The Pica Perspective

New on the Educators Channel: Unteaching the Bad Behaviors Children Bring from Home. Two experts in children's behavior weigh in at http://tinyurl.com/ydjgbmq .

Update on kindergarten standards

This from the Alliance for Childhood:

Two experienced early childhood educators -- Eric Gidseg of New Paltz, New York, and Carla Horwitz of the Yale Child Study Center -- have written commentaries on the effects of the proposed kindergarten standards. 

We're disappointed that, so far, the major newspapers have declined to publish op-ed commentaries on the standards from the early childhood community.  Obviously, time is running out on the public comment period, which ends in just three days.

 

In yesterday's entry on her "Curriculum Matters" blog at Education Week (http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2010/03/anticipating_profits_from_comm.html), Catherine Gewertz comments that

The potential profits to be made from designing curriculum materials and assessments for the standards have been a trigger for skepticism from the beginning, especially when some of the companies who can gain from that venture, such as the College Board and ACT Inc., were included in the writing teams for the project.

The whole issue of potential conflict of interest--the fact that several members of the standards-writing committees stand to profit personally from the sale of curricula and/or tests they have created and that can be marketed as "aligned" with the standards--has been pretty much ignored by the press.

Over the next two days, I'll reprint the Gidseg and Horwitz comments.If you have not yet registered your comments with NGA and CCSSO, you can visit the Gesell Institute website for instructions on how to do so.

Almost one-third of world's children are couch potatoes

Sigh.

A new study, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, found that most children, regardless of whether they live in a poor or rich country, are not getting enough exercise. In fact, one-third of the nearly 73,000 teens in 34 nations surveyed between 2003 and 2007 spent three or more hours a day watching TV, playing computer games, or chatting with friends -- aside from time spent in school or doing homework. Researcher Regina Guthold of the World Health Organization and her colleagues classified this behavior as "sedentary." I'd have to say I agree with that characterization. They defined "adequate physical activity" as at least one hour of exercise outside of PE class at least five days a week.

The researchers found only one quarter of the boys and 15 percent of the girls were getting enough exercise by these definitions.

To read about the countries where the children were least and most active, as well as the researcher's recommendations for increasing physical activity, click here.

David Elkind's op-ed piece on the state of play and childhood and the need for recess coaches: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/opinion/27elkind.html?scp=1&sq=David%20Elkind&st=cse . Thought-provoking.

A warning about proposed national standards for young children

This is from the Alliance for Childhood. I hope you'll take actions they outline...

Dear Friends,

As many of you know, the Alliance for Childhood is gravely concerned about the newly proposed “common core standards” for children in kindergarten and the early grades. Hundreds of early childhood health and education professionals have signed the Alliance’s joint statement on the K-3 standards calling for their withdrawal. Now is the time for each of you to take action on this critical issue.

After months of drafting in secrecy, the final proposed version of the K-12 standards was released by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) on March 10. Some aspects of this version are better than the draft that was leaked to the press in January; some are worse. But overall we are sure these standards will intensify an already inappropriate emphasis on cognitive development of young children that is divorced from social-emotional and physical development. Current practices are already causing enormous stress in children’s lives. These new standards will add to that.

The NGA and CCSSO have announced that the proposed standards are “available for comment” until April 2, after which they will revise the standards and issue the final version. Unfortunately, this is not a true public comment process, such as would be required for an important piece of legislation moving through Congress. Yet the federal government has announced that billions of tax dollars—including “Race to the Top” and Title I education funds—will be tied to states’ adopting these standards. We are deeply troubled by this entire process.

The NGA and CCSSO have set up an online survey to collect comments. The survey is rather confusing. Here are the steps you need to take to ask that the early childhood standards be withdrawn and reconsidered:

1.      Go to www.corestandards.org.

2.      Scroll to the bottom of the home page and click on the link to the questionnaire.

3.      At the “Section 2—Feedback” page, choose the third option, “English Language Arts and Mathematics Standards.”

4.      The next page asks you to “select the level of feedback you would like to give.” Choose the second option, “General Feedback and Feedback on Specific Sections.”

5.      On the “Specific Feedback—English Language Arts” page, check the four boxes for K-5 (Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language). This will enable you to select “Remove or entirely rewrite” as your preference if you agree with our position.

6.      On the “Specific Feedback—Mathematics” page, check the four boxes for Kindergarten, Grade   1, Grade 2, and Grade 3. This will enable you to select “Remove or entirely rewrite.”

It is vital that you submit comments and get friends and colleagues to do the same. It’s a small window of time between now and April 2, but the biggest one Americans have had yet to speak out about the need for strong, experiential, play-based approaches to early education. Use the boxes for “additional comments” in the questionnaire to inform policymakers about your own experiences and concerns about early education.

See the Alliance web site, www.allianceforchildhood.org, to read our statement on the standards, the comments of many of the signers, and more details on how you can respond. Policymakers need to hear from us all, especially parents and teachers. Their voices are rarely heard on educational issues. It’s time to act.

With warm regards,

Joan Almon and Ed Miller

Carla Hannaford has a new book

 
Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not All in Your Head, by neurophysiologist Carla Hannaford, is my favorite professional book of all time. It makes a compelling case for the mind/body connection and the need for movement as part of the learning process. No surprise, then, that I recommend it to teachers and parents at nearly every presentation I give. (I may be responsible for selling more of Carla's book than I have of my own!)

Now Carla has a new book. It's called Playing in the Unified Field: Raising & Becoming Conscious, Creative Human Beings. From the back of the book:

Our ideas about what we are and what we are capable of lag far behind what the science of the last hundred years has shown us. We are vibrational fields in a sea of vibrational fields, open to all potential. We are dynamic, learning beings with unavoidable power to influence one another and the surrounding world. The time has come to integrate these discoveries into our lives and the ways we educate our children.

Carla Hannaford, bestselling author of Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not All in Your Head, draws on science, our heritage of human wisdom, and her own experience as a biologist, parent and educator to advance an empowering new view of reality. Playing in the Unified Field offers inspiration, models and practical advice for raising our families with coherence, presence, love, and trust in their capacity to learn and grow.

Carla was lovely enough to have sent me a copy. I haven't had a chance to read it yet (I'm particularly looking forward to the chapter called "Educating with the Heart in Mind!") but wanted to pass along word of its existence!

PE Meets Early Childhood

At the beginning of this week I was attending the annual convention of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (AAHPERD). I often attend this conference, but this year I was there specifically as a master trainer for Head Start Body Start: The National Center for Physical Development and Outdoor Play. HSBS is a collaboration between the American Association for Physical Activity and Recreation (AAPAR) and the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) and is funded by a grant from the Administration for Children and Families. Its three main objectives are:

1. To inform and assist the Office of Head Start in setting national priorities and developing policies.
2. To provide resources, training, and technical assistance to Head Start and Early Head Start Centers.
3. To administer and support grants for construction or improvement of outdoor play spaces at Head Start Centers.

It was the second objective that took me to Indianapolis, the site of this year's convention. On Tuesday, the HSBS team was responsible for training the physical education professionals who've signed on to be PACs: physical activity consultants who provide training and assistance to Head Start grant recipients, supporting them through site visits and offering in-person coaching and training in providing physical activity and outdoor play.

I share all of this with you because, as more than one of my colleagues commented, it was a day long hoped-for but never really expected. It was a day when physical education and early childhood education came together!

If this doesn't seem all that unusual to you, let me assure you that it is! Physical education teachers know little about early childhood (their elementary methods courses do nothing to prepare them for the realities of very young children!). And early childhood professionals know little about physical education (their pre-service courses may include movement as part of a methods course that also includes art and music!). I can count on the fingers of one hand -- and still have a finger or two left over -- those of us who have chosen early childhood movement/physical education as a career. What I can't count are the number of white hairs on my head that have resulted from this career choice -- because there's been so little understanding of the importance of movement education in the early years.

So, it was extremely gratifying to see a room full of PE professionals receiving the information they'll need to offer their support to the Head Start community. To quote my colleague, Linda Carson, "I never thought that in my lifetime I'd see this day." We're both glad we did!

More children now extremely obese according to a new study from researchers at Kaiser Permanente: http://tiny.cc/YfxK1 .

Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood Summit 2010 to be held in Boston April 8-10. Check out the program at http://commercialfreechildhood.org/pdf/schedule.pdf .

Withholding recess is a "no, no"

This blog is from the Peaceful Playgrounds website and reprinted with permission of its author, the "Recess Doctor," Melinda Bossenmeyer...

Children and youths have many opportunities to be physically active in the school environment, including physical education class, recess, and before- and after- school programs. However, some schools, teachers and coaches withhold participation or exclude students and athletes from physical activity as a punishment.

Core Issue
The core issue is that administering or withdrawing physical activity as punishment is inappropriate and constitutes an unsound education practice, according to the National Association of Sport and Physical Education. For more on their advisory and to download the position statement go to:
http://www.aahperd.org/naspe/standards/upload/Physical-Activity-as-Punishment-to-Board-12-10.pdf

For ideas to withholding recess check out our 60 Alternatives to withholding recess article.


While you're there download the Right To Recess Toolkit for saving recess.