Current Education Reforms Ignore Neuroscience

Education reformers should acknowledge advice from child development experts and neuroscientists on how and when children learn best,  and then tailor material and curriculum to kids' needs and brains! It is for instance totally absurd and counter productive to rob kids of recess, and even more unconscionable, to deny them of playtime in kindergarten!

I watched the video, High-Quality Kindergarten Today  of what is purported to be a high quality kindergarten and yes, a lot of the activities are engaging the children, but...there is still no time for free play. The teacher gets too involved and actually helps direct the play. She also expects feedback on it, but kids need to be able to play for its own sake instead of as a goal oriented, and teacher-directed learning experience!

Recess and playtime are good for all kids as it literally helps stimulate their brains which facilitates cognitive learning, but it is even more important for kids from poverty as they very likely have missed out on important early childhood experiences! In an infant’s life, stress especially can seriously hinder brain development. Anxiety and tension deplete the glucose necessary for mental learning and processing.

“The experiences of the first year can completely change the way a person turns out”, says neurobiologist Harry Chugani in the book Teaching With The Brain In Mind written by Eric Jensen.

And from research by Dr. Bruce Perry, Childhood Experience and the Expression of Genetic Potential: What Childhood Neglect Tells Us About Nature and Nurture the following:

Page 89: "The earlier and more pervasive the neglect is, the more devastating the developmental problems for the child. Indeed, chaotic, inattentive and ignorant caregiving can produce pervasive developmental delay in a young child."

Page 91: "...[I]n a study of more than 200 children under the age of 6 removed from parental care following abuse and neglect we demonstrated significant developmental delays in more than 85% of the children. The severity of these developmental problems increased with age, suggesting, again, that the longer the child was in the adverse environment – the earlier and more pervasive the neglect – the more indelible and pervasive the deficits..."

Page 92: "...when early life neglect is characterized by decreased sensory input (e.g., relative poverty of words, touch and social interactions) there will be a.. [negative] effect on human brain growth as in other mammalian species. The human cortex grows in size, develops complexity, makes synaptic connections and modifies as a function of the quality and quantity of sensory experience. Sensory-motor and cognitive deprivation leads to underdevelopment of the cortex in rats, non-human primates and humans."

Watch the interesting presentation Brain Development & Addiction by Gabor Mate in which he explains how addiction is the result of lack of proper brain chemistry caused by environmental factors  in the young child's life.

Teacher says: "We are abusing children.."

"..I am here to report we are abusing children in the state of New York. There is now a common core syndrome."

From the moment I posted this short, very inspiring video on various Facebook  education  groups, the number of views went from 301 to 1,332 in just 15 minutes! Help make this video go viral, so that most anyone in the country will have heard what this teacher so unequivocally dared to say!

And remember, it is not just kids in New York  State who are abused. This unhealthy focus on student 'performance' on standardized tests  is happening in schools everywhere.



Check out United Opt Out National and their Facebook group: Opt Out of the State Test: The National Movement with 5,541 members!

Schools Complicit in Child Abuse and Neglect

So, there! I said it. What is it based on? Well, when you hear a parent of a kindergartner say that he hates going to school, you know something is dreadfully wrong. No, kids are not beaten (I trust!), but I heard of a teacher who did not allow a child in third grade to go to the bathroom, or get cleaned up after she peed her pants, all because there's a  strict lock-step schedule to be followed. Every school in my district is on the same page at every hour.

Stories like this do not make it into the news, so parents still think school is a good place for their kids, never mind that kids are now deprived of recess which, research bears out, enhances learning capability. Never mind that kids in  kindergarten no longer get to play (at all!) with dolls, cars, blocks,  and jigsaws, or do quality crafts that help develop fine motor skills. Those learning activities are now deemed unnecessary as kids "need to be prepared early to 'succeed' and 'compete' in a global economy".

Someone on the Facebook group Opt Out of the State Test, discussing Diane Ravitch' latest book " Reign of Error" wrote,

"..in my small town, I don't think parents see the connection with test scores. If parents routinely are measuring their kids against others by asking all their friends what their kids scored, then we have an uphill battle to educate them. As I read, I am constantly trying to decide where to start educating my community.

Our parents need to feel assured that the "answers" are not necessarily in homeschooling, post secondary (dual enrollment) online schooling and open enrollment. Charters are 50 miles away. Instead of taking a complacent role that are school is here, I see us pro-actively promoting and advocating for our district so that fewer parents feel the need to look elsewhere."

In response I shared that in our district, young kids' needs are neglected in all regular schools, so any parent who can seek out more appropriate education (in my opinion only one of the three charters here qualifies), or who can homeschool, absolutely owes it their child to do so!

My heart still aches for all the kids, year after year, who enter kindergarten and are trained like dogs, not just with learning how to read by scripted Reading First curriculum, but also by means of the PBIS program. Plus, no recess, and no play in kindergarten.

Sadly, parents have been brainwashed to believe that school is a, "safe and nurturing place where all kids will have a chance to learn and reach their fullest potential", as written in many a school's mission and vision statement.

As a young parent I trusted those 'good' intentions, and back then in the early nineties, school was still a relatively good place for kids. I say relatively because, seriously...how many kids do you know of who will say they love school? But now, schools have become toxic, here in Greeley, Colorado especially, and their toxic overhaul in 2006 was used as a shining example for other failing districts to follow!

And now parents buy into the propaganda that all these reforms and tests, to track their kids' performance,  are needed so their kids can 'succeed' and 'compete' in the 'global economy', never mind what the experts say whose findings are never even presented to parents, because school administrations are complicit in keeping the reforms going. And how do they do that?

By insidious coercion and threats. A parent shared this letter (click on the photo to enlarge) she received from the superintendent when she chose to opt out her child from testing, and to her credit, DIBELS testing as well.

[caption id="attachment_1760" align="aligncenter" width="300"] An Opt Out threat[/caption]

PTA's and PTO's should step up to the plate, but they too believe the propaganda. See what the New York State PTA shares on the issue: Testing Opt-Out, Just the Facts




 

"ADHD is not an illness"

"ADHD is not an illness", says Dr. Laura Batstra, researcher at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands.  She quit her job as a treating psychologist at an institution for child and youth psychiatry when she found that more and more schoolkids were referred for diagnoses of ADHD.

Schools in Holland too test kids yearly on their progress. If students do not show growth, a reason will/must be found why, and often the verdict is ADHD even though the child's behavior is normal.

In a dutch tv show I watched on the subject of labeling of school children, a child development expert who has studied descriptions of boys' behavior through the ages said that boys have not changed, but society's expectations of them have. They are now forced to sit still in school even though boys especially have an innate drive/need to be active and to work with their hands. Sadly, vocational schools have been phased out in Holland too.

Because of the focus on the importance of test scores, many parents with children who struggle, are eager to have their child tested, in hopes of getting a diagnosis for which there is treatment or a medication so that the child will perform up to expectation. Another advantage of some labels is that kids get extra time do do their tests.

All these labels are listed as disorders in the DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual). This year a new version will be published, the DSM V with in it a new disorder, the so called DMDD: Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder. Dr. Batstra worries that it will further inflate "the diagnostic Bubble", and that a number of kids will be seen as overly temperamental and disruptive. She says that rather than putting high expectations on kids in schools, we should tone those down.

I am all for that. No kid in school should be subjected to stress and worry, the very conditions that can lead to a label!

 

Rigorous Standards Stifle Children

"..Recent critiques of the Common Core Standards by Marion Brady and John T. Spencer have noted that the process for creating the new K-12 standards involved too little research, public dialogue, or input from educators...It appears that early childhood teachers and child development experts were excluded from the K-3 standards-writing process."  (From: A Tough Critique of the Common Core on Early Childhood Education)

Indeed, that is what I discovered also! In March of 2010, when the public could comment on the standards, I  asked some questions of Morgan Saxby, Research Associate at Achieve, Inc.

Here is our revealing back and forth. The links provided to 

me by Saxby are no longer valid.

Conny: How can I find out who the experts were who helped draft the core standards?

Morgan: This is a list of the people most directly involved with drafting the core standards: http://www.corestandards.org/Files/K-12DevelopmentTeam.pdf

Here is a list of statements of support for the K-12 standards, and the CCSSI more generally. Note that many of these organizations played specific roles in the drafting of the standards: http://corestandards.org/Statements.htm

There is also an FAQ available here: http://corestandards.org/Files/CoreFAQ.pdf

Please let me know if you have any other questions. Thanks for taking the time to leave feedback on the standards, and for your email.

Conny: Thank you so much for your swift response. It has been very useful as I wanted to find out if any early childhood development experts had participated but I can find none. Is it possible for you to find out why that is?

The people who helped draft the standards, distinguished in their fields as they may be, may know what children are capable of learning, but they lack the knowledge on how and when such things are learned best, hence many standards are age inappropriate. Subjecting children to too much too soon could prove unhealthy.

Below some interesting key concerns from a report  by the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child and the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. Of course there are several other expert organizations and individuals who could have been invited to participate. Dr. Bruce Perry immediately comes to mind, but also others like Dr. Harry Chugani who practices Neurology and Pediatric Neurology, and Eric Jensen who wrote "Teaching with the brain in mind".

Please also read Effects of Maltreatment on Brain Development and share if you can. It shows that any standard in school is useless unless children get a healthy start in life! Neglect early in life will make it impossible for children to become excellent learners later on as the brain will not have laid the groundwork for complex thinking.

Morgan: Thanks for your email.  I believe there were several early childhood teachers and cognitive development experts involved, and I’ll try to figure out who those were.  I should note that there were a number of individuals/groups who got involved at varying levels of formality, so they might not have been one of the “team” roster lists (or they might be; I will need to check). 

Second, there are certainly many important things, including the ones you mention, that are vital for learning and achievement, some or many of which can’t be captured in a document of academic standards.  I do see you are also making point about considering the academic load placed on the youngest students, and I hope you have had a chance to leave these comments in the survey so that they can be included with other responses about the early standards.

In ELA specifically: The AFT and NEA brought teachers together, including early education teachers.  Most states involved in the process had work teams that included early childhood experts.  Marilyn Adams and Louisa Moats worked on the Foundational Skills, specifically.  Some people from Core Knowledge (including, I think, a cognitive psychologist) weighed in on the K-5 standards.  NCTE also commented on the standards, and their group included early childhood educators.  Lastly, one of the lead writers, Sue Pimentel, has a degree in early childhood education.

I may have more for you later, but a number of early education experts and teachers were involved in the process.  Doug Clements and Karen Fuson are both experts in early childhood math education, and were involved in the Early Mathematics Panel.  Doug also wrote much of the early-grades material for the NCTM focal points.  The AFT also brought together teams of early childhood expert teachers and gave significant input in both the math and ELA standards.  I’m still waiting to hear from someone about any experts specifically involved with the development of the ELA standards.

Conny: Thank you for all your help to find out more. I looked up Karen Fuson and nothing shows she's an early childhood expert, but Doug Clements is. There's a lot of sensible info on his page that I can agree with, but I am afraid it will be overshadowed by the focus on reaching the standards. Yet, Doug himself states: "There is a substantial and critical difference between standards as a vision of excellence and standards as rigid requirements for mastery. Only the former is appropriate for early childhood mathematics education."

And yes, I have shared my concerns on the survey. How might I make additional comments?

Morgan: Briefly on Karen Fuson – students using her curriculum Math Expressions were found by IES to have significantly higher levels of achievement than two other curricula.  This was part of a study of early mathematics curricula.

As for additional comments, the survey is the best way for us to capture the many comments that are coming in.

Conny: You wrote,

Briefly on Karen Fuson – students using her curriculum Math Expressions were found by IES to have significantly higher levels of achievement than two other curricula.  This was part of a study of early mathematics curricula.

I am almost afraid to ask if that may have been the reason she was invited to help write the standards? It is of course wonderful if a certain curriculum delivers better comprehension than another, but the fact remains that she is not a child development expert.

You mentioned:

The AFT and NEA brought teachers together, including early education teachers.  Most states involved in the process had work teams that included early childhood experts.  Marilyn Adams and Louisa Moats worked on the Foundational Skills, specifically.  Some people from Core Knowledge (including, I think, a cognitive psychologist) weighed in on the K-5 standards.  NCTE also commented on the standards, and their group included early childhood educators.  Lastly, one of the lead writers, Sue Pimentel, has a degree in early childhood education.

Of Louisa Moats too it can be argued she has a vested interest in these standards as she is an employee of Sopris West, a for-profit publishing company that publishes her LETRS training program as well as DIBELS, the horrible time testing procedure to see how quickly kids can read.

Unfortunately Sue Pimentel as far as I could determine, is also not an early childhood expert, but an education analyst and standards consultant. I find it therefore safe to conclude that not enough weight was given to the needs of the young child. I wanted to substantiate this before sharing with others as I do have a concern about the under representation of true child development experts who more than anyone else consider the complete needs, and well-being of young children first and foremost. Thanks for your time.

Morgan: As you still have concerns about the standards as written, I encourage you to submit those with as much specificity as you can, so as to best inform the revision process. 

Also, I believe Karen was invited because she was respected as someone who has written and thought a great deal about math at the early grades.

Conny: I will do that, but am concerned that with so many large organizations in support of  the standards, my and other smaller voices will remain "unheard". It boggles my mind that those concerns, backed by many nationally renowned early childhood experts and specialists such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, are totally ignored.

Here for your own information, and please share if you think it has merit, read this by the Alliance for Childhood. I find it most disturbing and it breaks my heart that little children no longer even know how to play and be creative!

Call to Action Background and References   
Regards,
Conny Jensen

---------------------------
Also see: Toxic Stress Damages Developing Brain

 

 

Toxic Stress Damages Developing Brain

Below some interesting key points from The Science of Early Childhood Development ,  a report  by the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child and the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.

• ..preschool policies and programs that place disproportionate emphasis on didactic approaches to academic skills are less likely to prepare young children to succeed in school than experiences that embed the promotion of literacy and numeracy in a rich environment of age-appropriate social interaction. The science of early childhood and early brain development clearly indicates that state and local officials should support the implementation of both child care standards and preschool curricula that promote a balanced and developmentally appropriate approach to the “whole child.”

• Toxic stress in early childhood is associated with persistent effects on the nervous system and stress hormone systems that can damage developing brain architecture and lead to lifelong problems in learning, behavior, and both physical and mental health...children who experience toxic stress in early childhood may develop a lifetime of greater susceptibility to stress-related physical illnesses (such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and diabetes) as well as mental health problems (such as depression, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse). They also are more likely to exhibit health-damaging behaviors and adult lifestyles that undermine well-being.

• Decades of research tell us that mutually rewarding interactions are essential prerequisites for the development of healthy brain circuits and increasingly complex skills.

• ..oral language acquisition depends not only on adequate hearing, the ability to differentiate sounds, and the capacity to link meaning to specific words, but also on the ability to concentrate, pay attention, and engage in meaningful social interaction. [current NCLB prescribed, scripted reading programs do not provide that and are actually damaging to a child's self-esteem! -- C.J]

• Policy initiatives that promote supportive relationships and rich learning opportunities for young children create a strong foundation for higher school achievement followed by greater productivity in the workplace and solid citizenship in the community throughout the adult years. Thus, current calls for greater emphasis on early literacy must not diminish the importance of attention to other essential capacities, such as initiative, self-confidence, and persistence in learning, as well as the ability to work cooperatively and resolve conflict with peers—all of which are core characteristics of students in a successful school, citizens in a healthy community, and the workforce of a prosperous nation.

The Science of Neglect: The Persistent Absence of Responsive Care Disrupts the Developing Brain