The Pica Perspective

Mind in the making

Last evening I attended a book event sponsored by the Early Education Initiative of the New America Foundation. The event featured Ellen Galinsky, president and co-founder of the Families and Work Institute and author of the new book, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs. Ms. Galinsky talked about the research she accumulated and reviewed -- over a period of 10 years -- and how she arrived at the seven skills she sees as essential for success both in childhood and in adulthood. They are:

1. Focus and Self Control
2. Perspective Taking
3. Communicating
4. Making Connections
5. Critical Thinking
6. Taking on Challenges
7. Self-Directed, Engaged Learning

A highlight of the evening were videos that said so much more than words ever could. One, depicting Focus and Self Control, was of the "marshmallow test." If you haven't seen it, watch it now!

Whether you're a parent or an early childhood professional, it's imperative that you ask yourself whether or not you're helping to instill these seven essential skills in the children in your care!

There are many resources available at Mind in the Making. I encourage you to check them out!

October leadership conference

Here's a message from Marcy Guddemi, executive director of the Gesell Institute of Human Development, regarding an upcoming conference they're sponsoring. I'll be there as part of a panel discussing play. Hope to see you there!

Gesell Institute of Human Development, a New Haven based non-profit on the Yale campus, is planning a very important event---a leadership in early childhood education conference.  http://www.gesellinstitute.org/pdf/LEADConferenceBrochure.pdf  This is a conference you will not want to miss! Register today to hear from world renowned pediatricians T. Berry Brazelton, MD and Joshua D. Sparrow, MD, and Head Start founder Edward Zigler, PhD, We are also honored to feature Alliance for Childhood Executive Director Joan Almon, Columbia University’s Dr. Sharon Lynn Kagan, and United States Representative, the Honorable Rosa DeLauro. Our pre-conference banquet on October 14th will feature award-winning journalist and engaging speaker Ashley Merryman, also the co-author of the New York Times bestseller NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children.

Our national conference on October 15^th, 2010 has been designed to address the important issues of early childhood education leadership, in a way that no other leadership conference has. Speakers include both world-renowned experts in child development and practitioners, including Sally Millaway, Principal and David Mooij, Superintendent, of Neptune Township School District in New Jersey, where they have experienced first-hand the power of utilizing a research-based early childhood program for preschool and Kindergarten children.

As outlined in our conference materials at www.gesellinstitute.org/events, the conference will be structured to include two keynote presentations and four panels, lead by experts and practitioners in the field. Some of the key questions we will address are as follows.

·       What curricular models are leading to higher test scores? 

·       What does research tell us about how children learn? 

·       What policies are making a positive difference in terms of learning outcomes? 

·       What role does hands-on, developmentally appropriate practice play? 

Hope you can attend.  Limited space so register early and save!

More bad news about TV

New research shows that the side effects of television viewing in toddlerhood are showing up in grade school. Here's an excerpt from an article in this week's School Library Journal:

Photo: Flickr by Rocketeer.

Children exposed to television between the ages of two and four appear to have more problems in school and poorer health behaviors when they reach the fourth grade, says Linda S. Pagani of Université de Montréal in Canada. She and colleagues studied 1,314 children between  the ages of 29 months and 53 months and asked parents to report their weekly hours of TV watching.

Then when the children reached the age of 10, parents and teachers were also asked to report on children’s academic and health behaviors, as well as their body mass index (BMI). Here’s what they found—each additional hour of television in early childhood resulted in a 7 percent decrease in classroom engagement, a 6 percent decrease in math achievement, and a 13 percent decrease in time spent doing weekend physical activity.

“With respect to indicators of sedentary habits in the fourth grade, every additional hour of exposure in 29 months corresponded to a 10 percent unit increase in video game use,” the study says.

At the same time, for each additional hour of TV watching in early childhood, research showed 9 percent higher scores for consumption of soft drinks and 10 percent higher scores for consumption of snacks, as well as a 5 percent increase in BMI.

TV-watching toddlers also showed 10 percent increase in classmate victimization at the fourth grade.

“The long-term risks associated with higher levels of early exposure may chart developmental pathways toward unhealthy dispositions in adolescence,” Pagani and her colleagues stated. “A population-level understanding of such risks remains essential for promoting child development.”

Farewell to Stanley Greenspan

Dr. Stanley Greenspan, pioneer of the "Floor Time" method for teaching children with autism and other developmental disorders, and who documented the developmental milestones of early childhood, has died at age 68.

According to the Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders, which offers training in the Floor Time technique, Greenspan was "the world's foremost authority on clinical work with infants and young children with developmental and emotional problems. His work continues to guide parents, professionals and researchers all over the world."

Dr. Greenspan authored numerous books, including Great Kids: Helping Your Baby and Child Develop the Ten Essential Qualities for a Healthy, Happy Life, upon which I based my interview with him for Body, Mind and Child. I'm honored to have had the chance to speak with him. To listen to his thoughts on genuine versus phony self-esteem, click here.

Developing Genuine Versus Phony Self-Esteem in Children
Stanley Greenspan M.D. with host Rae Pica

Dr. Greenspan says that genuine self-esteem is one of the ten essential qualities necessary for a healthy, happy life. Is it possible to “give” your child self-esteem? The answer may come as a surprise. Learn the difference between genuine, versus phony, self-esteem and when and how you should praise your child.

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!

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.

To Spank or Not to Spank?

Were you spanked? I was. Parents never thought twice about it when I was a kid.

Did it have any ill effects? Who knows? Maybe I would have turned out differently had I not been spanked, but I'll never know that.

Mind you, I'm not in favor of smacking kids. And I certainly understand the argument that when we do so, we're teaching them that violence is okay. I also understand the point of view of Dr. Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire, and others, whose research shows spanking has traumatizing effects. But Dr. Straus's research indicates that these traumatizing effects result in lower IQs, and that spanked children develop more slowly. Could that be true? Is that the case with an occasional pop on the bottom? Or does that result with repeated, furious spanking?

Dr. Marjorie Gunnoe's research has shown that spanking isn't so bad after all. She learned that those teenagers who'd been physically disciplined up until the age of 6 performed better in school, had an optimistic outlook on life, possessed a willingness to perform volunteer work, and were ambitious about attending college.

Do you think her research will provide fodder for spanking advocates?

I had a great discussion with both Murray and Marjorie, along with Amy McCready of Positive Parenting Solutions and Sara Behnke, parenting author and blogger. It's featured this week on the Parents Channel at the BAM Radio Network.

So, what do you think? To spank or not to spank? Do you spank??

Kids less happy as they're more plugged in?

Does consuming a lot of media make children's lives more troubled, or do troubled kids simply consume more media?

That's the question which has arisen from a new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation that shows that the more media they use, the less happy young people tend to be.

I won't propose an answer to that question here. But I will comment on the finding that kids spend more than 7-1/2 hours a day with electronic media, up from about six hours in 1999. One respondent, a college freshman, said that she and her friends have "six or seven ways" to get in touch most days: cellphone, texting, instant messaging, email, Facebook, Twitter and Skype videoconferencing.

That's a lot of contact...but not a lot of contact.

Dr. Sharon Heller, in The Vital Touch, wrote: "Every caress, stroke, hug, squeeze, and playful game; all the rocking, swaying, swinging, spinning; all the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes in our world -- all feed [the] need for sensory input and spark the neurons in her brain to grow and branch out to encompass other neurons."

Does our need for touch end once we're out of arms? Haven't I read somewhere that humans need a certain number of hugs per day to survive and a greater number to thrive? Not to mention the research showing that body language communicates far more than our words. Body language has no part of phoning, texting, instant messaging, emailing, etc., etc. Which means communication is not nearly as effective as talking the good old-fashioned way: face to face.

Seems like maybe I answered the question after all...What are your thoughts?

To see the way media usage broke down, click here.

Brain Gym Pointless?

In Carla Hannaford's wonderful book, Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not All in Your Head, she tells the story of Todd, who at 16 years old was unable to read -- until his mother discovered the Dennisons' Brain Gym and its cross-crawl exercise. Within 6 weeks of doing this exercise, which alternates opposite elbow to knee and requires crossing the midline of the body, Todd was reading -- at grade level.

Dr. Hannaford, a neurophysiologist,explains that Todd had everything he needed to able to read in the two hemispheres of his brain; however, the two hemispheres weren't communicating across the corpus callosum, the gray matter that connects them. By doing an exercise that crossed the body's midline, the corpus callosum was engaged and communication enabled.

Thousands of educators across the globe have embraced Brain Gym and its exercises, proclaiming their effectiveness in boosting energy, concentration, and learning. Now along comes a statement from England's Department for Children, Schools and Families, claiming that studies put its success down to nothing more than the 'placebo effect' and the general benefits of breaks and exercise.

The DCSF said: "We are unaware of any sufficiently robust or peer-reviewed evaluation of the approaches it promotes which would allow any clear link between the use of Brain Gym and pupils' learning to be established.We are also aware of a significant body of criticism of the theoretical underpinnings of the programme."

It said that Paul Dennison, the California teacher behind it, had admitted that many of Brain Gym's claims were based on "hunches." Also, officials said Brain Gym had been "criticised as being unscientific in a wide-ranging and authoritative review of research into neuroscience and education."

What do you think? Is Brain Gym pointless? Could Todd's ability to read after six weeks of doing the cross-crawl have been coincidence? What have been your experiences with Brain Gym?

A Webinar & a Film Clip

On September 23rd, I presented a webinar for Head Start Body Start, called "Movement Across the Curriculum." It's the first in a series of four, and it looks at the connection between moving and learning, between mind and body. (And there are plenty!) If you'd like to see it or the PowerPoint slides, go to the HSBS website.

Coming in November: "Movement Across the Curriculum: Literacy," to be followed in later months by "Movement Across the Curriculum: Math," and "Movement Across the Curriculum: Science."

Also, although not specifically relevant to early childhood education, I highly recommend that you stop reading this blog and spend the time watching the clip from the documentary The 4th Purpose. It's a powerful indictment of the U.S. system of education that absolutely gave me chills.