding New York Sun columnist Lenore Skenazy’s decision last year to let her nine-year-old ride the subway on his own. Children seen walking alone have prompted adults to call the police.
“If children are not permitted,” says Chabon, “to be adventurers and explorers as children, what will become of the world of adventure, of stories, of literature itself?”
Sunday, November 8, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING
LARS'S LIBRARY: RECENTLY READ
Onion John by Joseph Krumgold--The Newbery Award winner from 1960, Onion John is an extraordinary book, ostensibly about twelve-year-old Andy Rusch's friendship with the town eccentric and how that helps Andy and his father to work out the problems fathers and sons have with expectations. But it's really about the listening and looking—really listening and looking—that children like Andy do. Although we adults often criticize children for lacking focus, this is something they are often much better at than their elders. We can learn as much from their open eyes and ears, as they can from our experienced ones. Middle schoolers will appreciate this.
The Savage by David Almond and Dave McKean--Ooooo...it's dark, but delectable. Like its protagonist, Blue Baker, don't a lot of boys (including this rather old one)--and for that matter a lot of girls--desire the truly wild? As Blue puts it, "I've never been one for stories. I couldn't stand all that stuff about wizards and fairies and 'once upon a time' and 'they all lived happily ever after.' That's not what life's like. Me, I wanted blood and guts and adventures...." That's what Blue gives us as he comes to terms with the death of his father and a class bully. Maybe not for the very gentle or genteel, but there are a lot of middle schoolers with inner savages I've run into. And they're going to love the nearly graphic novel format with art by the stellar Dave McKean.
The Savage by David Almond and Dave McKean--Ooooo...it's dark, but delectable. Like its protagonist, Blue Baker, don't a lot of boys (including this rather old one)--and for that matter a lot of girls--desire the truly wild? As Blue puts it, "I've never been one for stories. I couldn't stand all that stuff about wizards and fairies and 'once upon a time' and 'they all lived happily ever after.' That's not what life's like. Me, I wanted blood and guts and adventures...." That's what Blue gives us as he comes to terms with the death of his father and a class bully. Maybe not for the very gentle or genteel, but there are a lot of middle schoolers with inner savages I've run into. And they're going to love the nearly graphic novel format with art by the stellar Dave McKean.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
LARS'S LIBRARY: GOOD BOOKS ARE FOR EVERYBODY
Most people see the value in reading aloud to young children and letting them see adults reading. Research shows such activities are powerful aids in promoting the mastery of literacy skills.As children move beyond the lower elementary grades, adults often let this kind of shared reading experience lapse. Adults read their “adult” books and kids read “children’s literature” or “young adult” novels.
I would like to make a case for a continuance of literary community with children as they grow, and propose that we go beyond reading to kids and read with them.
There are obvious and didactic reasons for such an argument. Being able to discuss a book with a young person will make the experience richer and deeper for that young person. But as someone who reads a great many children’s books, I can tell you that there is a less altruistic reason for shared reading.
You may find yourself enjoying children’s books as much as children do.
Anyway, isn’t the categorization of good literature rather arbitrary? Is To Kill a Mockingbird a children’s book? What about Huckleberry Finn? Tony Earley’s Jim the Boy was marketed to adults, and became a best-seller. Earley called it “a children’s book for adults.”
Two of the best books I read last year were the two volumes of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by M.T. Anderson. They were marketed to young adults, but one might call them adults’ books for children.
Octavian Nothing truly makes history come alive, giving a voice to African-Americans enslaved at a time when their owners were fighting for freedom in the American Revolution. It is complex, yet electrifying and involving—an epic saga that takes place during the birth of a nation and the age of enlightenment.
Powerful, gripping, and ultimately hopeful, this is an important work of literature.
Anderson is an astonishing writer, a master of language and character development. Categorizing The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing as a young adult novel doesn't acknowledge the broad audience it should reach.
This year, I read Terry Pratchett’s Nation, another work ostensibly for young people that is simply a marvelous read for anybody.
Nation is placed in an alternate Nineteenth Century that contains Darwin, but where science and faith come to an understanding. Where Europeans familiarly tramp across the globe, but colonialism and cultural imperialism are turned upside down and inside out.
If it sounds fascinating, it is. And like Anderson, Pratchett is a wonderful writer, with a style that is exquisite and amusing.
Recently, I saw a fantastic exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, a retrospective of the creations of William Kentridge, consisting of large galleries filled with multiple screenings of that artist’s intriguing videos. One room served as an homage to George Méliès, an early silent-movie director, famous for the iconic image of a rocket ship landing in the eye of the man in the moon.
My appreciation for this installation was immensely increased by my readings of the ground-breaking The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, a marriage of novel and graphic novel, and the discussions I have had with children about the book. It’s an amazing work, and also an homage to Méliès.
I am lucky enough to have a job where I enrich children’s lives by reading with them. But reading children’s books has enriched my own life as well. I have received pleasure and knowledge equal to that of any other reading I do. You can, too.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING
"New Study Finds Differences in Way Autistic Children Learn" Digital Journal
"A Writing Problem is a Thinking Problem" Social Thinking: a blog by Michelle Garcia Winner
"A Fit Body Means a Fit Mind" Edutopia
"Culture, Not Biology, Underpins Math Gender Gap" Science Daily
"Did Mozart Really Have ADHD? History of Hyperactivity Off-base, Says Researcher" Science Daily
"A Writing Problem is a Thinking Problem" Social Thinking: a blog by Michelle Garcia Winner
"A Fit Body Means a Fit Mind" Edutopia
"Culture, Not Biology, Underpins Math Gender Gap" Science Daily
"Did Mozart Really Have ADHD? History of Hyperactivity Off-base, Says Researcher" Science Daily
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
CONTROLLING EMOTION, CONTROLLING THOUGHT
One morning recently, I listened to a humorous report on NPR’s Morning Edition that asked, “Does Getting Angry Make You Angrier?”
Two things struck me immediately. The first was that, as funny as it was to hear about “Sarah’s Smash Shack,” a business that gives people an opportunity to work out their frustrations by breaking plates, this is behavior that we routinely discourage in children.
With good reason, we tell kids that acting on their emotions in a destructive manner is “inappropriate” and “unacceptable.” The process of controlling your reactions and feelings when events are disappointing or frustrating is unformed in babies, and society inculcates self-regulation as they grow.
While there is undoubtedly value in recognizing the source of anger, if we don’t rein that anger in we are not setting the best example for young people, something I will try to remember the next time I’m driving and someone abruptly cuts in front of me.
In addition, we are not helping ourselves by indulging in anger. Indeed, the NPR report noted that “decades of research on cathartic anger—the theory that actively expressing your anger can reduce or relieve the feeling…very clearly shows the opposite is true.”
The second thing that struck me about this report was a connection I made to brain research done by such pioneers as Antonio Damasio. These studies are showing that what we think of as “reason” is, like all our thinking, based in the limbic system of our brains. Emotional thought is the driver of all thought.
Surely learning to regulate emotion is the key to what we need to be learners—the ability to focus and thus engage in deeper and more reflective thinking.
Something Sylvia Bunge, a psychology professor at Cal Berkeley, talked about during a lecture titled “How We Control Our Thoughts & Actions: Implications for the Classroom” at a Learning and the Brain Conference still sticks with me over a year later. When presented with questions where they had to pick one of two responses, the children who did better in her study were those who slowed down and took a moment to reflect before choosing.
This counterintuitive principle—for most of us doing better is doing it faster—is often difficult for children to understand. And it is rooted in controlling impulsive action prompted by emotion.
Getting kids to think about this and ways they can take charge of their feelings is one way to help them go further and regulate their thought processes. Controlling our own emotions and talking about how we are doing that is another way. As the NPR report put it, “The key is to speak out your anger without getting emotional about it.”
Read more about emotional intelligence in a recent Boston Globe article, "The other kind of smart." There's also a fantastic article in a recent New Yorker about self-control.
Two things struck me immediately. The first was that, as funny as it was to hear about “Sarah’s Smash Shack,” a business that gives people an opportunity to work out their frustrations by breaking plates, this is behavior that we routinely discourage in children.
With good reason, we tell kids that acting on their emotions in a destructive manner is “inappropriate” and “unacceptable.” The process of controlling your reactions and feelings when events are disappointing or frustrating is unformed in babies, and society inculcates self-regulation as they grow.
While there is undoubtedly value in recognizing the source of anger, if we don’t rein that anger in we are not setting the best example for young people, something I will try to remember the next time I’m driving and someone abruptly cuts in front of me.
In addition, we are not helping ourselves by indulging in anger. Indeed, the NPR report noted that “decades of research on cathartic anger—the theory that actively expressing your anger can reduce or relieve the feeling…very clearly shows the opposite is true.”
The second thing that struck me about this report was a connection I made to brain research done by such pioneers as Antonio Damasio. These studies are showing that what we think of as “reason” is, like all our thinking, based in the limbic system of our brains. Emotional thought is the driver of all thought.
Surely learning to regulate emotion is the key to what we need to be learners—the ability to focus and thus engage in deeper and more reflective thinking.
Something Sylvia Bunge, a psychology professor at Cal Berkeley, talked about during a lecture titled “How We Control Our Thoughts & Actions: Implications for the Classroom” at a Learning and the Brain Conference still sticks with me over a year later. When presented with questions where they had to pick one of two responses, the children who did better in her study were those who slowed down and took a moment to reflect before choosing.
This counterintuitive principle—for most of us doing better is doing it faster—is often difficult for children to understand. And it is rooted in controlling impulsive action prompted by emotion.
Getting kids to think about this and ways they can take charge of their feelings is one way to help them go further and regulate their thought processes. Controlling our own emotions and talking about how we are doing that is another way. As the NPR report put it, “The key is to speak out your anger without getting emotional about it.”
Read more about emotional intelligence in a recent Boston Globe article, "The other kind of smart." There's also a fantastic article in a recent New Yorker about self-control.
WORLD OF LEARNING
"Poor Attention In Kindergarten Predicts Lower High School Test Scores" Science Daily
"Schools taught not to teach 'i before e except after c' spelling rule" Times Online (Britain)
"Easiest real life tips for boosting reading skills" Robin Hansen, SF Examiner
"At Last, Facing Down Bullies (and Their Enablers) The New York Times
"Study links teen depression to bedtimes" USA Today
"Rising Above I.Q." The New York Times
"Schools taught not to teach 'i before e except after c' spelling rule" Times Online (Britain)
"Easiest real life tips for boosting reading skills" Robin Hansen, SF Examiner
"At Last, Facing Down Bullies (and Their Enablers) The New York Times
"Study links teen depression to bedtimes" USA Today
"Rising Above I.Q." The New York Times
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING
"Really? The Claim: Eye Exercise Can Enhance Your Vision" The New York Times
"Texting May Be Taking a Toll" The New York Times
"Tying Education To Future Goals May Boost Grades More Than Helping With Homework" Science Daily
"A Genetic Clue to Why Autism Affects Boys More" TIME
"Some Thoughts on the Lost Art of Reading Aloud" The New York Times
"Texting May Be Taking a Toll" The New York Times
"Tying Education To Future Goals May Boost Grades More Than Helping With Homework" Science Daily
"A Genetic Clue to Why Autism Affects Boys More" TIME
"Some Thoughts on the Lost Art of Reading Aloud" The New York Times
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING
"Don't! The secret of self-control" The New Yorker
"What Makes Us Happy?" The Atlantic Monthly
"Ear Plugs to Lasers: The Science of Concentration" The New York Times
"Some kids with autism can recover, study suggests" USA Today
"Early Word Recognition Is Key To Lifelong Reading Skills Says New Study" Science Daily
"What Makes Us Happy?" The Atlantic Monthly
"Ear Plugs to Lasers: The Science of Concentration" The New York Times
"Some kids with autism can recover, study suggests" USA Today
"Early Word Recognition Is Key To Lifelong Reading Skills Says New Study" Science Daily
Friday, July 10, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING
"Writing Disorder May Be Common Among Kids" Medline Plus
"Toddler brain difference linked to autism" CNN
"New Robot With Artificial Skin To Improve Human Communication" Science Daily
"Genius: The Modern View" The New York Times
"Early Brain Activity Sheds New Light On The Neural Basis of Reading" Science Daily
"36 hours to literacy" Robin Hansen, San Francisco Examiner
"Toddler brain difference linked to autism" CNN
"New Robot With Artificial Skin To Improve Human Communication" Science Daily
"Genius: The Modern View" The New York Times
"Early Brain Activity Sheds New Light On The Neural Basis of Reading" Science Daily
"36 hours to literacy" Robin Hansen, San Francisco Examiner
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING
"Middle-school Math Classes Are Key To Closing Racial Academic Achievement Gap" Science Daily
"An Educator's Journey Toward Multiple Intelligences" Edutopia
"An Interview with the Father of Multiple Intelligences" Edutopia
"Learning Disabilities In Males: Chromosome Genes Linked To Learning Disabilities" Science Daily
"One Class Increases Odds Of College Graduation For Struggling Students" Science Daily
"An Educator's Journey Toward Multiple Intelligences" Edutopia
"An Interview with the Father of Multiple Intelligences" Edutopia
"Learning Disabilities In Males: Chromosome Genes Linked To Learning Disabilities" Science Daily
"One Class Increases Odds Of College Graduation For Struggling Students" Science Daily
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
AN UNRECOGNIZED CLASSIC
The transition from the page to the screen can result in disappointment for those familiar with the source. I thought of this recently while viewing Watchmen (not appropriate for young children), which has been unfavorably reviewed on the basis of that kind of comparison.
I liked it. Maybe it’s apples and oranges. Movies and books are, after all, wholly separate entities.
But that’s too bad for kids in too many cases, who often don’t read the book because they have seen the movie.
Film adaptations by necessity can’t encompass the nuances of a book. The movie Because of Winn-Dixie is disappointingly bland when compared with Kate DiCamillo’s extraordinary novel. Some young readers, however, will miss out on the superior experience because they watched the video.
While I loved the movie Coraline, I felt that inserting a boy as a major character and taking the setting out of England were boring and condescending concessions to what Hollywood conceives of as the mass audience.
Coraline should not be from Michigan and should not move to Oregon. She should be a solitary child who relies on herself and her own imagination to resolve her problems. Children who have only seen the movie will be stuck with horrid misconceptions.
Because True Grit, with its iconic performance by John Wayne, is now history, this is an opportune time to read the exceptional story by Charles Portis that served as the basis for that film. Younger readers unfamiliar with the movie can come to the book with fresh eyes and without preconceptions.
And what a book it is. Portis tells the tale in the voice of Mattie Ross, an unbelievably strong, engaging female protagonist, and his language and ability to get totally inside Mattie's head are astounding.
More than that, the story concerns the rollicking adventures of fourteen-year-old Mattie avenging her father's death in frontier America. The non-stop action will leave the reader breathless.
Beyond a great narrative, young readers will learn a lot about America in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. Portis is a true appreciator of our tradition of tall tales, and introduces us to a delightfully dilapidated bunch of rusty but tough old coots who make up the remnants of what was the Wild West. There’s even a cameo appearance by Jesse James’s brother Frank.
George Pelecanos, no slouch as a writer himself, labeled True Grit “a book you hope parents read to their kids,” and says, “Mattie's voice, wry and sure, is one of the great creations of modern American fiction. I put it up there with Huck Finn's, and that is not hyperbole. In fact, I find True Grit to be one of the very best American novels.”
He’s right.
I liked it. Maybe it’s apples and oranges. Movies and books are, after all, wholly separate entities.
But that’s too bad for kids in too many cases, who often don’t read the book because they have seen the movie.
Film adaptations by necessity can’t encompass the nuances of a book. The movie Because of Winn-Dixie is disappointingly bland when compared with Kate DiCamillo’s extraordinary novel. Some young readers, however, will miss out on the superior experience because they watched the video.
While I loved the movie Coraline, I felt that inserting a boy as a major character and taking the setting out of England were boring and condescending concessions to what Hollywood conceives of as the mass audience.
Coraline should not be from Michigan and should not move to Oregon. She should be a solitary child who relies on herself and her own imagination to resolve her problems. Children who have only seen the movie will be stuck with horrid misconceptions.
Because True Grit, with its iconic performance by John Wayne, is now history, this is an opportune time to read the exceptional story by Charles Portis that served as the basis for that film. Younger readers unfamiliar with the movie can come to the book with fresh eyes and without preconceptions.
And what a book it is. Portis tells the tale in the voice of Mattie Ross, an unbelievably strong, engaging female protagonist, and his language and ability to get totally inside Mattie's head are astounding.
More than that, the story concerns the rollicking adventures of fourteen-year-old Mattie avenging her father's death in frontier America. The non-stop action will leave the reader breathless.
Beyond a great narrative, young readers will learn a lot about America in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. Portis is a true appreciator of our tradition of tall tales, and introduces us to a delightfully dilapidated bunch of rusty but tough old coots who make up the remnants of what was the Wild West. There’s even a cameo appearance by Jesse James’s brother Frank.
George Pelecanos, no slouch as a writer himself, labeled True Grit “a book you hope parents read to their kids,” and says, “Mattie's voice, wry and sure, is one of the great creations of modern American fiction. I put it up there with Huck Finn's, and that is not hyperbole. In fact, I find True Grit to be one of the very best American novels.”
He’s right.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING
"Another Awkward Sex Talk: Respect and Violence" The New York Times
"Teaching autistic kids to read facial expressions" Los Angeles Times
"Our view on helping hyperactive kids: New findings raise questions about use of ADHD drugs" USA Today
"Kids and antipsychotics: Prescriptions on the rise" Los Angeles Times
"Is a high IQ a burden as much as a blessing?" Financial Times
"The myth of developmental lag in reading" Robin Hansen, SF Examiner
"Teaching autistic kids to read facial expressions" Los Angeles Times
"Our view on helping hyperactive kids: New findings raise questions about use of ADHD drugs" USA Today
"Kids and antipsychotics: Prescriptions on the rise" Los Angeles Times
"Is a high IQ a burden as much as a blessing?" Financial Times
"The myth of developmental lag in reading" Robin Hansen, SF Examiner
Friday, April 17, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING
"Teaching Autistic Teens To Make Friends" Science Daily
"Cyber Scout Puts Autism Studies On Faster Track" NPR
"Do reading curricula make a difference?" Teach Effectively!
"Disabled Group Protests Removal of Kindle's Text-to-Speech" Publishers Weekly
"Willpower: A Game Of Strategy" NPR
"Brain Researchers Open Door to Editing Memory" The New York Times
"New Theory Of Autism Suggests Symptoms Or Disorder May Be Reversible" Science Daily
"Demystifying Dyslexia: 1 in 10 Americans have Dyslexia" WWLP.com
"Cyber Scout Puts Autism Studies On Faster Track" NPR
"Do reading curricula make a difference?" Teach Effectively!
"Disabled Group Protests Removal of Kindle's Text-to-Speech" Publishers Weekly
"Willpower: A Game Of Strategy" NPR
"Brain Researchers Open Door to Editing Memory" The New York Times
"New Theory Of Autism Suggests Symptoms Or Disorder May Be Reversible" Science Daily
"Demystifying Dyslexia: 1 in 10 Americans have Dyslexia" WWLP.com
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING
"Physical Activity May Strengthen Children's Ability To Pay Attention" Science Daily
"Eye Exercises Help Patients Work Out Vision Problems, Optometrist Says" Science Daily
"Choice autism treatment offers benefits, has limits" CNN
"Dyslexia or dysteachea?" "The best kept secret in special education," "National and local evidence of reading neglect and how YOU can fix it" Robin Hansen, SF Examiner
"The sound and the fury about making sense of written words" The Sydney Morning Herald
"Eye Exercises Help Patients Work Out Vision Problems, Optometrist Says" Science Daily
"Choice autism treatment offers benefits, has limits" CNN
"Dyslexia or dysteachea?" "The best kept secret in special education," "National and local evidence of reading neglect and how YOU can fix it" Robin Hansen, SF Examiner
"The sound and the fury about making sense of written words" The Sydney Morning Herald
RECENT NEWS: FINDING A ZONE OF SUCCESS
A recent “diversion” on NPR’s morning news show humorously recounted Pittsburgh school officials’ decision to reinstate the grade of “zero.”
The city’s schools had eliminated that black mark for incomplete assignments, instead giving students the benefit of the doubt with grades of 50 percent averaged into their report cards. Students figured out they could game the system and more easily get away with not handing in their work.
The new policy was rejected.
Grade inflation might, indeed, have adverse effects. In a New York Times article, some college professors noted that their students, products of such a trend, expected B’s for just showing up.
A study done at UC Irvine offered further evidence. Discussing the study, researcher Ellen Greenberger commented on “an increased sense of entitlement” among her students.
Over-praising can devalue praise and make it ineffective. This is the thrust of important recent work done by Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
I’ll come down firmly on being honest with students when they do not measure up to expectations. It’s a moot point at any rate. It’s pretty obvious to most children when they are not doing well, even if someone is telling them, “Good job!”
But I also believe that part of the responsibility for setting expectations for children falls on educators and parents. We’re all individuals and learn in different ways and at different speeds. And none of us is motivated by constant failure.
The challenge is finding where the challenge is. If we want someone who can jump over a two-foot high bar to jump five feet, it’s probably not going to work if we immediately raise the bar to five feet. If we raise the bar a few inches, practice, raise it a few more inches, practice some more, and so on, we are much more likely to get results, and perhaps reach the goal.
Finding what the great psychologist Lev Vygotsky called the “zone of proximal development,” that place where we challenge the learner just the right amount, is not always easy, but effective education is a collaborative effort, and the teacher should be working at least as hard as the student.
In her landmark work, Children’s Minds, another psychologist whom I greatly admire, Margaret Donaldson wrote: “There can be no doubt that if we decide we cannot cope with a particular kind of challenge we tend to give up and avoid it.”
Nothing is sadder than a child who views herself as "dumb," a child who has given up.
Yes, there should be consequences for lack of effort. No, persistence and effort should not result in constant failure. Young learners need to see they can make progress, and we need to find the work that will demonstrate that.
The city’s schools had eliminated that black mark for incomplete assignments, instead giving students the benefit of the doubt with grades of 50 percent averaged into their report cards. Students figured out they could game the system and more easily get away with not handing in their work.
The new policy was rejected.
Grade inflation might, indeed, have adverse effects. In a New York Times article, some college professors noted that their students, products of such a trend, expected B’s for just showing up.
A study done at UC Irvine offered further evidence. Discussing the study, researcher Ellen Greenberger commented on “an increased sense of entitlement” among her students.
Over-praising can devalue praise and make it ineffective. This is the thrust of important recent work done by Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
I’ll come down firmly on being honest with students when they do not measure up to expectations. It’s a moot point at any rate. It’s pretty obvious to most children when they are not doing well, even if someone is telling them, “Good job!”
But I also believe that part of the responsibility for setting expectations for children falls on educators and parents. We’re all individuals and learn in different ways and at different speeds. And none of us is motivated by constant failure.
The challenge is finding where the challenge is. If we want someone who can jump over a two-foot high bar to jump five feet, it’s probably not going to work if we immediately raise the bar to five feet. If we raise the bar a few inches, practice, raise it a few more inches, practice some more, and so on, we are much more likely to get results, and perhaps reach the goal.
Finding what the great psychologist Lev Vygotsky called the “zone of proximal development,” that place where we challenge the learner just the right amount, is not always easy, but effective education is a collaborative effort, and the teacher should be working at least as hard as the student.
In her landmark work, Children’s Minds, another psychologist whom I greatly admire, Margaret Donaldson wrote: “There can be no doubt that if we decide we cannot cope with a particular kind of challenge we tend to give up and avoid it.”
Nothing is sadder than a child who views herself as "dumb," a child who has given up.
Yes, there should be consequences for lack of effort. No, persistence and effort should not result in constant failure. Young learners need to see they can make progress, and we need to find the work that will demonstrate that.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING
Monday, April 6, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING
"Visual Learners Convert Words To Pictures In The Brain And Vice Versa, Says Psychology Study" Science Daily
"Inconsistent Performance Speed Among Children With ADHD May Underlie How Well They Use Memory" Science Daily
"Electrical Signal in Brain Seems to Warn of 'Mistakes'" U.S. News & World Report
"Reading Test Dummies" The New York Times
"Inconsistent Performance Speed Among Children With ADHD May Underlie How Well They Use Memory" Science Daily
"Electrical Signal in Brain Seems to Warn of 'Mistakes'" U.S. News & World Report
"Reading Test Dummies" The New York Times
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING
"'Square peg' students more often targets of bullies' Georgina Advocate
"Some schools are cutting back on homework" Los Angeles Times
"Smart People Really Do Think Faster" NPR
"Heightened Level Of Amygdala Activity May Cause Social Deficits In Autism" Science Daily
"Drug Maker Told Studies Would Aid It, Papers Say" The New York Times
"Some schools are cutting back on homework" Los Angeles Times
"Smart People Really Do Think Faster" NPR
"Heightened Level Of Amygdala Activity May Cause Social Deficits In Autism" Science Daily
"Drug Maker Told Studies Would Aid It, Papers Say" The New York Times
Friday, March 27, 2009
WORLD OF LEARNING
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
