I Swear That Toddler is Not Listening to Me!

Here is one possible reason found at Science Digest:

"For parents who have found themselves repeating the same warnings or directions to their toddler over and over to no avail, new research from the University of Colorado at Boulder offers them an answer as to why their toddlers don't listen to their advice: they're just storing it away for later."

The WebKinz Party

Last Friday I was part of a Webkinz Party at a library. My role was to manage the
"Paint the Fence" game. Prior to participating in the event, I had a vague understanding of the Webkinz "movement" and had to search the Web for information to prepare for the party.

In all my planning, I still wasn't prepared for the high-energy level of the kids at the party. The kids repeated roamed through the seven activities. I found it difficult to understand why "glorified-beany babies" were receiving such attention.

There was one comical moment for me when a little guy related how happy he was to receive the prize for painting the fence, and I noticed that he was missing two front teeth. I'm not sure what it says about me that I find kids with missing teeth hilarious.

I found it interesting watching whether a parent chose to help or not help a child playing games. In some instances I found it sad to see some parents not giving children time to work through missteps and instead playing the game for the children.

Changing Times

Today I went to see the movie Watchmen. The picturesque quality of the movie was complimented by the music, which lprompted me to research the lyrics of one of Bob Dylan's songs used in the movie. Here is the part of the lyrics that highlights ideas that I often ponder:

The Times They Are A-Changin'

...Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

Film Festival

New York International Children's Film Festival

When Computing Becomes Child's Play

Follow this link to a cool article about a new form of computing at NewScientist.com.

Another Reason to Address Children's Bad Behavior Early

Aggressive children ins pre-k have fewer friends according to a recent study. I think it's interesting that this finding is true for boys as wells as girls. Left unchecked, aggressive children could develop far greater bad behavior.

Head Start Program

The February 8, 2009 New York Times (Sunday) had two articles that mentioned the Head Start Program. In Education is All in Your Mind, Richard E. Nisbett indicated that Head Start "have been found to have only modest effects on the children's academic achievement, and these often fade by early elementary school." In Head Start Falls Further Behind, Douglas J. Besharov and Douglas M. Call indicated that "Head Start and similar prekindergarten programs could truly help disadvantaged children, but many studies have shown that Head Star, as it is managed, is failing them."

Well, I have personal experience with a local Head Start Program. In 2001 I coordinated with the staff and was allowed to present a program to the tots during Black History Month. I read a story I created about an African chicken and had the tots provide background music using the small African drums I brought. All went well. I expected a thank you note, but none arrived. A few years I presenting an after school program at the center that hosts the same Head Start Program. While there, I stopped at the Head Start Program and offered to present a free program to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday. I referenced my previous work with the the Head Start Program and left my contact information. I was alerted that the offer would be sent to the Head Start central office. I never received a reaction.

My experiences with Head Start has left me with the same impression that is supported in Richard E. Nisbett's article: the quality of Head Start depends on the management. Besharov and Call report that the U.S. House of Representative version of the stimulus bill identifies additional funds for Head Start without significant reforms even though the National Reporting System that would allow measurement of individual centers was eliminated in 2007.

I find it hard to understand why establishing accountability is difficult to achieve in Head Start. As a result the children, all to often, are the ones that suffer the most.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Kid's Museums

NPR.com has a nice article about museums for kids.

Character Education

For several years I've been receiving issues of a character education publication from the Center for the 4th & 5th Rs at the State University of New York Cortland School of Education. The Fall 2008 issue of the publication provided an interesting article titled Maximizing the Power of Character Through the Integration of Excellence and Ethics by Matt Davidson and Tom Lickona. The article indicates that "All schools face challenges in two critical areas: academic performance and ethical behavior." The articles continues by defining performance challenges to include:

• Motivating all students to do their best and care about the quality of their work
• Improving performance on standardized tests
• Reducing dropouts
• Preparing students for college and/or the workplace

Ethical challenges were cited as:

• Teaching students to respect legitimate authority, rules, and the rights of others
• Preventing peer cruelty
• Promoting academic honesty
• Reducing risky behaviors
• Helping students become responsible citizens

All of this is praiseworthy, but I always find it difficult to talk about character education without the family unit being at the center of the discussion. Moreover, schools are leveled with the responsibility of character education even though a child's character is clearly framed prior to a child's first step onto a school's campus.

I agree schools should assist parents in teaching children positive behavior. The first teacher for this type of education is the family unit, however. If schools are reporting lack of time testable subjects why should they accept an additional challenge as lead teacher for character education. My strong view is that society should force parents to fulfill their duty to education children in character development and let schools return to the "three Rs."

Picture Books on Paper Better than on Computer Screen

A study out of Norway is indicating that our assumption is wrong that nothing is lost when children read from a computer screen as opposed to reading material from paper. This should be good news to children book publishers.

One Laptop Per Child Project

I've been watching the One Laptop Per Child Project for quite a while.. I found it pleasing that the project is continuing and is even expanding to countries outside of Africa according to an article on New Scientist.com.

Initially, I thought the project was odd in that someone was focusing on computers for African children when in many cases those children needed food more than computers. I've had a change of mind after thinking that any needed resource a benefactor can provide is good and trying to work with so many people on a priority for what resources to give, when to provide it, and to whom to give would be a nightmare.