Strollerderby : learning

Let Them Chew Gum: It Makes Them Smarter!

JeanneSager — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:04:00 GMT

It's about time I track down my old high school teachers (maybe they're on Facebook) and get them this new information. A study has found kids who chew gum score higher on math tests because "Teachers observed that those who chewed gum seemed to require fewer breaks, sustain attention longer and remain quieter."

Take that Mrs. Peake - who used to hand out detentions to gum chewers in her classroom.

The study out of the Baylor College of Medicine is small - not just in the sample size but in how much of a difference in scores between chewers and non-chewers (the latter had scores that were lower by three percent), but the crux of the findings make a lot of sense.

Much in the way that smokers say they use cigarettes for stress reduction (not advocating for smoking, just saying), a lot of former smokers say chewing gum helped bridge the gap as they weaned themselves off the smokes. Part of that? The rhythmic chewing helped reduced stress. And kids with less stress perform better on tests.

Baylor's scientists say the chewing may also enhance blood flow to the brain, although how that's linked to academic performance (if at all) has not been determined.

So next time your kid gets written up for chewing gum in class, how about sending this blog post in to his teacher as an excuse?

Image: SundayObserver

They Say: Bilingual Babies Learn Better

Kate Tuttle — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:01:00 GMT

And not just languages, either. A new study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, compared babies' ability to both process linguisitic information and to correctly anticipate based on new information, a mental process linked to what neuropsychologists call "executive function." Babies rasied in bilingual households performed better than monolingual babies, although the study's lead scientist suggests that the monolingual babies will eventually catch up with their bilingual peers.

Undertaken at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, the research may change attitudes in Europe, where Jacques Mehler, the study's author, says that "parents are wary of giving a bilingual education to their kids and tryto speak only one language." Given the geographical proximity and relative ease of exposing an Italian child to, say, French, it seems almost criminal not to try.

For parents in the US, bilingual education in the home is fairly well accepted, and even kind of de riguer in certain circles (probably half the kids we play with in our Boston-area setting are bilingual), but there lingers a stigma that privileges certain languages over others. Your mother-in-law will brag to all the neighbors if your baby is learning French, for instance, but that kid down the block who speaks Spanish (as well as English) may well be seen as a potential problem for schools and society for her failure to assimilate. And while some innovative school districts have piloted two-way bilingual programs, many other districts have pushed for English-only learning as a means to help students succeed in English (even though these rules tend to raise dropout rates for immigrants and the children of immigrants).

So it's nice to see some scientific confirmation of what parents who speak two languages in the home already know: a mind is made nimbler the more it's exposed to. When it comes to languages and learning, more is more.

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Education Secretary Talks Elongated School Year

JeanneSager — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:33:00 GMT

President Obama's education secretary might have a hard time selling his new plan to kids, but parents should be jumping on board.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has floated the idea of extending the school year, positing the idea that the reason American kids fare poorly in comparison to other nations is because China, India and the like send their kids to school more days out of the year.

But kids shouldn't put the blame all on Duncan. The new education secretary is joining a long line of education officials looking to keep kids in school. Minnesota superintendents put forth a proposal last year that would increase the state's classroom time from one hundred seventy-five days to two hundred. A group in Delaware is pushing that state to add one hundred forty extra hours of classroom time to its schedule. In Pennsylvania, there's talk of extending Philadelphia's school year to ten and a half months, while Chicago's mayor has suggested a year-round school system.

Meanwhile, some states are taking the other tack. A series of bills in front of the Indiana General Assembly would actually shorten the school year - and administrators aren't happy with the idea.

Shorter school years - longer breaks - have been associated with a lack of retained knowledge. Teachers say there's a lack of time to adequately prepare their students - leading to the "teaching to the test" mentality driven by No Child Left Behind. And kids simply aren't able to achieve to the highest standards. As the 1983 Education Department report "A Nation At Risk" pointed out, "history isn't kind to idlers."

At the same time, studies have shown kids benefit from shorter school WEEKS. An extra day off in districts that have shifted to four-day weeks boosts student performance as well as student morale.

Parents complain that shorter weeks are a daycare hassle, but so are extended breaks. So maybe the answer is longer school years, made up of shorter weeks? Give the kids a three-day weekend, providing one day a week that parents have to pay for daycare instead of ten straight weeks of daycare in the summer (which amounts to about fifty days of daycare - about the same as one Friday per week for fifty-two weeks).

Image: CNN

Pardon Me, I Think you Dropped an Apostrophe

JeanneSager — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:02:00 GMT

If you're a stickler for sentence structure, steer clear of Birmingham. The second-largest city in England has opted to drop all apostrophes from its street signs, citing the hooks in the air as "confusing and old-fashioned."

So what are Birmingham's primary school teachers to do from now on? Allow their charges to make "its" stand in for "it is" on a moment's notice?

Yes, I'm one of those sticklers, one who is appalled that her daughter will soon be learning to read and write in a world that's gotten lax on language. Do you know why the apostrophe is confusing in Birmingham? I would hazard a guess that it's due to a lack of education in the schools and a lack of sticklers on the streets. Because the best way to make punction confusing is to ignore it.

How am I supposed to teach my daughter to spell when every closing sign says they're open "'til midnite" and the post office posts a notice warning you not to "loose your keys"? I'm not sure if I should tell her we're eating at Joe's (denoting there is one owner, a guy named Joe) or Joes' (where there are two proprietors with a common moniker).

We all make mistakes - especially now that fast fingers over the keyboard have taken much of the thought out of the process. But if the signmakers, who are paid to put their focus on proper sign making, are too confused, so are the people reading them!

Want to make it all less confusing? Keep putting your pressure on the public - and the schools - to keep punctuating. Or perhaps they'd prefer we check out Birminghams' business center rather than Birmingham's?

Image/Source: MSNBC

Entire School Board Recalled By Angry Students

JeanneSager — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:15:00 GMT

Note to boards of education: listen to your students, you're there for them. Or maybe you're not?

A collection of angry students at one California high school organized a recall election that might well be the first ever in the state to unseat an entire school board. The kids and their adult supporters collected enough signatures to authorize a recall vote on all five members of the board of education at the Big Oak Flat-Groveland Unified School District.

What made the kids this angry? The board fired a popular math teacher. Yes, a math teacher, not a football coach (although he is a former professional football player) or a gym teacher. A guy who teaches one of the core subjects. To be fair, he was also coaching baseball - but that wasn't at the heart of the kids' arguments.

The board released Ryan Dutton from his job teaching math at Tioga High in September over an allegation of plagiarism. Working toward his teaching credentials at Cal State Fresno, Dutton was accused in March 2008 of copying another student's homework. He denied the charge, and the university eventually found it was unfounded. Still, members of the school board say they're standing behind THEIR source, and they've refused to rehire Dutton. Nor have they revealed their sources.

Students have appealed to the board to no avail. So civics teacher Tim King helped them organize a civics project instead: collecting the necessary nine hundred ten signatures per school board member necessary to put the recall on the ballot. They got them. . . and more.

There's scuttlebutt, according to the Los Angeles Times, that these kids are being used to settle old scores in a fractious community. And while I'm often cautious about putting kids on the front lines of these kinds of arguments, I've seen what they can do. As a community reporter, I followed the case of a school librarian cut because of budget constraints, and the students who worked to have her reinstated. The kids were brushed aside by a school board that did not realize the gem they had in their midst - kids who cared enough about a librarian, with no ties to the sports community. They held lengthy executive sessions while the teenagers sat in the high school library, waiting patiently to have someone simply listen to their pleas. Never was there an explanation issued of the way budgeting works, of the intricacies of tenure. Nor was a thank you issued to the kids for their hard work.

Teachers can't always be reinstated simply because the kids care about them. But without the children, there is no school community, no school board. Not listening to them, at least providing some feedback and a "hey, you tried, but. . ." is tantamount to telling them you're not there FOR them.

Image: Los Angeles Times

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School Security Guard Teaches Biology Class

JeanneSager — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:39:00 GMT

Parents of students at a New Mexico high school are crying foul after they say a campus security guard was called in to "teach" their kids biology classes the same week the district announced it would be cutting back spending on substitute teachers. Hey, at least they picked a guy the students would be safe around.

The Rio Rancho School District said it would call on administrators and "other qualified staff" to fill in when a teacher called out sick. So how is a security guard "qualified" to teach high school biology?

Frankly, I don't see how he's any less qualified than the bulk of people I've seen substituting. Although there are some trained educators who fill in as substitutes until they land a full-time gig, they aren't necessarily trained in teaching the subjects of the teacher they're being called on to replace. The best gym teacher in the world can't really be expected to explain dangling participles and gerunds, can he (or she)?

Not every substitute even has teacher training. They're hired, essentially, as glorified babysitters, there to ensure the kids stay in one room, and don't spend the day playing with toy trucks if it's a kindergarten classroom or making out in a back corner if it's high school. I hardly remember a class spent with a substitute at the helm where learning was high on the agenda. As students, we were given busywork, whether it was elementary level worksheets or high school textbook chapter reading. If you had a question, you were always told "wait 'til tomorrow and you can ask your teacher." Some teachers planned quizzes and tests for days they knew they'd be out, a guarantee the kids would be quiet for the substitute. Some kept a movie handy for sudden sick days; you knew there was a substitute if you walked into a darkened room with the giant TV stand set up at the front.

With the exception of extended sick leave, when a qualified teacher really should be stepping into the vacancy to ensure the students' learning is kept on track, does it matter the career background of the adult standing at the front of a classroom for a day?

Image: KOB

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They Say: To Teach Teens, You Really Have to Scare Them

JeanneSager — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:57:00 GMT

Think you're smarter than a fifth grader? At the very least, you learn differently. Scientists in the Netherlands have published a study that proves the brain is yet another part of the body that experiences significant changes during the tween years.

Published in the Journal of Neuroscience this month, the study by developmental psychologist Dr Eveline Crone and colleagues from the Leiden Brain and Cognition Lab shows a positive attitude helps younger kids cotton onto concepts. But around 12, the brain starts to develop the ability to learn from mistakes. So being presented with the words, "no, you're wrong," is actually better for teens than a slap on the back. No wonder - it's what they'll be telling their parents for the next eight years.

The study was one of the first to split its subjects into three different age groups rather than the traditional split of "children" and "adults." Kids eight and nine were lumped together, as were kids 11 and 12. The adults represented were aged 18 to 25. The result puts into question the age-old practice of punishing our younger kids for their misdeeds to make them straighten up and fly right and the habit of trying to win our teens' affection back.

Apparently, we've got it backward - so let's start spanking the teenagers! Only kidding (sort of). But while I'm still going to follow through with time outs for my pre-schooler, I have to remember to put even more of an emphasis on congratulating her for each and every job well done. As for those of you with teens, here's permission from brain docs (just as smart as brain surgeons, we'd imagine) to scare 'em straight.

Image: University of Leiden

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Babble Ethics: Let Your Kids Get Hurt

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:28:00 GMT

I'm trying to make this a little less self-promotional than it will probably sound, sorry, but I've received a ridiculous number of heated emails from ~~crazy~~ concerned people about a series of pictures I took showing my 2-year-old daughter in the midst of a fall. It seemed like the perfect topic for another round of Babble Ethics, even if I come off like an unfeeling moron, which never, ever happens.

"Why didn't you stop taking photos and help her?!" screamed one person.

"You should be ashamed of yourself!" barked another.

And I keep thinking, jeez, it was an 8-inch fall off a curb. Granted, the curb was a little high, but I knew she'd learn something from a little tumble. Not all curbs are the same. She has to watch her step. She has to be careful on her own. Her father is more interested in taking her picture than reaching out to her.

Seriously, just how protective is too protective? Should I have sprayed her in protective foam? Put out a few pillows?

This little scene began with me stepping away from her in a deserted alley to take a photo. She groped the wall for a few minutes and then decided she wanted to jump off the curb. She studied it, gauged it, prepared to jump. And I let her, knowing full well it was a higher curb than she usually encounters, and a goodly portion of me knew she may well take a tumble.

She did.

But then of course she got up, kicked the street with her toe, mumbled something about "mother fucking shoddy masonry work!" (or something like that) and climbed back up the curb to do it again.

Still, I'm left wondering: I can't be the only person who lets their kid try things out on her own, right? Or maybe I'm just the only moron taking pictures of it. I don't know. I do appreciate the concern but it also frightens me a little to think of what happens to kids who aren't allowed to make mistakes on their own. Or maybe I'm just being defensive. Sometimes I hate you, ethics.

Kids Learn More By Talking Your Ear Off

Karen Murphy — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:11:00 GMT

Hey! Take your headphones off, moms (dads, too, but the article doesn't mention you so either you are considered superfluous in this research or you're not necessary, but in either case you're required to give the necessary moral and emotional support in this important process or risk never having sex again), and listen up:

You have to listen to your kid more.

I'm sorry, I know they tend to ramble on (that's putting it mildly; you'd rather stab the side of your head repeatedly with your iPod than be subjected to the detail in which your enraptured five-year-old can recount all the pros and cons of her herd/zoo/farm of each of her approximately 4500 stuffed animals), but you're helping them learn simply by listening.

What? I wasn't listening, sorry.

I said, by listening to your kid ~~drone on and on and on~~ talk out and explain the solution to a problem they're working on, they learn it better. And you have to do nothing (stand by! no assistance necessary!) but listen.

I'm not sure I can do that last part. So you mean to tell me that I have to listen but can do nothing? I can't rip the damn Legos out of my kid's hands and build it better/faster/bigger/easier? And instead I have to LISTEN to him tell how to do it? In Effingly Painful Detail?

Where are my noise-canceling headphones?

Photo: distractiblemind.ambulatorycomputing.com

He's More Machine Now Than Man

ChagHolland — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 19:30:00 GMT

In yet another attempt to cash in on the nostalgia of my youth, Oregon Scientific has created a Darth Vader laptop for kids. While it looks remarkably like the Star Wars carrying case that housed all of my precious action figures, the device is actually a learning tool for children.

The laptop comes with a light sabre stylus that extends with the push of a button and even makes the "whoosh" sound. The machine claims to develop hand-eye coordination, memory skills, musical talent, rhythm, and typing skills, just like the real Darth Vader!

The device contains fifty games where kids can choose to be a Jedi Knight or Sith Lord. But given the choice, who wouldn't want to be the bad guy?

Now can someone tell me how to talk my daughter into trading in her Barbie laptop for one of these?

Study: Toddlers Learn From Photos, Not Drawings

Karen Murphy — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 17:58:00 GMT

There's nothing better than curling up with a squirming toddler and sitting down to read a picture book together. Over and over. And over. Come to think of it, there are some things that are better, like chocolate. And sex. And a nice bath (alone, if you please). And silence. But I digress. And I've spent many wonderful moments reading the gorgeously-illustrated picture books I've collected over the years to one child or another (or several). Many of these books were acquired simply because of the illustrations.

So it's slightly appalling that it turns out that I can apparently chuck the entire collection: a new study suggests that toddlers learn more from more realistic pictures, with photographs topping the list. A bunch of toddlers of varying ages were read to from books that depicted how to assemble a simple rattle. The books were variously illustrated using photographs, colored drawings, and black-and-white drawings, and it was found that the more realistic the picture, the more interested or likely the kids were in making the rattle themselves, especially the younger toddlers.

I can just imagine what a job this study was. Getting toddlers to do anything is a lot like herding cats while beating your head against the wall repeatedly. So I'm not ready to throw away all my books just yet based on the strength of one study. Still, it gives pause for thought. Not that the goal of reading together always is learning, but the next time I need my kid to perform simple assembly jobs from home and earn his keep by becoming a WAHT (Work At Home Toddler), I'll be sure to use the book with the photos in it to teach him his job.

Kids Learn Better When They Do it Themselves, Study Says

Karen Murphy — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 12:15:00 GMT

So my dad was right all these years (I sort of hate that). He was a hands-off sort of dad, saying frequently that you couldn't learn anything by someone telling you about it, you had to figure it out for yourself. This usually manifested in me, say, looking up words he used that I didn't know in the dictionary rather than him simply telling me what they meant. It used to infuriate me, but it turns out? He was right.

You know how I know? First, there's my own kids and my observations of them. And then there's me. I think clearly that if someone struggles with a concept and then masters it themselves, it will stick far better than if they simply had heard someone describe it. But now? A new study supports this idea. Word-learning strategies of a hundred toddlers were studied, and they found that the kids learned best by building on what they already knew when presented with a new concept. Which completely blows the whole teaching model we've been using of sitting through a boring lecture, being "instructed", totally out of the water. But my dad could have told you that.

Strollerderby : learning

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