Habitual Vision of Greatness

"Moral education is impossible apart from the habitual vision of greatness. If we are not great, it does not matter what we do or what is the issue." - Alfred North Whitehead

I loved this point, too in Whitehead's The Aims of Education. As some educational theorists have begun to toy with the idea that brain scans may some day replace human experience as a guide for how best to educate the next generation, we mustn't forget the importance of inspiration as a motivating force for growth and development.

I have been thinking about this a great deal because our kids are pretty contentious (it runs in the family). For instance, recent reading material has included It Seemed Like a Good Idea - Great Historical Fiascoes and How to Lose a Battle: Foolish Plans and Great Military Blunders.

Whitehead suggested a special importance for classical history, and we've found this to be true with our latest forays into ancient history. Whitehead: "The merit of this study in the education of youth is its concreteness, its inspiration to action and the uniform greatness of persons, in their characters and their staging. Their aims were great, their virtues were great, and their vices were great." We recently were riveted by accounts of the bold but moral worm Miltiades - Hero of the Battle of Marathon, but downright vile in day-to-day particulars (e.g. Check out Miltiades at the Baldwin Project's Boy's Book of Battles). We are also thoroughly enjoying Paul Davis' 100 Decisive Battles: From Ancient Times to the Present, which seemed like an important counterpoint to the military blunders book.

It is invigorating reading about the epic and heroic, and we have some of those stories to thank for some very penetrating discussions with our children. Greek and Roman history (if at all) should not only consist of mythology... that's certainly I got in school growing up...fortunately, it doesn't seem too late to take up.

ENL Blog: Generation Whatever: From Pessimism to Pragmatic Optimism
ENL Blog: Generation Me vs. Others
ENL Blog: Tweens, Teens, and Satire
The Baldwin Online Children's Literature Project

Technorati Tags: learning, education, moral education, classical education, parenting, children, boys learning, character education, motivation, optimism, ancient history, homeschooling

Don't Do This Math

Oh the horror!

Check out Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth at Youtube.com. It's stunning indictment of current mess of mathematics education in the U.S.


Other Links
ENL Blog: East meets West - Fundamental Differences in Math Teaching
ENL BLog: Why are so many students failing the WASL
The Math Wars
Working Memory and the Classroom
Mathematically Correct


Technorati tags: math, mathematics, education, instruction, standardized testing, teaching, parenting

Thanks for the tip, Kristine!

The Aims of Education

I've been enjoying reading Alfred North Whitehead's The Aims of Education (1949), and impressed by its implications today. He had a developmental view of education, and suggested that student instruction change fundamentally at different ages.

Whitehead: "I call the first period of freedom the "stage of Romance," the intermediate period of discipline I call the "stage of Precision," and final period of freedom is the "stage of Generalization."

The Romantic Stage: "...in the stage of romance the emphasis must always be on freedom, to allow the child to see for itself and to act for itself...Without the adventure of romance, at best you get inert knowledge without initiative, and at worst you get contempt of ideas--without knowledge."

The Stage of Precision: Romance should not be dead in the age of precision, but now as students enter their teen years, precise knowledge should become more the emphasis. "...to be effective in the modern world, you must have a store of definite acquirement of the best practice. To write poetry you must study metre; and to build bridges you must be learned in the strength of material...I am certain that one secret of a successful teacher is that he has formulated quite clearly in his mind what the pupil has got to know in precise fashion. He will then cease from half-hearted attempts of inferior importance. The secret of success is pace, and the secret of pace is concentration. But, in respect to precise knowledge, the watchword is pace, pace,pace. Get your knowledge quickly, and then use it. If you can use it you will retain it."

The Stage of Generalization: "There is here a reaction towards romance. Something definite is now known; aptitudes have been acquired, and general rules and laws are clearly apprehended both in their formulation and detailed exemplification. The pupil now wants to use his new weapons. He is an effective individual, and it is effects that he wants to produce. He relapses into the discursive adventures of the romantic stage, with the advantage that his mind is now a disciplined regiment instad of a rabble. In this sense, education should begin in research and end in research...The stage of generalization is the stage of sheddingdetails in favour of the active application of principles."

Whitehead raises some excellent points.

1. Romance should be an essential ingredient to education, but it should not be its sole ingredient. Students who fail to learn intellectual precision in their thinking and habits of learning and analysis, will exclude themselves from many disciplines and activities that require high-level competency and funds of knowledge. Precision is acquired by essential knowledge, challenging analytical work, mathematical or scientific problem solving, writing to a high standard (redrafting), high-level musical training, and subjects such as logic, computer programming, or Latin.

2. The stage of generalization is usually woefully ignored in the conventional educational process, although it is an critical feature and impelling force for virtually all higher-order intellectual and creative work. BTW, Whitehead mourned the state of affairs at his own institutions: "In my own work at universities I have been much struck by the paralysis of thought induced in pupils by the aimless accumulation of precise knowledge..."

3. We should be wary of standardized tests and their resulting effects on classroom culture if they clash with normal developmental shifts in the emphases of learning or the ultimate aims of education at that time.

Whitehead's model may fit in well with many K-12 classical education (trivium) and liberal arts programs like the International Baccalaureate, but it's a good reminder all the same. When students can cram lots of facts into their heads, the temptation is to give them more. But that is why Whitehead was so vehement about careful pacing of the schoolwork at this stage. Multum non Multa (Not many things, but much). Students at this age need to be allowed time to reflect and critique knowledge, then deeply consider where applications and intersections of ideas exist.

The Aims of Education and Other Essays (Alfred North Whitehead)

Technorati tags: education, liberal arts, philosophy, classical learning, mathematics problem solving, gifted, homeschooling

Why Children Aren't Philosophers

"...those who have most of this comprehension, and who are more steadfast in their learning, and in their military and other appointed duties, when they have arrived at the age of thirty have to be chosen by you out of the select class, and elevated to higher honour..." - Plato, The Republic

If Plato had his way, philosophy and youth wouldn't mix. He may have had a point. Children don't have the capacity for self-reflection as adults, although it's easy to forget this when they may be smart or clever in other ways. Developmentally, young children really struggle with perspective-taking, and their perceptions of themselves may often be more simplistic than we realize.

From the self-knowledge paper, below:"...(young children) tend to rely on global, evaluative inferences (e.g. "good," "bad") rather than traits to predict others' behavior until between seven and ten years of age." Before "children are seven or eight years old, they are likely to endorse only positive or only negative attributes about themselves." Think of the implications of school failure for these kids! Maybe that is why we have seen many heart-rending episodes of self-loathing and existential angst among kindergarteners or first graders (often triggered by reading or handwriting problems).

The figure below shows the differences in brain activation when groups of children or adults were asked to reflect on personal traits like popularity or academic abilities like reading or writing. Compared to adult pattern, the kids' scans showed much more diffuse distributions of activation by fMRI. Interestingly, the children's scans showed more lower / visual pathway activation, perhaps due to triggering of personal visual recall or imagery. What were they seeing? Imagery in this circumstance might be more constricting than a non-imagery-based concept of self. With a more grownup self-percept, we may have more complex memories, associations, and labels.



We're headed for a long weekend. Be back blogging on Monday, Jan 29th!

Children's Self-Knowledge and fMRI
ENL Blog: The Self-Examined Life

Technorati tags: children, self-reflection, development, brain, theory of mind, emotional, socialgifted, perfectionism, self-esteem, psychology, fMRI, critical thinking

Year 2006 Tax Benefits for Parents of Children with Learning Disabilities - SchwabLearning.org

Schwablearning has posted their handy Tax Benefits article for 2006. The article includes discussion of HSAs and flexible spending accounts as well as other hot topics, like coverage for tutoring, specialty materials, and tuition for a special private school. And yes, retroactive claims are also possible.

Year 2006 Tax Benefits for Parents of Children with Learning Disabilities - SchwabLearning.org

Technorati tags: learning disabilities, schools, education

Time Magazine: Is the Autism Epidemic a Myth?

A Time Magazine article this month talks to anthropologist Richard Grinker, author of Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism.

Excerpt:"BROADER DEFINITIONS Each successive edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders--the bible of mental health--has revised the criteria for identifying autism in ways that tend to include more people...Grinker and others say 50% to 75% of the increase in diagnoses is coming in these milder categories...

MORE HELP, LESS STIGMA As services have become more available for kids with autism, more parents are seeking a diagnosis they would have shunned 30 years ago...Doctors are also more willing to apply the diagnosis to help a patient. "I'll call a kid a zebra if it will get him the educational services I think he needs," National Institute of Mental Health psychiatrist Judith Rapoport told Grinker.

FINANCIAL INCENTIVES In some states, parents of children with autism can apply for Medicaid even if they are not near the poverty line. A diagnosis of mental retardation doesn't always offer this advantage."

Is the Autism Epidemic a Myth?
Autism and Diagnostic Substitution

Technorati tags: autism, PDD-NOS, Aspergers

The Problem with Bell Curve-Thinking

From Bell Curve co-author Charles Murray's WSJ article last week:

"Our ability to improve the academic accomplishment of students in the lower half of the distribution of intelligence is severely limited. It is a matter of ceilings. Suppose a girl in the 99th percentile of intelligence, corresponding to an IQ of 135, is getting a C in English. She is underachieving, and someone who sets out to raise her performance might be able to get a spectacular result. Now suppose the boy sitting behind her is getting a D, but his IQ is a bit below 100, at the 49th percentile.

We can hope to raise his grade. But teaching him more vocabulary words or drilling him on the parts of speech will not open up new vistas for him. It is not within his power to learn to follow an exposition written beyond a limited level of complexity, any more than it is within my power to follow a proof in the American Journal of Mathematics. In both cases, the problem is not that we have not been taught enough, but that we are not smart enough.

Now take the girl sitting across the aisle who is getting an F. She is at the 20th percentile of intelligence, which means she has an IQ of 88. If the grading is honest, it may not be possible to do more than give her an E for effort. Even if she is taught to read every bit as well as her intelligence permits, she still will be able to comprehend only simple written material. It is a good thing that she becomes functionally literate, and it will have an effect on the range of jobs she can hold. But still she will be confined to jobs that require minimal reading skills. She is just not smart enough to do more than that."

Now what is wrong with this picture? Or why should sociologists be banned from donning teachers' robes?

Murray's problem is that he assumes too much for the idea of g - or general intelligence. From our previous post / Kevin's Intelligence Blog, should remember that "...IQ tests, on their best days, predict 40-50% of school achievement (Applied Psychometrics 101 – square the correlations and multiply by 100 to get the percent of variance explained). This is very good. Yet…50-60% of a person’s school achievement is still related to factors “beyond IQ!”

We all have different limitations by our jobs and personal perspectives, but the particular problem with sociology is that most researchers spend little time with the students whose scores they study in their research reports. I don't fault them for it, it's just the nature of their profession.

In fact, to confess, it's really the nature of our profession, too. Conventional MD's rarely are given adequate face-to-face time with their patients, and tasks like assessing mental status can be streamlined to 5-10 minutes. But this is a big mistake.

One of the most eye-open discoveries we made when we radically changed our practice to spend more time doing one-on-one testing with kids, was to see how many different ways smart could present itself, and how pencil-and-paper testing captures only a small slice of intelligence and talent. Children with language disabilities notoriously score poorly on conventional IQ tests - but so many times we see their brightness shine through - whether it's cleverness at deducing a solution with incomplete information, recognizing an interesting association, or applying a metacognitive strategy. The pencil-and-paper tests don't test anything having to do with procedural or other specialized types of expertise, and they certainly don't delve into skills associated with social perception and wisdom.

We'd like to close with an excerpt from this low IQ-scoring, but high life-achieving individual's website:

"Bob first became interested in psychology because, as a child, he performed very poorly on IQ tests. He did so poorly that in sixth grade he was sent back to take the test with fifth-graders because the school thought the sixth-grade test would be too hard for him.

His early years in school were a proverbial self-fulfilling prophecy. His teachers, seeing his low IQ, expected little from him, and got little. In fourth grade, he had a teacher, Mrs. Alexa, who believed he was capable of doing better. And so, starting in fourth grade, he became a high achiever in school. Bob dedicated his book, Successful Intelligence, to Mrs. Alexa. They had their first reunion in 40 years just a year ago, when Bob's elementary school invited both him and Mrs. Alexa back for Bob to give a talk and to have a celebration of how teachers can change the lives of their students."

Who is this? This is Dr. Robert Sternberg, former president of the American Psychological Association, Dean of Arts and Sciences at Tufts, IBM Professor of Psychology and Education at Yale University. Good thing he didn't have Charles Murray deciding his classroom placement...

WSJ: Intelligence in the Classroom
ENL Blog: Who is Smart?
Robert Sternberg's Website

Technorati Tags: intelligence, gifted, IQ, psychology, language, school, education, multiple intelligences

The Ageless Brain: Training Memory, Reasoning, and Speed

Check out the results of the ACTIVE trial, a long-term randomized controlled trial looking at the benefits of cognitive training (memory, speed of processing, reasoning) on everyday functioning.



Booster training produced additional benefits especially for the reasoning training groups. The mean age studied? 73 years old. The training process was pretty lightweight, too (10 sessions). Wonder what they might have seen if they carried out a more intensive program?

Another thought that came to my mind was whether a future study might be especially valuable if it included a visual-associational training component to the cognitive therapy. Age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer / Mild Cognitive Impairment-related changes are more concentrated more in frontal and temporal structures - whereas visual areas are relatively preserved. Perhaps if visual learning pathways were driven, researchers would not have seen so steep a decline in all groups by 5 years.

This may just another one of those cases in which medical science focused more on deficits than preserved strengths.

JAMA: Cognitive Training of Seniors Helps Cognitive Performance and Everyday Function pdf

Technorati tags: mind, brain, training, health, memory, seniors, aging, wellness, reasoning

WSJ: Educating Intellectually Gifted Students

In the Wall Street Journal, Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve, among others, puts forth his ideas about educating intellectually gifted students in an article entitled Aztecs vs. Greeks.

Key points:

- high IQ people disproportionately influence society's progress (media, research, professions, technology, etc)

- public funding of gifted education is abysmal (1% of the education budget in 2006, zeroed out in 2007), nevertheless most intelligent young people are able to reap the advantages of higher education

- encouragement of wisdom should involve the teaching of humility, precise thinking, history, and ethics

Excerpt:

"The gifted should not be taught to be nonjudgmental; they need to learn how to make accurate judgments. They should not be taught to be equally respectful of Aztecs and Greeks; they should focus on the best that has come before them, which will mean a light dose of Aztecs and a heavy one of Greeks. The primary purpose of their education should not be to let the little darlings express themselves, but to give them the tools and the intellectual discipline for expressing themselves as adults.

In short, I am calling for a revival of the classical definition of a liberal education, serving its classic purpose: to prepare an elite to do its duty."

It's true that many intellectually gifted students will find some way to thrive. But Murray raises a good point about how society should care about the moral development of these intellectually promising students, and what influences are important to encourage them to be wise and good leaders for future generations.

This article is third in a series at the Wall Street Journal, and we take issue with some points of these others, but we'll tackle them in a future post. The series started off with a weaker effort (Intelligence in the Classroom, and What's Wrong with Vocational School was the article stuck in-between. Murray's greatest weakness is his over-reliance on g to predict intelligence, but we'll have to take that one on at a later date. Have a great weekend.

Technorati Tags: gifted, education, parenting, classical education, liberal arts, history, intelligence, IQ, character, leadership, emotional, EQ

Brain Break: Riddle-Poems, and How to Make Them

Mid-week stretch brain break...

"Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail, never clinking." - J.R.R. Tolkien

Here are some nice links to riddle poems. Can you write a few yourself?

Riddle-Poems, and How to Make Them
Riddleman
Five Old English Riddles
Riddle Poems

Answer: a fish.

Technorati: riddle poems, word games, Tolkien

The Diagnostic Puzzle at Additude

Excerpt:

"Is it ADHD? A learning disability? Maybe it’s depression or anxiety, a mild form of autism—or chronic fatigue resulting from a sleep disorder. Maybe it’s a combination of things.

Getting an answer to the question “What’s wrong with my child?” can be harder than many parents expect..."

Diagnostic Puzzle at Additude pdf

Technorati tags: ADD, ADHD, misdiagnosis

Dancing with Dialecticals: How Children, Teens, and Young Adults Argue...or Don't!

"...Be sure not to let your son be bred up in the art and formality of disputing, either practising it himself, or admiring it in others; unless instead of an able man, you desire to have him an insignificant wrangler, opiniator in discourse, and priding himself in contradicting others; or, which is worse, questioning every thing, and thinking there is no such thing as truth to be sought, but only victory, in disputing. There cannot be any thing so disingenuous, so misbecoming a gentleman or any one who pretends to be a rational creature, as not to yield to plain reason and the conviction of clear arguments..." - John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education


Some parents may take quiet pride in the fact their children can verbally stand up for their beliefs and challenge authorities with which they disagree. But how well do our children argue, and are they more often children of reason or Locke's insignificant wranglers?

Research of elementary school children show, by-and-large, that students are able to voice their opinions and provide some support for their position, but that they are weak at listening to or analyzing others' opinions, a skill that seems to switch on more as students enter their adolescent years. Analysis of 4th graders' arguments showed frequent vague expressions, an absence of conclusions or line of reasoning, and an absence of appeal to general principles. When young children pressed their arguments, they resorted to more pragmatic methods or controlling discourse, like raising voices, repeating or exaggerating claims, claiming authority (without justification), or threatening or bribing. Hmmm.

Teens and young adults fared better in their argumentation skills, but also failed to meet adult levels because they aren't able to postulate two-sided arguments and were frequently confused about which was evidence and explanation of claims. Researchers have found college-attending students were better able to analyze arguments, but were particularly vulnerable to belief bias.

If all this makes you despair, don't. There is evidence that education helps. These studies do provide us with the developmental reminder that we aren't all alike, nor are we equally susceptible to reason. It's good too, to remember that we should urge our children to reason through their positions, and not fall into disagreeing for disagreement's sake.

The brain scan below shows good two-sided activity!



Modern History Sourcebook: John Locke (1632-1704): Some Thoughts Concerning Education, 1692
Arguing to Learn pdf
Lack of Logic in Children's Arguments
Development of Argument Skills
From Dialogue to Two-Sided Argument - Persuasive Writing
Shouting, Repeating, and Looming in Children's Dialogues
Dialectical Reasoning
Improving Student's Ability to Argue
fMRI of Complex Causal Thinking pdf

Technorati Tags: teaching, education, reasoning, classical education, critical thinking, logic, argumentation, conflict resolution, communication, children, parenting, teens,gifted, learning styles, dialectical, development, brain, science, fMRI, social

I Spy: What Third Grade is Really Like

The first results out from an NIH Study of Third Grade Classroom Instruction:



These studies are important, but they emphasize the gap between theoretical and practical implementation of educational programs. The samplings mirror national averages in terms of teacher sampling 99.5% had bachelor's degrees or higher (43% had some graduate courses or a master's degree).

Researchers pointed out that "Science and social studies activities seldom occurred, thought the coding system allowed that if an activity had literacy and social studies components, for example, then both literacy and social studies could be coded." Approximately 1 hour out of a 6 hour day was spent in classroom transition or management activities like collecting lunch money or lining up. Over-all richness of instructional methods was 2.11 on a scale of 1 to 5.50 (with 5.50 the highest). Students appeared to be engaged in the instruction 2/3 or the time, unproductive 1/3 of the time, and highly engaged, rarely.

Uh-oh. We have a long way to go. These kids are competing in a Flat World.

NICHD ECCRN: What Really Goes On in U.S. Third Grade Classrooms
ENL Blog: Education for a Flat World
ENL Blog: Designing Schools for the Present Age
Creating Creative Children: Education for a Flat World pdf
Problem Solving in the Elementary Curriculum / A Curriculum Unit
Parent Involvement in Elementary Problem Solving

Technorati Tags: education, literacy, elementary school, classroom management, math, science, school, parenting, flat world, teaching, creativity, problem solving

Learning Styles and Learning Challenges

We'll be speaking Monday at Seattle Hebrew Academy for the Jewish Education Council. Here's a pdf of the Powerpoint: Learning Styles & Learning Challenges.


Back blogging tomorrow, Jan 16th.

For Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream Speech / Video at American Rhetoric, click here
NYT: Words That Shaped a Vision of Equality
Lesson Speech Analysis "I Have a Dream"

Technorati Tags: learning styles, education, teachers, classroom, Martin Luther King, Jr.

Metaphorical Thinking

Metaphorical thinking is well-recognized for its importance in creative thinking and all types of hypothesis-drive research. It is the bridge between abstract thinking and concrete reality, so no wonder it is organized in crossmodal areas of the brain (like the angular gyrus), where all sensory areas mix together.

Metaphors are important to be aware of, because they aren't just the stuff of assigned papers in English. We often think, decide, and plan based on metaphorical assumptions of which we may not be fully aware.

One interesting link below is to a study that looked at the metaphors college students used to describe how they learned in lecture classes (Tape Recorder, Stenographer, Sponge, Reporter, etc.). The metaphors were fairly predictive of student performance, raising the issue that metaphors could constrain as well as facilitate students' approaches to learning.



Embodied Cognition
Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Brain Region Linked to Metaphor Comprehension
Conceptual Models Students Live By - Abstract
Metaphors We Compute By
Conceptual Metaphor at Wikipedia
American Scientist Online - Metaphorical Thinking
Eide Neurolearning Blog: Action! Experiencing Words Through Reading
Metaphors and Analogies in Scientific Thinking

Technorati Tags: metaphor, knowledge, brain, fmri, education, sensory, conceptual thinking, creativity, science

American Rhetoric: Rhetorical Devices in Sound

Found this wonderful site for listening to different rhetorical devices from speeches, sermons, movies, songs, lectures...

"Rhetorical Figures in Sound is a compendium of 200+ brief audio (mp3) clips illustrating 39 different figures of speech. Most of these figures were constructed, identified, and classified by Greek and Roman teachers of rhetoric in the Classical period."

We'll be away from the Blog on Martin Luther King Day. Back blogging on Jan 16th.

American Rhetoric: Rhetorical Devices in Sound

Technorati Tags: rhetoric, language, speech, classical education

Your Brain on Music

Listening to classical music, subjects were seen first to trigger "the forebrain, as it analyzed the structure and meaning of the tune. Then the nucleus accumbus and ventral tegmental area activated to release dopamine, a chemical the brain's sense of reward. The cerebellum, an area normally associated with physical movement, reacted too, responding to what Dr. Levitin suspected was the brain's predictions of where the song was going to go. As the brain internalizes the tempo, rhythm and emotional peaks of a song, the cerebellum begins reacting every time the song produces tension..." The complex pattern of activation, shows that there are many potential ways that music can help learning - rote information can be made more memorable by adding rhythm (math and US History raps, grammar jingles), rhyme (sound matching), emotion and personal associations (more reward, motivation), or a movement association (cerebellum).

BTW, this music-on-the-brain researcher is transdisciplinary ...
"Before getting his PhD, he spent 15 years as a record producer, working with artists ranging from the Blue Oyster Cult to Chirs Isaak. While still in graduate school he helped Stevie Wonder assemble..." Daniel Levitin is now a neuroscientist at McGill.

If you're wondering whether to take the plunge re: music lessons for the kids, there will probably be some good brain results from such an undertaking (see below, but school also improves IQ). Interestingly, some of the largest effects of music lessons were seen on the index scores for Freedom from Distractibility and Processing Speed. This makes sense because of the working memory demands and complex coordination involved with musical training.



NYT: Your Brain on Music
Music Helps Your IQ
Music helps the brain learn better
Mnemonics at Wikiquote
Musical Mnemonics and Brain Oscillation, Abstract only
Multiplication Rock Jingles
Harcourt Math Jingles

Technorati Tags: brain, music, memory, intelligence, psychology, education, language, math

The Eides at Education News

Thanks to Michael Shaughnessy (EdNews.org) for a very nice interview.

An Interview with Brock and Fernette Eide - The Mislabeled Child at Education News

Dancing with Dialecticals: Tweens, Teens, & Satire

Dorothy Sayers described the dialectical age of children (roughly tweens, some children are precocious in this regard) as the "Pert" stage: ... children who thrived on "contradicting, answering back, liking to "catch people out" (especially one's elders); and by the propounding of conundrums." Sayers added, "Its nuisance-value is extremely high."

Middle school children are solidly in their dialectical years, that may be why conventional rote methods of instruction are likely to induce apathy, and intrinsic motivation in general, declines.

Hmm...very familiar. One answer to middle school malaise is...satire! Many tweens and tweens gravitate toward satirical humor, and it can provide good cognitive skill-building besides (besides humor, think critique and analysis and analogy). You do have to use your brain a lot to "get" the satire or sarcasm (see below).



Some classic resources for satirical lessons - Merrill's Pushcart War (we're now reading), Gulliver's Travels, P.G. Wodehouse, Gilbert and Sullivan, political cartoons, and groups like Capitol Steps. Our kids also like Asterix and Obelix. Quite by accident, we stumbled upon the Stuwwelpeter Parodies and then Stuwwelpeter verses themselves. Many English children grew up with these.

From "The Story of Johnny Look-in-the-Air"



Once, with head as high as ever, Johnny walked beside the river.
Johnny watch'd the swallows trying Which was cleverest at flying.
Oh! what fun! Johnny watch'd the bright round sun
Going in and coming out; This was all he thought about.
So he strode on, only think! To the river's very brink,
Where the bank was high and steep, And the water very deep;
And the fishes, in a row, Stared to see him coming so.

One step more! Oh! sad to tell!Headlong in poor Johnny fell.The three little fishes, in dismay,Wagged their tails and swam away
One step more! Oh! sad to tell!
Headlong in poor Johnny fell.

The three little fishes, in dismay,
Wagged their tails and swam away.
There lay Johnny on his face;
With his nice red writing-case;
But, as they were passing by,,
Two strong men had heard him cry;
And, with sticks, these two strong men
Hook'd poor Johnny out again.

Oh! you should have seen him shiver
When they pull'd him from the river
He was in a sorry plight,
Dripping wet, and such a fright!
Wet all over, everywhere,
Clothes, and arms, and face, and hair
Johnny never will forget
What it is to be so wet.

And the fishes, one, two, three,
Are come back again, you see;
Up they came the moment after,
To enjoy the fun and laughter.
Each popp'd out his little head,
And, to tease poor Johnny, said,
"Silly little Johnny, look,
You have lost your writing-book!"
Look at them laughing and do you see?
His satchel is drifting, far out to sea!

An easy target for parody/ Other titles include The Story of Fidgety Phillip...

BTW, apparently another big storm is headed our way. We may miss a blog post or two if we lose our electricity / cable...but regardless, we'll be baaack....

Pushcart War Lesson Plan
Stuwwelpeter Menu
Social Satire in the Stuwwelpeter Parodies
Satire at Wikipedia
Eide Neurolearning Blog: Motivation & Memory
Brain Biology of Sarcasm

Technorati Tags: education, motivation, ckassical education, dialectical stage, satire, critical thinking, tweens, teens, motivation, parenting

The Lost Tools of Learning

We recently discovered Dorothy Sayers' wonderful essay, The Lost Tools of Learning. I had also read Tracy Lee Simmons' Climbing Parnassus earlier in the winter, and it stimulated many reflections about what today's our students are missing in their educational years.

Although her indictments were for another generation, the charges are even heavier for the present times.

Excerpt: "...although we often succeed in teaching our pupils "subjects," we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think: they learn everything, except the art of learning."

Some targets on Ms. Sayers' radar -

1. Failure to rigorously teach an understanding of language - including its structure and critical analysis, and its use in reasoning and persuasion.
2. The importance of a developmental education - or different strokes for different folks - (is there any reason that conventional U.S. education neglects dialectical thinking?)
3. The virtues of memorizing great literature and poetry
4. The importance of teaching logic and argumentation
5. The importance of giving rhetorical age (high school) learners the opportunity to extrapolate their knowledge in different contexts and discover where their knowledge ends.

Ms. Sayers again: "I am concerned only with the proper training of the mind to encounter and deal with the formidable mass of undigested problems presented to it by the modern world. For the tools of learning are the same, in any and every subject; and the person who knows how to use them will, at any age, get the mastery of a new subject in half the time and with a quarter of the effort expended by the person who has not the tools at his command. To learn six subjects without remembering how they were learnt does nothing to ease the approach to a seventh; to have learnt and remembered the art of learning makes the approach to every subject an open door."

Here in the States, education by committee often means that the educational product agreed upon by multiple tiers of evaluators and experts is a patchwork compromise package. It may be that no one person completely likes the end product, but that it represents the least worst option.

What Sayers argues for is an emphasis on the processes of critical reasoning and learning. It is not rote vs. creative learning, but rather a model that values both. The classical educational model that she defends seems antithetical to the "express yourself" approach to learning that puts heavy emphasis on personal opinion and expression without critique the validity or process by which conclusions were arrived. The beauty of the well-tooled mind is that it can apply itself to any new situation or subject because it knows how to think and learn about anything. Essential prep for thriving in the new millennium.

The Lost Tools of Learning

Technorati Tags: classical education, education, school, critical thinking, educational philosophy, logic, flat world, liberal arts, knowledge, teaching, creativity, parenting, gifted

Beyond the Poor Reading Group

In this very straightforward study, the authors point out the mistake of thinking that interventions should be the same for all readers in the poor reading group. Children with dyslexia and children with a more generalized language disorder have different learning needs, but they can't be distinguished by comprehension alone.

Excerpt: "...poor comprehenders and poor decoders may be less clearly differentiated on the basis of reading comprehension in the early grades..." If you look at the course of oral reading ability and passage comprehension, the poor decoders (dyslexic impaired phonology, isolated word reading) are more likely to spurt ahead of the more globally language impaired students between the 2nd and the 8th grades. This dyslexic spurt is the norm for dyslexics, rather than the exception. Many dyslexics are quintessential "late bloomers", and they need to be encouraged as such (rather than parents and students being burdened with depressing and apocalyptic visions of being imprisoned, etc.).





The needs of phonological dyslexics and language-impaired readers are just different. Many students with generalized language impairment don't need intensive phonemic awareness training.



BTW, there's also an interesting figure (below) that shows that at the higher grades, the poor decoders / phonological dyslexics matched and sometimes exceeded the performance of typical readers. This was on the subtest of discourse comprehension, an assessment involving higher-order language comprehension ability and inference. Cool, huh?



Technorati Tags: dyslexia, reading, learning disabilities, language, gifted, teaching, education

Poor Reading Comprehension vs. Poor Phonology

How to raise a compassionate child - CNN.com

Good tips at CNN.com:

Excerpt:"It's part of day-to-day life: how you answer your child's questions, how you solve conflict at the park, how you nudge his or her growing capacity to understand and think about other people. Temperament of course plays a role -- some kids are naturally more tuned in to other people's feelings and difficulties, while others are a bit oblivious. Either way, you have influence in fostering your child's ability to empathize. Age by age, here's how to do so in small, daily doses..."

Points - Show how to be gentle, speak softly, reject rudeness, say "I'm sorry", provide structure, expect help, use manners to connect, outlaw name-calling, give consequences, be considerate yourself, don't trash talk, give pennies, assign chores, use stories, point out heroes, explore feelings, monitor media, expect more.


Technorati tags: parenting, EQ, empathy, social, emotional, psychology, development, character, children

How to raise a compassionate child - CNN.com

TIME Magazine: How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century

Time Magazine's lead story about the need for changes in 21st century education identifies problems (out-of-date textbooks, out of touch with the world, aiming too low, poor training for collaboration, abstract thinking, foreign language ability) as well as solutions (EQ, ability to analyze and act on information, more global outlook on history, experience with technology), but the rub will come down to how to efficiently implement these changes in which many students are failing to meet many basic skills.

NCLB is up for renewal, and more national discussion will be on its way. A significant question is whether educational solutions by committee will be able to provide the changes students need in order to contribute intellectually and personally in the changing workforce.

We agree with many of the identified problems in the Time magazine article, but the solutions are not so easy - because the quality of teaching depends on the quality of training by the teacher, the time available for instruction in an already crowded curriculum, and the quality of the teacher-student interactions. Putting students in front of computer terminals is no answer to technological training. Powerpoints are one thing, but programming or designing is another.

When students are learning something very difficult, there is no substitute for well-informed and interactive one-on-one instruction. But teachers just can't do that in classes of 20 or 40 students. It's one reason why chasms exist between the higher and lower socio-economic school districts, and families in which older siblings and parents take an active role in a younger child's education tend to thrive.

Students often don't know what they don't know - and that's why we need guides to help provide us insights into how we think (or don't think...), what our problem solving processes and assumptions may be, and where we are making mistakes. Parking students in front of a Curriki is not the answer. Highly motivated individuals can receive quite a remarkable education on the Internet - but many with high face-to-screen times will fail to acquire the cognitive skills essential for successful 21st century knowledge workers.

One danger of an ever-lengthening laundry list of subjects to be "covered", is that there may be less time for students to learn from examples or their own performance.

TIME.com: How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century
Bush to meet with lawmakers about NCLB

Technorati Tags: education, technology, global, flat world, 21st century, learning, schools, trends, NCLB

Mad About Wii

If you were one of the lucky ones to get a Wii for Christmas, you know it can be quite a workout. But the Wii is also a great game and therapy tool that for the first time might allow many kids (as well as others) join in the fun. The cool thing about the Wii is that it's cross-generational. Siblings of very different ages can play together and really have fun, and so can Grandma and Grandpa.

The games that come with the system do all sorts of good neuro-work: eye hand coordination, motor timing, motor sequencing, motor planning, and spatial problem solving. There's bowling, golf, baseball, boxing, and tennis in Wii sports, but of course lots of add-on games to buy or rent.

These systems will be great for many kids with mild motor planning /sensory integration / "clumsy child" issues, visual-motor difficulties, and some dyslexics. Oh, and it might be pretty good for some of us couch potatoes, too.

The Wii is just dipping its toe into a more physically-demanding gaming technology, but it's terrific start. For kids who shunned conventional sports, it's exciting to see them be excited by the Wii, and gain surprising therapeutic benefits, too.

Wii Therapy
Xbox 360 used as rehab device for Marine
A Computer Game That Gets You Off the Sofa

Technorati Tags: technology, Wii, sensory integration, sensory processing, brain, training, rehabilitation, therapy, apraxia, vision, special needs, children, computers, dyslexia

Inefficient Elementary Schoolers

Studies like this are good reminders of the obstacles teachers face when striving to educate elementary schoolers. Using the Wisconsin Card Sort (a task that requires sorting cards on the basis of changing rules), elementary school children came up short on their ability to be flexible and ignore distractions.



The results:



Not a big surprise, you might say, but it reinforces the idea that good habits of learning should be begun as early as possible...so reduce sloppy learning (learning the wrong lessons, bad habits), ensure mastery of the big picture and principles before moving on to exceptions or more complex material, and organizing group instruction to minimize task switching as much as possible.

Kids who don't learn from their mistakes may require more repetitions with unmastered material, alternative teaching strategies, and reduced distractions.

Developmental Aspects of Wisconsin Card Sort
Wisconsin Card Sort Task
Masters Thesis Literature Review on Invented Spelling (writer favors some inventive spelling very early, but feedback to start in 1st grade)
Errors as a Source of Learning in Mathematics
Criticizing the New SAT (Factual errors not scored down on the new SAT's writing segment)

Technorati Tags:teaching, learning styles, attention, psychology, education, elementary school, spelling, development, brain, neuroscience.

The Power of Do: Willing Ourselves to Change

From Aristotle: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

Habit is a more powerful path to learning than we realize. When we act by habit, we act without thinking, using subcortical (usually basal ganglia) pathways that don't require complete awareness.

Good habits are such efficient and reliable ways of behaving because it doesn't matter if we're actively remembering, distracted, or even conflicted about what to do. The good thing about having already developed good habits, is that we may be more likely to perform well, even if we're nervous, sleepy, or inattentive.

What does this mean for child-rearing? It is wise to appeal to reason (when possible), but the insistence on good habits will still bear fruit even if the spirit isn't completely willing.

From William James:

"Don't preach too much to your pupils or abound in good talk in the abstract. Lie in wait rather for the practical opportunities, be prompt to seize those as they pass, and thus at one operation get your pupils both to think, to feel, and to do. The strokes of behavior are what give the new set to the character, and work the good habits into its organic tissue. Preaching and talking too soon become an ineffectual bore."

And how about for us who are endeavoring to make and keep New Year's resolutions? Avoid transgressions at all costs.

From James again, "For this we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and as carefully guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous."

From Ann Graybiel, who makes it her business to study the neurobiological basis of bad habits as well as good, "It is as though somehow, the brain retains a memory of the habit context, and this pattern can be triggered if the right habit cues come back...This situation is familiar to anyone who is trying to lose weight or to control a well-engrained habit. Just the sight of a piece of chocolate cake can reset all those good intentions."

Below: a Graybiel rat falling back into old habits with chocolate as a stimulus.



William James on Habit
Links between tacit knowledge and habit
Brain Researchers Explain Why Habits Die Hard
Habits of Mind - Learning Activities

Technorati Tags: psychology, learning, habit, education, parenting, New Years, brain, learning styles