Do Public Schools Serve the Common Good?

Diane Ravitch, in her newest book, Reign of Error, writes that public schools are for the common good, but John Taylor Gatto argues that they were  meant to serve the needs of the ruling class, by teaching the kids of lower socioeconomic classes to conform. It's been my own experience advocating for my children when they were in school that teaching kids to conform  still is the major goal, or else schools would look  very different indeed!

Many excellent books have been written about how kids learn best, but these have been, and are still, ignored by those working in this institution. Why? Because those who are in control of society do not want kids to learn what is best for themselves. They certainly do not want kids to become critical thinkers and prudent consumers. The global economy depends on their participation, and schools help with that. How? By getting kids involved in competition as soon as they enter, with awards, grades and rewards, and now also awards for scoring well on the state standardized tests!

We are fed sound bites that a good education is important for getting a good job or career, but only a fraction of people will be rewarded with a job that pays well enough and that they like! It is not about getting a good mind that you can and SHOULD put to use to help create a better society along with others who have good minds and caring hearts too.

Kids are raised and 'educated' to be materialistic consumers, and it is working. Schools even play along by providing kids with the latest technology and software programs, ignoring that the best brain is developed by means of  tactile learning opportunities indoors and out, rather than through 'fun' apps on iPads, now provided to kindergarteners who then only get to use one finger to manipulate the screen instead of using all ten, digging in the dirt and sculpting clay.

It's ironic how all who love digital gadgets and games, and see no harm in that use, have inadvertently helped set the stage for the disappearance of the teacher. That is what the reforms are now all about; computers, standardized tests, common core standards measurable by tests on computers, and the use of iPads and smart boards. Think of the companies making money on all these things that are really not good for young, developing brains!

Frank Smith warned about it almost 30 years ago! No one listened!

"..The computer is the ultimate weapon of instructional programmers, and in many people’s minds at least, it is a device to take the place of teachers. Anyone who believes that students learn best from systematic instruction and tests can say goodbye to teachers. For dispensing programmatic instruction, computers are cheaper and more efficient than humans.

..Our schools should not remain places where the enormous potential of the human brain is systematically eroded, and possibly destroyed. The invasion of education by instructional programmers must be turned back now.”

We probably won't unless the power grid goes out for good!

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Discuss Diane's book with others on the Facebook group: Opt Out of the State Test: The National Movement



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4eYRPjfGYQ

Too Much Screen Time Harms Development

Fred Rogers with the real Daniel!

I was shocked to find The Fred Rogers Company trademark on PBS kid shows like Daniel Tiger and Super Why! I wonder what Fred himself would have thought of  very young children watching these 3D animated shows, or playing the game versions on computer or iPad!  Is it a coincidence that 'his' company started featuring these shows, after his death? 

The company that was started by Fred Rogers in 1971, began making 'educational' programs like Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, "a new animated program for preschoolers ages 2 to 4" in 2012.

"In 2006, three years after Fred's passing, and after the end of production of Blues Clues, The Fred Rogers Company contacted Angela Santomero [creator of Blues Clues  and Super Why] to ask what type of show she would create to promote Fred’s legacy. That conversation was about the birth of "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood."

PBS initially ordered 40 episodes, which were broadcast between September 2012 and February 2014. ...Santomero confirmed that PBS Kids has renewed the show for a second season of 25 episodes to premiere September 2014." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Tiger's_Neighborhood)

"Two of the women behind Nickolodeon's biggest shows [Blues Clues] are now rolling out their own line of educational programming, toys and books for kids." Says Angela Santomera in this interview on Fox: "It's an interactive show where kids are able to practice the key literacy skills as identified by the National Reading Panel, so it's the first 3-D animated series for PBS kids.."

The Digital Daniel

In an interview in Forbes magazine, A Different Kind of Tiger Mom, she says:

"This “interactive” model has proven effective by numerous educational studies done on Blue’s Clues and Super Why, proving that kids who watch scored statistically significantly better on standardized tests than kids who did not watch."

So, it appears that entertainment for kids is no longer educational in the broadest sense, but focused on the components of the standardized tests! What would Fred Rogers have thought of that? The people who now run his company clearly don't care about that.

I'm sure Mr. Rogers would have wholeheartedly agreed that "what’s most important for children is lots of time for hands-on creative and active play, time in nature, and face-to-face interactions with caring adults."

And as  stated in the report Impact of Screen Time on Development and Learning,

"Regardless of content, excessive screen time harms healthy growth and development.”

And, lastly ponder the following about how students best retain information!

‎”[Those], who held a paper copy in their hands, averaged a retention level of 85%. Those who saw it on the movie screen had a retention level of between 25 to 30%, and those who studied it on the TV monitor had a retention and comprehension level between 3 and 5%.

One professor from MIT made the passionate plea that we must encourage children to develop the ability to think first, and then give them the computer…if you introduce the computer before the child’s thought processes are worked out, then you have disaster in the making.

This is because, as Piaget pointed out, the first twelve years of life are spent putting into place the structures of knowledge that enable young people to grasp abstract, metaphoric, symbolic types of information. The capacity for abstract thinking developed as a result of the natural concrete processes that have been going on for millions of years. The danger here is that the computer, which operates by the same artificial, cathode-ray-tube technology as the television, will interrupt that development.”  ~ Interview with Joseph Chilton Pearce

Test Prep! Watch and Weep!

"Worksheets don't grow dendrites" ~ Marcia Tate

Watch and share this video by Kaydonna Wolfcale,  a teacher who quit because of the rigid education reforms, and weep for all kids in public schools today!



Texas STAAR test prep

If this example is not enough reason to sign the White House petition to stop standardized testing in America's public schools, I don't know what will be persuasive.

Direct the Department of Education & Congress to Remove Annual Standardized Testing Mandates of NCLB and RttT

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/direct-department-education-congress-remove-annual-standardized-testing-mandates-nclb-and-rttt/1lSSvnYK

Also see: Do You Care about Kids or Data?

Reforms Fail to Help Disadvantaged Children

The future looks bleak for all of us! For all the youth that teachers still may help to think  critically, there will be an ever growing number of children who will be born into poverty and/or dysfunctional families; usually the result of poverty, but not always. For those children it may very well be too late to ever learn how to think!  It reminds me of what Dr. Bruce Perry said; most mental retardation is caused not by a birth defect, but by neglect of the child's needs in the early years.

I talked to a kindergarten kid last night who looks bright, but who is intellectually disadvantaged because he was born to a mom who used Meth. She stopped using when the boy was born, but she did not become, nor is she now, an attentive mother.

The boy's  11 yr-old brother, is also intellectually stunted. These kids clearly did not get the proper foundation in their early years, and as a result, do not even have the vocabulary (in number of words at least) that my 3 yr-old grandson already has.

These kids will never be able to catch up; certainly not in today's schools with the Common Core being taught, and testing taking priority over actual great, learning experiences!

It breaks my heart, and these two kids are the tip of the iceberg I normally never see, and many others not either! These are the kids that schoolboard members, and other education policy makers, need to meet to understand that what they offer in school to bring these kids up to speed is woefully lacking and even contrary to what such children really need for their brains to  develop further so that they can even begin to think critically!

Toxic Stress Damages Developing Brain

Draw Kids Out, Make it Safe!

Current Education Reforms Ignore Neuroscience

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.

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

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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

 

Impact of Screen Time on Development and Learning

From a newly released report by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Alliance for Childhood.

Conclusion

More independent research is needed on the impact of screen technologies on young children. But whether you believe that early childhood settings should include screen time or not, there is enough evidence to draw these conclusions:

Many young children are spending too much time with screens at the expense of other important activities. There’s no evidence that screen time is educational for infants and toddlers, and there is some evidence that it may be harmful. Some carefully monitored experience with quality content can benefit children over 3.



But what’s most important for children is lots of time for hands-on creative and active play, time in nature, and face-to-face interactions with caring adults. And, regardless of content, excessive screen time harms healthy growth and development.

Based on the available research, ...this guide contain[s] practical information and suggestions for making your own decisions about using screen technologies with young children.

Access the report below

Facing the Screen Dilemma: Young Children, Technology and Early Education

A Facebook page has been set up devoted to discussing the ideas in Facing the Screen Dilemma.  Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood