Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Newborn Infants Know How to Jam to Music

Science Daily is reporting the results of a study that indicates that newborn infants as young as three days old are able to recognize the beat in music. Jam on babies!

Friday, January 16, 2009

Lead in Children's Clothing


I was surprised to learn that lead can be found in children's clothing. In a LA Times article, the writer reports that the children clothing makers are worried about the lead content in children's clothing because of an upcoming requirement for lead content not exceed 600 parts per million effective February 10, 2009. The requirement was included in a law passed last year,. Many clothing makers, however, are indicating that they just learned of the requirement. If that complaint is true, it seem to me that someone at the industry rep level should be placed in the unemployment line.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Secretary for Education Confirmation Hearing-2009



When I turned on the TV this morning--a perk of being a retiree, I caught the end of the Senate Confirmation Hearing of the Secretary for Education (Arne Duncan) for the Obama Administration. I found later a videotape of the proceedings at CSPAN. Mr. Duncan must have done an outstanding job in the office calls and private sessions with the senators prior to the hearing because the his hearing was pretty close to being a "lovefest." I had no doubts about Mr. Duncan, as an Obama nominee. In the hearing I was more interested in the views and tones of the senators.

Senator Harkins (Iowa) lead the hearing as Education and Labor Committee Acting Chairman. He had a host of good questions and comments. Overall I liked Sen. Harkins passions for education. He made good points about the need for the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services to get together to work on education programs for young children. I wholeheartedly agee. Just this morning I was review the Head Start education standards as they relate to the Florida Sunshine State Standards and wondered why Head Start wasn't under the Department of Education. Also, Sen Harkins surfaced the problem of programs for kids with disabilities being underfunded.

Other senators were noteworthy as well. Sen. MuClusky (Maryland) made points concerning providing more support to teachers. She had the most touching story about a kid who simply wanted to learn to be smart. Sen. Murray (Washington) mentioned preparation of children for careers of tomorrow. I was really happy to hear her mention that we will need mechanics as well in the future and that instead of No Child Left Behind we should reframe it to Every Child Has a Skill We Need. Sen. Roberts (Kansas) highlighted special needs and the IDEA Program being underfunded. The hallaluah remarks for me came from Sen. Alexander (Tennessee) when he indicated that towards educating a child, parents were #1 and teachers were #2. I also believe that parents/families are the primary educators for children, but for some reason their role seems to be diminished when we discuss education of children.

Sen. Sanders (Vermont) was terrific with raising a wide range of concerns. He mentioned the need to focus on prevention of children getting in trouble, the need to invest more in childcare vs. prisons, more affordable childcare, and more after school and Saturday programs.

As an educator, it was great to see education in the spotlight with our leaders. I'm confident that Mr. Duncan will make a fine Secretary of Education. I hope the senators will be as lovable and supportive when Mr. Duncan comes a knockin' for funds.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Game Program to Treat ADHD

Here is a link to information concerning the use of gaming to reprogram the brain of people with attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten



Researching and writing in the early childhood development field have caused me to be alert to adult behavior that seem more appropriate for children. Lately, many adults that I see on TV and daily interaction seem to be regressing to childlike behavior. In response I decided to review Robert Fulghum's All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.
I read All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten in 1990--since 1985 I track books/audiotapes that I read/listen to partly out of ego enhancement and partly to challenge myself to read more each year. In any case, I skimmed the book recently to reacquaint myself to what Fulghum considered the foundation of the kindergarten curriculum. I guess he is mainly addressing social skills.
I think our social skills are worse than ever before. Moreover, we accept the lack of social skills as being OK with crude and rude behavior being in vogue. More troubling is that we adults are either forgetting or don't care that we modeling behavior for children ,and we aren't doing a good job in general. That brings me to the point that children learn social behavior well before the kindergarten period, and asking schools to undo that learning is well beyond their capability.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Lunchtime!

I guess I should have suspected that daycare centers would be having a problem feeding children as the price of food escalates. Asking parents to supply lunch for children isn't something that I expected though. The result of parents supplying lunch, according to a Science Daily News article is that such lunch packs aren't as nutritious as what daycare centers provide. I noticed when I taught the nutrition block in a childcare course that childcare workers were nearly falling asleep during the lessons. Students understood, however, that nutrition would be evaluated in accordance to Florida standards for childcare centers. During my evaluations, I noticed that daycare centers did consistently provide nutritious meals.

I wonder now what will happen when centers are evaluated and non-nutritious meals from parents are cited by inspectors. Perhaps centers need to show evidence that they have made attempts to instruct parents about the types of nutritious food that are recommended and that would satisfy inspectors.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

The Black Swan


Over the recent holidays, I listened to the unabridged CDs of The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb. This author surfaced because he was one of the few people to warn years ago that the U.S. was on the verge of a economic catastrophe. The Black Swan may put off readers who may not enjoy listening or reading about economics, however. In my case, I follow economics as a hobby.
In a broad sense, the book has me thinking more about how our society discounts or tosses out ideas, people, products, and more that don't fit the norm or conventional wisdom. What comes to mind is the situation in education where departments of education at state and federal levels have adopted phonics as the one-best-way approach for teaching reading. I'm among the millions of children who learned to read using the whole word method prior to the advent of phonics. Therefore, I believe both methods can be used effective.
So, I now look for black swans, statistical outliers. I'm willing to analyze them, particularly in regard to early childhood education, to make sure good ideas aren't tossed because they are outside view of the gaggle.

Monday, January 5, 2009

No Caption Needed









Bright Ideas

I was left with great sense of hope after reading profiles in the New York Times Sunday Edition section pictured above. As a society we spend so much time highlighting youths wearing drooping pants and teens committing violence and spend a lesser amount of time on encouraging and celebrating the kids who are doing some great things.
The kids profiled in the newspaper segment are worth talking about. The story by Abby Ellin titled See Me, Hear Me was most heartwarming. The story briefly profiles Eitan Glinert and his team who worked on AudiOdyssey, a video game that allows visually impaired people to play together with sighted people via a keyboard or Nintendo Wii remote. Ellin reports that Glinert said: "People with disabilities were being left out of progress in the gaming market," as the reason for development of the game. Glinert has founded Fire Hose Games as well to develop video games that have a positive impact on society.