"The Case Against Summer Vacation" TIME 7/22/10
TIME won't let you read the full article without buying the magazine, but you get the gist here, and it's nothing new: a long summer vacation is a leftover from an agricultural past that causes academic stagnation.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
WORLD OF LEARNING: PO BRONSON AND "THE CREATIVITY CRISIS"
"The Creativity Crisis" Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman/Newsweek 7/10/10
Really important essay that everyone should read. Also see the sidebar: "What you think you know about fostering creativity is wrong. A look at what really works."
A quote from that apropos of the two stories below: "According to University of Texas professor Elizabeth Vandewater, for every hour a kid regularly watches television, his overall time in creative activities—from fantasy play to arts projects—drops as much as 11 percent."
Really important essay that everyone should read. Also see the sidebar: "What you think you know about fostering creativity is wrong. A look at what really works."
A quote from that apropos of the two stories below: "According to University of Texas professor Elizabeth Vandewater, for every hour a kid regularly watches television, his overall time in creative activities—from fantasy play to arts projects—drops as much as 11 percent."
WORLD OF LEARNING: TURN OFF
"Study: TV and Video Game Exposure Leads to Attention Problems in Children" LifeSiteNews.com 7/6/10
Piggybacks nicely onto the Times story below.
Piggybacks nicely onto the Times story below.
Monday, July 12, 2010
WORLD OF LEARNING: COMPUTERS CAN HINDER LEARNING PART TWO
"Computers at Home: Educational Hope vs. Teenage Reality" New York Times 7/9/10
Randall Stross, a business professor at San Jose State, discusses the results of three separate research projects, all of which indicate that access to computers does not result in higher academic performance. Indeed, the effect might be lower grades. When I posted a Charlotte newspaper's summary of the Duke University study, I was surprised the Times did not have a story on it. They make up for it here. I loved Stross's arch conclusion in reference to Texas's four-year experiment in “technology immersion” : "When devising ways to beat school policing software, students showed an exemplary capacity for self-directed learning. Too bad that capacity didn’t expand in academic directions, too."
Randall Stross, a business professor at San Jose State, discusses the results of three separate research projects, all of which indicate that access to computers does not result in higher academic performance. Indeed, the effect might be lower grades. When I posted a Charlotte newspaper's summary of the Duke University study, I was surprised the Times did not have a story on it. They make up for it here. I loved Stross's arch conclusion in reference to Texas's four-year experiment in “technology immersion” : "When devising ways to beat school policing software, students showed an exemplary capacity for self-directed learning. Too bad that capacity didn’t expand in academic directions, too."
Friday, July 9, 2010
WORLD OF LEARNING: BACKUP EVIDENCE FOR "THIS SUMMER, NO BOOKS YOU HAVE TO READ, YOU JUST HAVE TO READ BOOKS"
"The Medium Is the Medium" David Brooks/New York Times 7/8/10
"Book smart: Just a dozen books could alter a child's future" Houston Chronicle 6/30/10
"Free books block 'summer-slide' in low-income students" USA Today 5/31/10
Three pieces that all focus on the same study, which so backs up my recent essay about summer reading. Led by Richard Allington, researchers found that the simple act of letting disadvantaged kids choose a dozen books that they would be given at the end of the school year led to higher reading scores, less of a summer slump, and more reading. I found it significant that the students chose the books themselves, and they owned the books--their own library.
Brooks contrasts this study with one done at Duke, which I had mentioned earlier here and on my website, about the use of PCs correlating with poorer school performance. He then nicely segues into the to-do surrounding Nicholas Carr's recent The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing To Our Brains. Carr's book takes off from the article he wrote for the Atlantic two years ago that is still generating sparks, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"
"Book smart: Just a dozen books could alter a child's future" Houston Chronicle 6/30/10
"Free books block 'summer-slide' in low-income students" USA Today 5/31/10
Three pieces that all focus on the same study, which so backs up my recent essay about summer reading. Led by Richard Allington, researchers found that the simple act of letting disadvantaged kids choose a dozen books that they would be given at the end of the school year led to higher reading scores, less of a summer slump, and more reading. I found it significant that the students chose the books themselves, and they owned the books--their own library.
Brooks contrasts this study with one done at Duke, which I had mentioned earlier here and on my website, about the use of PCs correlating with poorer school performance. He then nicely segues into the to-do surrounding Nicholas Carr's recent The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing To Our Brains. Carr's book takes off from the article he wrote for the Atlantic two years ago that is still generating sparks, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
LARS'S LIBRARY: GOODREADS
A really great place to find out about children's books (and all books) is by hooking up with Goodreads. This came to mind after a great discussion I've been having there related to Julie of All Ears review of Penelope Lively's In Search of a Homeland, a children's version of The Aeneid. In the interest of shameless self-promotion, also take a look at my Goodreads page.
Monday, July 5, 2010
WORLD OF LEARNING: MY REVIEW OF "EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE"
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: WHY IT CAN MATTER MORE THAN IQ (THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION). By Daniel Goleman. Bantam Books, 2005. 358 pages.
After several years of looking at this seminal work on my to-read list, I am happy to have finally read it. It should be on the to-read list of educators and parents.
To learn and to grow, children first need to be ready to learn and to grow. However, how and what we need to learn today can differ significantly from the requirements of our ancestors. Evolution equipped us with an early warning system, the limbic system of our brains and its marvelous filter, the amygdala.
This system connects sensory perception to emotional reactions based on experiences encountered in environments where survival depended on immediate and intense responses--fight or flight. When you are hunting a woolly mammoth or being hunted by a saber-toothed tiger, careful analysis can be less helpful than a rush of adrenaline-filled momentum.
Fortunately, evolution has also met more modern-day needs. The limbic core of our brains is surrounded by the neo-cortex. The front part of this add-on to human brains, which continues to grow after birth, is larger than in other animals, and highly malleable. The way this area develops is the key to emotional intelligence.
The proficiency with which we identify and deal with the emotions engendered in the limbic system is the measure of how well we can avoid becoming victims of what Goleman terms "emotional hijacking." It would be futile to try to suppress these emotions entirely, he tells us, but success or failure in monitoring and controlling them is the yardstick of emotional intelligence.
Genetics, Goleman believes, do play a part here. The very outlooks with which we are born, optimistic or pessimistic, indicate obvious propensities for high or low emotional intelligence. The incredible plasticity of our brains, though, means we are not prisoners of nature.
If we consciously develop those neural pathways to the parts of our brains associated with attending to emotions, we can strengthen a "self-aware" style of managing them that Goleman notes is so much more effective than what he calls "engulfed" and "accepting" styles.
While recent studies have indicated the remarkable adaptability of the brain into old age, it is during childhood and adolescence, Goleman notes, where we have the largest "windows of opportunity." Since Emotional Intelligence first came out fifteen years ago, "emotional literacy" has earned a place in the curriculum of many schools. Reading the book strengthened my desire for a continuation of this trend.
Without emotional intelligence, we are susceptible to "flooding" where an emotional response such as anger generates more anger. Goleman's description of the biology here is fascinating. Anger is amplified as our brains release catecholamines, neurotransmitters that keep the nervous system ramped up and raring to go.
When children are "flooded," they can not be good students. "A child's readiness for school," Goleman writes, "depends on the most basic of all knowledge, how to learn." He goes on to list important attributes of that readiness from a report by the National Center for Clinical Infant Programs: confidence, curiosity, intentionality, self-control, relatedness, capacity to communicate, and cooperativeness.
Emotional Intelligence is not only a manual for childhood education. Reading it really made me think about my own style of managing my own emotions. In particular, two observations by Goleman really resonated with me.
One is that men, it appears, generally have a lower threshold for "flooding" than women. If that seems counter-intuitive, it's because men often use withdrawal--stonewalling--as a way of dealing with flooding, rather than the self-expression we stereotypically associate with femininity.
The second is Goleman's consideration of substance abuse as self-medication. People who are prone to addiction may actually be searching for control of depression, anxiety or rage.
The importance of Emotional Intelligence is apparent in the many references made to it in popular culture. It is also an accessible and entertaining book that deserves a place on the shelves of those concerned with learning and the brain.
After several years of looking at this seminal work on my to-read list, I am happy to have finally read it. It should be on the to-read list of educators and parents.
To learn and to grow, children first need to be ready to learn and to grow. However, how and what we need to learn today can differ significantly from the requirements of our ancestors. Evolution equipped us with an early warning system, the limbic system of our brains and its marvelous filter, the amygdala.
This system connects sensory perception to emotional reactions based on experiences encountered in environments where survival depended on immediate and intense responses--fight or flight. When you are hunting a woolly mammoth or being hunted by a saber-toothed tiger, careful analysis can be less helpful than a rush of adrenaline-filled momentum.
Fortunately, evolution has also met more modern-day needs. The limbic core of our brains is surrounded by the neo-cortex. The front part of this add-on to human brains, which continues to grow after birth, is larger than in other animals, and highly malleable. The way this area develops is the key to emotional intelligence.
The proficiency with which we identify and deal with the emotions engendered in the limbic system is the measure of how well we can avoid becoming victims of what Goleman terms "emotional hijacking." It would be futile to try to suppress these emotions entirely, he tells us, but success or failure in monitoring and controlling them is the yardstick of emotional intelligence.
Genetics, Goleman believes, do play a part here. The very outlooks with which we are born, optimistic or pessimistic, indicate obvious propensities for high or low emotional intelligence. The incredible plasticity of our brains, though, means we are not prisoners of nature.
If we consciously develop those neural pathways to the parts of our brains associated with attending to emotions, we can strengthen a "self-aware" style of managing them that Goleman notes is so much more effective than what he calls "engulfed" and "accepting" styles.
While recent studies have indicated the remarkable adaptability of the brain into old age, it is during childhood and adolescence, Goleman notes, where we have the largest "windows of opportunity." Since Emotional Intelligence first came out fifteen years ago, "emotional literacy" has earned a place in the curriculum of many schools. Reading the book strengthened my desire for a continuation of this trend.
Without emotional intelligence, we are susceptible to "flooding" where an emotional response such as anger generates more anger. Goleman's description of the biology here is fascinating. Anger is amplified as our brains release catecholamines, neurotransmitters that keep the nervous system ramped up and raring to go.
When children are "flooded," they can not be good students. "A child's readiness for school," Goleman writes, "depends on the most basic of all knowledge, how to learn." He goes on to list important attributes of that readiness from a report by the National Center for Clinical Infant Programs: confidence, curiosity, intentionality, self-control, relatedness, capacity to communicate, and cooperativeness.
Emotional Intelligence is not only a manual for childhood education. Reading it really made me think about my own style of managing my own emotions. In particular, two observations by Goleman really resonated with me.
One is that men, it appears, generally have a lower threshold for "flooding" than women. If that seems counter-intuitive, it's because men often use withdrawal--stonewalling--as a way of dealing with flooding, rather than the self-expression we stereotypically associate with femininity.
The second is Goleman's consideration of substance abuse as self-medication. People who are prone to addiction may actually be searching for control of depression, anxiety or rage.
The importance of Emotional Intelligence is apparent in the many references made to it in popular culture. It is also an accessible and entertaining book that deserves a place on the shelves of those concerned with learning and the brain.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
