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Sunday
07Mar2010

preK drop-outs

Developing an enthusiasm for learning is especially important in the primary grades. Even students who have excelled in preK or kindergarten can find first or second grade so trying that they turn off to learning. Such disengagement has become so widespread that Sharon Ritchie, a senior scientist at FPG Child Development Institute, has worked with educators on a dropout-prevention project that focuses on children in preK through third grade.

You can walk into a classroom and see kids who by third grade are done with school,” she says. “They are angry and feel school is not a fair place or a place that sees them as the individual that they are.” Some of that disengagement, Ritchie says, is rooted in the way students in second or third grade are taught. She found that students in preK classes spent 136 minutes a day involved in hands-on projects. That dropped to 16 minutes by kindergarten and 12 minutes a day by second and third grade.

Developmentally Appropriate Practice in the Age of Testing, Harvard Education Letter

Go ahead and boo me. I fundamentally think that our school day is too short, our school week is too short and our school year is too short. You’re competing for jobs with kids from India and China. I think schools should be open six, seven days a week, 11, 12 months a year.

Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, addressing middle- and high-school students in Denver

How long do we need to make the school day to give children meaningful learning experiences?

Saturday
27Feb2010

skills are nice, but give them time to develop creativity

Most adults, with our increasingly hectic schedules, assume that at least creativity is alive in our children when we send them off to drawing class or bassoon lessons. Yet most children’s time in the arts is spent either appreciating someone else’s art or learning the skill required to make the art, so that perhaps in the future one could be creative. This training sometimes leads to amazing technical skill. I have met more than a few children who can perfectly recreate a Dragonball-Z character or still-life bowl of fruit, but who struggle to create an original character, story, technique, or idea.

So what is creativity? Many will argue about semantics and definitions. I will not enter that fray. Whatever it is, creativity revolves around unique, independent, and original thinking. It sometimes leads to an activity, such as playing the violin or implementing a new program to end homelessness. But without creative thought, the activity simply cannot be creative. In the end, only you can say whether you have been creative — only you can know whether your thoughts are unique, independent, original. So when was the last time you were creative? The answer for many Americans’ children is “never.”
— Michael Bitz, Creativity in Crisis: The “Brain Drain” in American Schools

Tuesday
16Feb2010

Do

If things need to change, it means that what we do becomes incredibly more important. Do. Action suddenly becomes more valuable. It means that there is opportunity, if one can perceive everyone else’s blind spot and find some white space for themselves. If everyone is getting together and complaining, it means that there’s a lot of unoccupied space somewhere.

Basically, it means that your contribution matters. And if you can muster up the strength to push against your fear, you might be able to do something that changes the game… It isn’t about being Anti. It’s about being pro-something-good and making and acting and moving towards Pre-something-incredible.

Frank Chimero

Monday
15Feb2010

the hardest thing

The whole problem with people is … they know what matters, but they don’t choose it … The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters. — Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

Saturday
13Feb2010

open thread

If you do not push the boundaries, you will never know where they are. — T.S. Elliot

Anyone around this weekend want to chat about this or that? I’m here…

Wednesday
10Feb2010

passion requires autonomy

practicing violin in his swimsuit

Parents who want their children to discover a passion for music, sports, or other hobbies should follow a simple plan: Don’t pressure them. 

“Passion comes from a special fit between an activity and a person,” said Geneviève Mageau, a psychology professor at the University of Montreal. “You can’t force that fit; it has to be found.”

In one study, the researchers followed 196 middle-school students as they picked up a musical instrument for the first time. After five months, the psychologists found that one major variable that predicted whether children developed a passion for music was if their parents allowed them the freedom to practice on their own schedule. The passionate kids on average scored 9 percent greater on the autonomy scale than the non-passionate kids, which is a big effect in a psychology study, Mageau said.

“I’m not telling parents to let their kids do whatever they want without limits,” Mageau said. “The most important message is to focus on the child’s interests and not to impose one’s own on them.”

Want Passionate Kids? Leave ’em Alone (thank you to Sarah for the link)

 

We had a somewhat difficult time finding music teachers for our sons who would honor our desire to not force them to practice. I made it very clear that we wanted them to further develop their love for music and do whatever they wanted to with it, and we did not care about speed or amount of progress. Still, twice we had to replace teachers who pressured the boys or scolded them for not practicing enough.

My younger son only practices piano 5 to 10 minutes a day, but he loves music and writes his own pieces.