We are delighted to share a Lower School Blog, intended to be a resource for parents, faculty, and staff -- including a variety of educational and parenting articles, book reviews and research, as well as some links to school-related and Lower School activities. We hope you’ll enjoy it.

"When the Classics of the Past are Prologue"

When the Classics of the Past Are Prologue


There is cheek and opportunism in the creation of new sequels for long-ago classic books: Everyone involved, from writer to illustrator to publisher, surely knows that he is hooking himself to another person's genius. Many esteemed dead writers, from Jane Austen to Margaret Mitchell, have had to gaze from the beyond at the prose of their imitators. Let's hope they haven't minded too much.

In fairness, though, sequels can spring as much from admiration as from presumption. And it can be a kindness to readers for a talented living author to send old characters on fresh adventures.
image
Frederick Warne & Co.
Eleanor Taylor's Peter (left);
In the case of Peter Rabbit, the wonder is that it took a century for him to reappear. His creator, Beatrix Potter (1866-1943), produced some two dozen books featuring Peter and other farm and woodland creatures, each book filled with her delicate watercolor drawings. To this body of work we can safely add "The Further Tales of Peter Rabbit" (Frederick Warne & Co., 64 pages, $20), written by British actress Emma Thompson and graced with endearingly Potter-esque illustrations by Eleanor Taylor.


This further tale, which is much larger in size than the originals (any of which you could tuck into a pocket), maintains Potter's jaunty tone while gently taking her characters onto newish narrative ground. Ms. Thompson achieves this by sending Peter Rabbit from Mr. MacGregor's farm to the Scottish Highlands, a kilt-wearing, porridge-eating place where the bunny is "put to bed with much kindness, on a sack filled with sheepswool and heather." Invited to watch clans compete in games that involve pitching heavy objects, Peter wanders off and discovers an enormous rosy radish, which smells so delicious that he cannot help gnawing into it. When Peter is teased into flinging the hollowed-out vegetable to one of the muscular competitors, it is not nearly as heavy as it looks.

His apparent show of strength temporarily makes the visitor the hero of the glen. "Peter was raised aloft on dozens of rough paws and bounced about until he felt sick," Ms. Thompson writes. Ashamed, Peter confesses the truth and, to his (and the young reader's) relief, the brawny Scots roar with laughter and cheer him all the more.

Read more ...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203335504578086671994320276.html
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"Engaging Children with the Siren Call of the App"

Engaging Children With the Siren Call of the App
By
Published: October 26, 2012
Each summer for several years, a two-week seminar at the American Museum of Natural History has allowed 25 youngsters to use technology to resurrect a prehistoric marine animal by designing realistic 3-D models and sea environments.
Stephanie Diani for The New York Times
PLAYING ALONG Switch, a game in which an evil genie has wreaked havoc at the Getty, being demonstrated at the museum.

Every year, the program, “Virtual World Institute: Cretaceous Seas,” for children ages 11 to 14, fills up quickly.
 
One attendee in last summer’s program, Tammuz Frankel, a 12-year-old student at Hunter College High School, said, “From a very young age, I have been interested in paleontology, but I don’t know much about prehistoric seas. I wanted to learn more about this little-known part of the Mesozoic Era.”

The program has been so successful that the museum has since added two more August seminars on different topics.

The natural history museum is not alone in seeking innovative ways to engage children and families in the museum-going experience. The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and others have also been active.

Because digital platforms are relevant and accessible, they are familiar to “digital natives,” young people who have grown up with technology, said Rebecca Edwards, education specialist for family audiences at the Getty. One advantage of digital games is that many visitors already have smartphones. And the games let museums offer a broader menu for youngsters without requiring more staff members, like tour leaders, or printed materials, although creating the games is not an inexpensive challenge.

Not all museums are enamored with technology, however. Some are hesitant to encourage families to bring on the iPhones. For example, next summer the Philadelphia Museum of Art is planning five simultaneous exhibits oriented to families, including an interactive watercolor project inspired by the award-winning artist and author Jerry Pinkney as well as an environment using fancy dress costumes from the early 20th century for children in a setting designed by the artist Candy Depew. “There is a small amount of technology, but that is not the focus of what we do with kids,” said Emily Schreiner, associate curator of education for family and community learning at the museum.

“Technology is kind of a contentious issue,” she said. “Adults are not always comfortable with their kids being on iPhones. What we want them to take away from the museum is an opportunity to slow down, look closely and spend time as a family.”

Already the museum has a monthly series of “Stroller Tours” for parents and caregivers that lets them spend time together looking at art. “We have found them to be extremely successful,” Ms. Schreiner said. “We find that our visitors come back, become members and feel welcomed into the museum.”

Nevertheless, technology is a component of many programs.

For example, the Getty has a new youth-oriented application for smartphones through a game it calls Switch, in which an evil genie has wreaked havoc at the museum. The paintings in an app are not the exact duplicates of the paintings on the wall, so players must find the differences. The challenge is to correct details in a copy of the museum painting on the iPhone so that it matches the actual image.

In the first test, there were a series of details including the absence of a brooch in an oil painting of Leonilla, Princess of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. The player has to figure out and correct what is inaccurate.

The game consists of four paintings, a deliberately small number to keep the game from feeling repetitive and to encourage youngsters to go on to other things at the museum.

The Getty has also created an audio tour in which animals in various works of art talk about themselves.
Since admission to the museum is free, the games are not intended to increase revenue, although more visitors are certainly a benefit. “What these do is provide parents a way for their children to focus on art that perhaps they could not have done themselves,” said Ms. Edwards of the Getty.

In another game strategy, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has introduced “Murder at the Met,” a game for any smartphone that children can download and then use to search for the person who murdered “Madame X,” the woman in John Singer Sargent’s portrait. They must check out statues, paintings and objects throughout the American wing, following clues to the murderer and the witnesses. Though the museum does not aggressively publicize the game, children can find it on the museum’s Web site.

“Digital is the new iteration of games and certain games are based on narratives, so it is a natural way to get youngsters interested in art,” said Peggy Fogelman, head of education at the Metropolitan. Ms. Fogelman added that the museum arranged an event played by 125 teenagers, in teams. Asked afterward in a questionnaire what they liked about the game, they said that they most liked looking closely at the works of art. That meant the game “did not interfere with the experience,” Ms. Fogelman said. “It enhanced it.”

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"Joy That Lasts, on the Poorest of Playgrounds"

Joy That Lasts, on the Poorest of Playgrounds
Nicholas Hammond
The One World Futbol stays inflated, even when used on concrete in El Salvador.
By
Published: November 8, 2012
SOMETIMES a soccer ball is more than just a ball. Sometimes, it’s a lifesaver.
Constructing the Indestructible
Tim Jahnigen has always followed his heart, whether as a carpenter, a chef, a lyricist or now as an entrepreneur. So in 2006, when he saw a documentary about children in Darfur who found solace playing soccer with balls made out of garbage and string, he was inspired to do something about it.
The children, he learned, used trash because the balls donated by relief agencies and sporting goods companies quickly ripped or deflated on the rocky dirt that doubled as soccer fields. Kicking a ball around provided such joy in otherwise stressful and trying conditions that the children would play with practically anything that approximated a ball.

“The only thing that sustained these kids is play,” said Mr. Jahnigen of Berkeley, Calif. “Yet the millions of balls that are donated go flat within 24 hours.”

During the next two years, Mr. Jahnigen, who was also working to develop an infrared medical technology, searched for something that could be made into a ball but never wear out, go flat or need a pump. Many engineers he spoke to were dubious of his project. But Mr. Jahnigen eventually discovered PopFoam, a type of hard foam made of ethylene-vinyl acetate, a class of material similar to that used in Crocs, the popular and durable sandals.

“It’s changed my life,” he said.

Figuring out how to shape PopFoam into a sphere, though, might cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and Mr. Jahnigen’s money was tied up in his other business.

Then he happened to be having breakfast with Sting, a friend from his days in the music business. Mr. Jahnigen told him how soccer helped the children in Darfur cope with their troubles and his efforts to find an indestructible ball. Sting urged Mr. Jahnigen to drop everything and make the ball. Mr. Jahnigen said that developing the ball might cost as much as $300,000. Sting said he would pay for it.

“Even on the harshest of terrain and in the worst of conditions, the ball could survive and the kids could still play,” Sting said in a public service announcement he made with Mr. Jahnigen. “I said, wow, yeah, let’s make it.”

Read more ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/giving/the-one-world-futbol-promises-a-lasting-source-of-fun-in-poor-countries.html
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"Junk Food Ads Tips"

Junk Food Ads Tips

The fastest way to a kid's brain? Through his stomach. Help kids see through junk food ads.
by Common Sense Media | Jun. 1, 2012 | Physical health

The Facts About Junk Food Ads

Advice & Answers


What is junk food advertising?

Kids are bombarded by advertising for junk food and fast food everywhere they turn. According to one study, kids see one food commercial every five minutes during Saturday morning cartoons. Most of these foods are high in fat, sugar, salt, and calories. Fast-food chains appeal to kids with tie-ins to movies, giving toys or prizes to kids who buy certain meals.
As kids age, they are subjected to promotional campaigns with offers for free music downloads, cell phone ring tones, and games sponsored by the food and beverage industry. The beverage industry alone spends more than $3 billion marketing directly to kids. Advertisers sneak junk food – called “product placement” – into hundreds of TV shows, movies, and online games. They even find their way into our schools by way of score boards, special events, fundraising, and textbook sponsorship.


Why it matters

Research, including a 2010 study from UCLA, finds a strong connection between ads and eating habits. One out of every three kids in this country is at risk for becoming obese. American kids consume more than one-third of their daily calories from soft drinks, sweets, salty snacks, and fast food. As kids associate pleasure with junk food, they develop lifelong, unhealthy habits that are difficult to break.
Fortunately, some companies are taking responsibility. More fast food chains offer healthier options for both kids and adults these days. And in June 2012, Disney announced it will limit junk food advertising by requiring advertisers to adhere to new nutritional standards.
These are positive steps to limit exposure to powerful advertising that can influence kids' decisions. Here are some ways you can combat junk-food ads:


Tips for parents of all kids

  • Keep them away from advertising as much as possible. Let them watch commercial-free TV or sign up for a DVR service that will let you skip through ads.
  • Take the TV out of your kid’s bedroom. There’s a correlation between a children’s weight and TV in their bedrooms.
  • Teach kids under 7 the difference between a TV program and a commercial. Point out commercials and use a timer to show them when commercials begin and end.


Tips for parents of elementary school kids

  • Talk about health, not appearance. Help your kids have a balanced approach to food, emphasizing healthy food choices based on nutrition, not diet.
  • Help kids identify junk food advertising messages in product placement, website games, and guerilla marketing. Watch TV or play a video or online game with your child and find the products and logos used as props or part of the storyline. Have a conversation about how the messages try to get kids to buy a product.
  • Start a conversation. Ask your children what they know about who created the ad and what words, images, or sounds were used to attract their attention. How did they feel after seeing the ad?
  • Watch what websites they visit. Some of the most popular websites for kids, such as Millsberry, are actually giant ads.
  • Explain “tricks” that advertisers use in commercials, such as using Vaseline to make hamburgers look juicy.


Tips for parents of middle and high school kids

  • Talk about “super sizing.” Your kids need to know that a 32-ounce soda isn’t a “good deal.” It’s a cheap way to add more sugar and empty calories.
  • Agree on fast-food rules for lunch. As in, as little fast-food as possible. Point out why schools around the country have banned sodas and junk food.
  • Take time to have dinner together. We are still the role models for our kids. If we feed them right and set an example for good eating, chances are they will follow it.
  • Talk about peer pressure. Many ads will count on the fact that kids are especially sensitive to peer pressure to be “cool.” Remind your kids that advertisers are counting on this vulnerability to sell things.
  • Take the TV out of your kid’s bedroom. There’s a correlation between a children’s weight and TV in their bedrooms.
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"Would You Put a Tracking Device on Your Child?"

Would You Put a Tracking Device on Your Child?

By KJ DELL'ANTONIA

What’s your “lost in the grocery store” story?

Everyone has one. The day you lost sight of your mother while gaping at the candy selection at Albertsons, or were tempted away by the lure of the museum gift shop, only to discover that your family had apparently gone the way of the dinosaurs and was nowhere to be seen. I once failed to get off a public bus at the right stop and had to call my mother from downtown San Antonio. My brother-in-law was left behind in a gas station bathroom in Mexico.

But with the array of new gadgetry covered by Farhad Manjoo in the Home Tech column, our children need never experience the momentary fears that come with those separations, or the satisfaction of weathering them: finding the right cart a few aisles down; sitting tight, just as  you’ve been told, until a familiar face reappears; or boldly presenting your mother’s business card to the store manager and asking to make a call, as the Motherlode contributor Candace Dempsey’s son did more than two decades ago.

Nope. They, or we, can press a button and instantly track down the missing child, or parent, depending on your point of view. Mr. Manjoo tested devices like the Amber Alert and the Securus eZoom, which are easy to set up, he wrote, and offer options from the simple (an app to track the wearer) to the complex (alerts every time a child comes within 500 feet of an address listed on a sex-offender database). (He also looks at devices to track or aid the elderly, those with special medical needs, and the family dog.)
The makers of the devices posit that they might help an overprotective parent let go:
Even though most statistics show that rates of violent crime against children have declined significantly over the last few decades, and that abductions are extremely rare, it’s difficult for some parents to get over the fear of letting their children wander out into the world. A GPS tracker can help parents conquer that anxiety: because you know you’ll be able to find your children when they’re in trouble, you might allow them to walk to school, take the train to the movies, or do any number of other grown-up things that children today don’t get to do.
The Amber Alert GPS The Amber Alert GPS
 
Children might, the article goes on to suggest, be willing to trade privacy for freedom. Those privacy concerns are valid — but are they the only reasons to resist popping an “Amber Alert” around your child’s neck, even at Disney World? You could argue that those of us who survived our childhoods of being occasionally lost, then found, are in the position of those who think car seats are overkill because they suffered no injury while bouncing around in the back of their uncle’s pickup. Maybe we never “needed” an emergency button, but even the least imaginative among us can conjure up a scenario in which we would want out children to have that button to press.

Beyond the nightmares, though, lies a whole world of dicey moments and wrong turns from which we eventually have to learn to extract ourselves. It’s easier for everyone now, with maps in our pockets and emergency calls nearly always at hand, but we still have to learn when and how to use those tools, and when to rely on ourselves. Wouldn’t a more powerful sense of security come from knowing your children were capable, and trusting in their ability to reach out for help at the moment when they realize they’re not?
I don’t really need to ponder whether I’ll track my children — in a small town, “tracking” is a free service provided by the neighbors, and without a child who drives, I’ve no need for alerts to reckless driving or unexpected departures from the school parking lot. So I’m left wondering who’s using these devices, why, and what successes or failures you’re finding in the technology. Would you track your child, and what’s it like if you already do?
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"Swedish School's Big Lesson Begins With Dropping Personal Pronouns"


Swedish School’s Big Lesson Begins With Dropping Personal Pronouns
Casper Hedberg for The New York Times
All children at the Nicolaigarden school may play with dolls, and both boys and girls, called “friends,” can cry.
By
STOCKHOLM — At an ocher-color preschool along a lane in Stockholm’s Old Town, the teachers avoid the pronouns “him” and “her,” instead calling their 115 toddlers simply “friends.” Masculine and feminine references are taboo, often replaced by the pronoun “hen,” an artificial and genderless word that most Swedes avoid but is popular in some gay and feminist circles.
 
The New York Times
In the little library, with its throw pillows where children sit to be read to, there are few classic fairy tales, like “Cinderella” or “Snow White,” with their heavy male and female stereotypes, but there are many stories that deal with single parents, adopted children or same-sex couples.
 
Girls are not urged to play with toy kitchens, and wooden or Lego blocks are not considered toys for boys. And when boys hurt themselves, teachers are taught to give them every bit as much comforting as they would girls. Everyone gets to play with dolls; most are anatomically correct, and some are also black.

Sweden is perhaps as renowned for an egalitarian mind-set as it is for meatballs or Ikea furnishings. But this taxpayer-financed preschool, known as the Nicolaigarden for a saint whose chapel was once in the 300-year-old building that houses it, is perhaps one of the more compelling examples of the country’s efforts to blur gender lines and, theoretically, cement opportunities for both women and men.

Read more ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/world/europe/swedish-school-de-emphasizes-gender-lines.html
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"One Father's 100 'Must-Read' Picture Books ... and Mine, Too"

One Father’s 100 ‘Must-Read’ Picture Books … and Mine, Too

By KJ DELL'ANTONIA
Mike Petrilli, education analyst, blogger and father of two sons, has come up with “The Kindergarten Canon,” a list of 100 picture books that every English-speaking child should be familiar with. No, “should” isn’t really the right word. It’s a list, he says, of the books every English-speaking child, or adult, already is familiar with: books known to nearly everyone. Books that we reference. Stories that make up the backbone of casual, allusion-filled conversation, like “Green Eggs and Ham” and “Where the Wild Things Are” and “Winnie-the-Pooh.”
This isn’t, Mr. Petrilli says, a list of the greatest picture books in history. It’s a list of the books you must know, like “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”
“There are plenty of children’s stories more compelling, in my opinion,” he writes. “But if you’ve never read Goldilocks, you’ll miss myriad references in literature, pop culture, newspaper editorials, and so forth. Which makes Goldilocks a must.”
Mr. Petrilli’s list of 100 is pretty extensive. You name it, he has it — everything obvious is on there. But he has skewed away from naming too many recently published books to his “canon” (excellent exceptions were “Knuffle Bunny” and “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”), so I think he’s missed a few sources for allusive cultural references.
Where is “I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato,” or why isn’t “Bunny Cakes” on there? You wouldn’t last a day in our family without a solid knowledge of those, along with “Little Pea,” “Tickle Tickle” and “A Visitor for Bear.”
What books would we have to know to get all the in-jokes in your family — and did they make Mr. Petrilli’s list?
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"Ferrari Engine, Bicycle Brakes"

Ferrari Engines, Bicycle Brakes

Edward Hallowell
Advice to educators about how to help students with ADHD fulfill the potential of their powerful brains.

Dear Educators,
I am a 62-year-old psychiatrist who has both attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and dyslexia. Of all the people who helped me deal with these conditions, top prize goes to my 1st grade teacher, Mrs. Eldredge, at Chatham Elementary School in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
She simply put her arm around me when it was my turn to read during reading period. No one laughed at my stammering and stuttering, because I had the mafia sitting next to me! Such a simple intervention, but profound in its impact.
Because of Mrs. Eldredge's arm, I didn't acquire the most damaging learning disabilities—shame, fear, and the conviction that you are stupid and defective. Many other teachers helped me along the way, but Mrs. Eldredge got me off to the right start. By eliminating fear, she enabled me to progress at my own pace, always believing that I could succeed.
To this day, I am a painfully slow reader and rarely read a book all the way through. But because of Mrs. Eldredge and the many other gifted teachers I was lucky enough to have along the way, I became an excellent student, graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy, Harvard (where I majored in English!), and Tulane Medical School. Now I am a psychiatrist as well as a writer. I specialize in helping children and adults who have, you guessed it, ADHD and dyslexia.
Which brings me to you—wonderful, dedicated, life-changing teachers. My dad was a teacher for the final 20 years of his life, so I know firsthand what goes into a life of teaching. Of all the professions, I believe yours is the most noble—and certainly, in the United States anyway, the most unfairly underpaid.
I'd like to give back to you a bit of what I owe you, not in the form of money (would that I could!), but in the form of knowledge I've gained over the years in how best to help students who have ADHD.
It all begins with Mrs. Eldredge. Get that arm of safety around your students in any way you can. All of us learn better and do better when we feel safe. Fear and humiliation, which once upon a time were standard teaching tools, should be relics of the past.
It is a neurological fact that feeling safe opens up the brain, whereas feeling anxious and afraid clamps it down. So step one is to make sure all students feel as safe as possible. Remember, learning itself can feel dangerous. You are asking a student to leave his or her comfort zone and enter into new territory. A teacher's best gift to all students—not just those who have ADHD—is to allay fear, provide encouragement, and make the safari into new jungles of knowledge feel safe enough for them to take the trip and want to come back forever after.

Read more ... http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct12/vol70/num02/Ferrari-Engines,-Bicycle-Brakes.aspx
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"Learning the Value of a Virtual Dollar"

Learning the Value of a Virtual Dollar

Money -- both real and virtual -- makes the Web go 'round. How to make sure the money lessons your kids learn are yours.
by Common Sense Media | Nov. 19, 2010 | Consumerism

Kids and Virtual Worlds

What are kids learning?

  • Companies spend about $17 billion each year marketing to children (McNeal in USA Today, 2006).
  • “Viral marketing” is a technique that takes advantage of children’s friendships by encouraging them to promote products to their friends (Horovitz in USA Today, 2005).
  • Very young children can’t distinguish between commercials and program content; even older children sometimes fail to recognize product placement as advertising (Atkin, 1982).
  • Kids ages 13 to 17 have 145 conversations about product brands per week (Corcoran, 2007).

Advice & Answers


What are your kids learning about money online?

Remember those marathon Monopoly games? We stacked up piles of cash and property, and when it was finally over, we put it all away in a box. Well, there’s a new game in town, and it deals with money, too. But it’s ongoing and anytime your children at the computer it picks right up where they left off. It’s an online world that’s teaching your kids how to value money and the things it can buy.


What are money lessons in online worlds?

Sites like Disney’s Club Penguin and Toontown, WeeWorld, WebKinz, and SecretBuilders are social networking spots for the preteen set (6- to 12-year-olds). These sites have fictional coins and economic systems that are used as player rewards. Kids both “earn” money and search for it so they can upgrade their characters’ wardrobes, abilities, and environments. On Club Penguin, each game awards players with virtual coins – which paid members can use to purchase virtual clothes and outfit their “igloos” with the latest gear. Kids can also go to an online store to buy real T-shirts, hats, and key chains.


Why they matter

Every family has different values about money, and it’s important for parents to give their own advice to their kids. Online sites can complicate how kids learn about money because their main purpose is to encourage getting and spending. On something as important as personal finance, the best messages should come from parents, not Web sites that are in the business of making money by keeping kids online and ensuring repeat visitors.
In these games, kids learn to assess their own value by how much money they have.This can get out of hand – so much so that some kids go online to find “cheats” to get more currency. This is the ideal time for parents to step in and have a conversation about earning, saving, budgeting, and spending. An 8-year-old left to figure it out for herself probably won’t get it right.


Parenting tips for elementary/middle school kids

  • Use the virtual currency to teach the value of money. Point out that money isn’t gained without effort. While kids trade tips and tricks for getting more money on the sites, you can explain how a job is also an excellent source of income. Since these kids are too young for real paid employment, consider letting them earn an allowance for doing chores around the house.
  • Point out that spending is optional. Even though the sites make it unappealing to play without purchasing, tell your kids that they can still do it.
  • Explain how spending is encouraged. Show your kids all the ways the sites encourage them to “buy.” Kids quickly figure out that the more time they spend on a site, the more money they eventually get.
  • Detach purchase from pleasure. Ask your children whether they feel they have more fun when they’re buying and spending. Try to detach the act of purchasing from pleasure. Remember, kids become teens all too quickly, and you don’t want spending to be one of their emotional coping skills.
  • Point out greed. When someone’s more motivated by the desire to get more than play more, there’s a word for that. And you might as well teach it to your child. Greedy behavior has been known to occur on these sites and has even resulted in cheating.
  • Talk about saving versus spending. Help kids feel good about saving for things. Talk about your own values when it comes to saving and spending.
  • Envy is real. Just sit with an 8-year-old who’s walked into another girl’s igloo on Club Penguin and sees everything she dreams of owning. The urge to keep up with the Joneses starts young. Talk to your kids about times when you’ve felt envy about someone else’s home or possessions, and how you coped with it. This lesson will need repeating in some way every year, but it’s never too early to start.

 

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"Admitted, but Left Out"

Admitted, but Left Out
  • Left, Collection of Idris Brewster; right, Monica Almeida/The New York Times
  • Left, Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times; right, Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
  • Monica Almeida/The New York Times
  • Karsten Moran for The New York Times
  • Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
  • Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
Idris Brewster in a Dalton class photo from 2001-2002 (front row, third from left), and as a student at Occidental College.
By
WHEN Ayinde Alleyne arrived at the Trinity School, an elite independent school on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, he was eager to make new friends. A brainy 14-year-old, he was the son of immigrants from Trinidad and Tobago, a teacher and an auto-body repairman, in the South Bronx. He was soon overwhelmed by the privilege he saw. Talk of fancy vacations and weekends in the Hamptons rankled — “I couldn’t handle that at that stage of my life,” said Mr. Alleyne, now a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania — and he eventually found comfort in the school’s “minority corner,” where other minority students, of lesser means, hung out.
 
In 2011, when Mr. Alleyne was preparing to graduate, seniors were buzzing about the $1,300-per-student class trip to the Bahamas.
He recalls feeling stunned when some of his classmates, with whom he had spent the last four years at the school, asked him if he planned to go along.
“How do I get you to understand that going to the Bahamas is unimaginable for my family?” he said in a recent interview. “My family has never taken a vacation.”
It was a moment of disconnection, a common theme in conversations with minority students who have attended the city’s top-drawer private schools.

There is no doubt that New York City’s most prestigious private schools have made great strides in diversifying their student bodies. In classrooms where, years ago, there might have been one or two brown faces, today close to one-third of the students are of a minority. During the 2011-12 school year, 29.8 percent of children at the city’s private schools were minority students, including African-American, Hispanic and Asian children, according to the National Association of Independent Schools, up from 21.4 percent a decade ago. (Nationally, the figure was 26.6 percent for the same period, up from 18.5 percent 10 years before.)

But schools’ efforts to attract minority students haven’t always been matched by efforts to truly make their experience one of inclusion, students and school administrators say. Pervading their experience, the students say, is the gulf between those with seemingly endless wealth and resources and those whose families are struggling, a divide often reflected by race.

Read more ... http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/nyregion/for-minority-students-at-elite-new-york-private-schools-admittance-doesnt-bring-acceptance.html?pagewanted=all
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"Small Kids, Big Words"

Editor’s Note

Early vocabulary knowledge predicts later reading success. A new study published in Reading Research Quarterly shows that using multiple methods of vocabulary instruction is more effective than any single method. This award-winning article from our archives explores research-based strategies for teaching vocabulary to preK–3 students.

Small Kids, Big Words

Research-based strategies for building vocabulary from preK to grade 3
By LAURA PAPPANO

AEP Award LogoMorning meeting begins with—no surprise—the weather. But when preschool teacher Radha Hernandez describes the drenching winter downpour, she doesn’t reach for a rainy day symbol to stick on a calendar. She reaches for words.

“I was curled up under the covers. I was cozy, toasty warm and outside I heard an am-a-a-a-zing thing,” says Hernandez, a founding teacher at Lee Academy, a pilot school in Boston serving children from age three to third grade. “Thunder! Thunder! I heard thunder outside my window. It was a loud, crashing, booming sound.”

The ten children clustered in a horseshoe on the rug (two others will arrive later) perk up. Timmy insists he didn’t hear it. No one believes him, but he stands his verbal ground. “I didn’t want to hear it and so that is why I didn’t listen,” he says.

Molly, who’s four, adds, “I guess he was ignoring it.”

It is, of course, always cute when small kids use big words. But a growing body of research and classroom practice show that building a sophisticated vocabulary at an early age is also key to raising reading success—and narrowing the achievement gap. At schools like Lee Academy, teachers are overcoming the age-old habit of speaking to young children in simplified language and instead deliberately weaving higher-level word choices into preschool and primary grade classrooms. Whether it’s a discussion at morning meeting, informal talk at the block area, or a selection of read-aloud books, teachers are exposing younger children to language that, in many cases, exceeds the vocabulary level of a typical conversation between college graduates.

Since researchers Todd Risley and Betty Hart articulated the power of early communication at home on children’s future literacy in their landmark 1995 book, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young American Children, there has been a shift in thinking about how teachers should use words in the earliest years. Instead of sticking with simple words that children can easily grasp (and maybe sound out), researchers say that teachers should help students stretch their capabilities to build a vocabulary that can serve as a reservoir for conceptual understanding. These words are being highlighted in new curricula and teaching practices aimed at students in preK through third grade and beyond (see sidebar “Vocabulary Development from PreK–3”).
 


“When you hear adults talking to children in preschool, they are often using very low-level, common words as opposed to rarer and more high-level words,” says Judy Schickedanz, professor at the Boston University School of Education, whose Opening the World of Learning (OWL) curriculum is used at Lee Academy. “If we want to close the achievement gap, we need kids to have a more technical vocabulary.” Schickedanz believes exposing children to specialized words related to specific fields gives them access to sophisticated ideas and jumpstarts higher-level learning.

Read more ... http://www.hepg.org/hel/article/192
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"Quirky Discipline Rules that Work"

Quirky Discipline Rules That Work

Tired of nagging and scolding? Try these 7 surprising solutions
By Barbara Rowley
I've made a lot of bad rules in the decade I've been a mom, from irrational threats ("No graham crackers in the house ever again if you eat them in the living room even one more time") to forbidding human nature ("You may not fight with your sister"). But occasionally I've come up with rules that work better than I'd ever contemplated. These made-up rules have an internal logic that defies easy categorization, but their clarity and enforceability make them work. Several of them are not, technically, rules at all, but declarations of policy or fact. And they're all easy to remember. A few personal favorites, plus those of other moms:

Rule #1: You can't be in the room when I'm working unless you work, too
Goal: Get your child to help, or stop bugging you, while you do chores
It might seem odd, but I don't mind doing laundry, cleaning floors, or really any kind of housework. But I do mind my kids, oblivious to the fact that my arms are full of their underwear, asking me to find their missing doll shoe or do a puzzle with them. Until recently, this was a source of great frustration, especially when our household grew to five kids when my husband, Taylor, and I became temporary foster parents for two months.
I tried to explain to my expanded brood that if they helped me fold laundry, we could do something together sooner. But they knew I'd be available anyway if I finished folding myself, so the argument wasn't compelling.
And then one day, as my oldest foster daughter sat and watched me work, asking me favors and waiting for me to be done, I came up with a rule that takes into account two important facts about kids:
* They actually want to be with you as much as possible.
* You can't force them to help you in any way that is truly helpful.
I played fact one against fact two and told her that she didn't have to help me but couldn't just sit and watch. She had to go elsewhere. Given a choice between being with me and folding laundry or not being with me at all, she took option one.
Why it works: I didn't care which she chose. And it was her choice, so it gave her control even as it took it away.

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http://www.parenting.com/article/quirky-discipline-rules-that-work?src=toddler&loc=feat2
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"Let the Children Play, It's Good for Them!"

Let the Children Play, It's Good for Them!

A leading researcher in the field of cognitive development says when children pretend, they’re not just being silly—they’re doing science

  • By Alison Gopnik
  • Smithsonian magazine, July-August 2012, Subscribe
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Children playing pirates Children who are better at pretending could reason better about counterfactuals—they were better at thinking about different possibilities.
Blend Images / Getty Images

Walk into any preschool and you’ll find toddling superheroes battling imaginary monsters. We take it for granted that young children play and, especially, pretend. Why do they spend so much time in fantasy worlds?

People have suspected that play helps children learn, but until recently there was little research that showed this or explained why it might be true. In my lab at the University of California at Berkeley, we’ve been trying to explain how very young children can learn so much so quickly, and we’ve developed a new scientific approach to children’s learning.

Where does pretending come in? It relates to what philosophers call “counterfactual” thinking, like Einstein wondering what would happen if a train went at the speed of light.

In one study, my student Daphna Buchsbaum introduced 3- and 4-year-olds to a stuffed monkey and a musical toy and told them, “It’s Monkey’s birthday, and this is a birthday machine we can use to sing to Monkey. It plays “Happy Birthday” when you put a zando” (a funny-looking object) “on it like this.” Then she held up a different object and explained that it wasn’t a zando and therefore wouldn’t make the music play. Then she asked some tricky counterfactual questions: “If this zando wasn’t a zando, would the machine play music or not?” What if the non-zando was a zando? About half the 3-year-olds answered correctly.

Then a confederate took away the toys and Daphna said, “We could just pretend that this box is the machine and that this block is a zando and this other one isn’t. Let’s put the blocks on the machine. What will happen next?” About half said the pretend zando made pretend music, while the pretend non-zando did nothing (well, pretend nothing, which is quite a concept even if you’re older than 3).

We found children who were better at pretending could reason better about counterfactuals—they were better at thinking about different possibilities. And thinking about possibilities plays a crucial role in the latest understanding about how children learn. The idea is that children at play are like pint-sized scientists testing theories. They imagine ways the world could work and predict the pattern of data that would follow if their theories were true, and then compare that pattern with the pattern they actually see. Even toddlers turn out to be smarter than we would have thought if we ask them the right questions in the right way.

Play is under pressure right now, as parents and policymakers try to make preschools more like schools. But pretend play is not only important for kids; it’s a crucial part of what makes all humans so smart.


Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Let-the-Children-Play-Its-Good-for-Them.html#ixzz2BfIG38aI
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"Parenting Styles from Around the World"

Parenting Styles from Around the World

From blowing off bedtime to potty training a 6-month-old, what you can learn from the cultural differences of parents from other countries
By Mei-Ling Hopgood
 
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We are dining out with friends in Buenos Aires, sipping Malbec from short glass tumblers at a hole-in-the-wall steakhouse. The crowd is lively; the waiters charmingly surly. But what has really captivated our table is the family sitting to our right. It's 11:30 p.m., and a toddler and a baby are bouncing on laps as they gnaw on bread rolls.

Our American guests are aghast. Shouldn't those kids be in bed?
Raising my young daughters in Buenos Aires helped put my American obsession with finding perfect parenting methods in perspective. Keeping kids up all hours goes against the advice I'd heard from friends and parental pundits. Yet Argentine children don't seem to suffer. I think kids there behave as well as your average American child, and often better, in social settings.

There are universals when it comes to raising kids: A child needs enough sleep, food, and nurturing to thrive. But how we meet those necessities varies wildly depending on your latitude. French children are taught to eat mussels and stinky cheeses. Fathers in the African Aka pygmy tribe are intimately involved with childcare. They strap their infants into slings and take them on elephant hunts, and will even offer a nipple to soothe a fussy baby. The Chinese potty train their little ones starting at 6 months. (Their secret: pants that split along the butt seam.) Unlike American parents who intervene when kids scuffle, many Japanese let them fight with minimal intervention so they can learn to live harmoniously in a group setting.

Argentines—and Italians and Egyptians, among others—have family gatherings that last long into the night. To them, dinner is sacred family bonding time, and it would be an absolute shame for the kiddies to miss it.
My daughter Sofia is a social butterfly, a combination, I think, of her nature and her Argentine upbringing. During a night out with friends, she'd snooze at our favorite restaurant (the owners always gave us a booth with plenty of pillows). When I fretted about her broken routines, even my Argentine pediatrician told me, “Relajate, che. Ya va a pasar.” Relax. This will pass.

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http://www.parenting.com/article/parenting-styles
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"What Goes Around"

What Goes Around

‘Each Kindness,’ by Jacqueline Woodson, and More

"It can help us put aside hate": from "The Forgiveness Garden."
By EMILY BAZELON
Can a picture book actually teach children about kindness? Sure, the goal is worthy. Yet pushing a moral too hard takes the life out of a story and the energy out of an audience. In time for National Anti-Bullying Awareness Month, three new books nonetheless venture onto this tricky terrain.

EACH KINDNESS

By Jacqueline Woodson
Illustrated by E. B. Lewis
32 pp. Nancy Paulsen Books. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 5 to 9)

BECAUSE AMELIA SMILED

Written and illustrated by David Ezra Stein
40 pp. Candlewick Press. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 3 to 6)

THE FORGIVENESS GARDEN

By Lauren Thompson
Illustrated by Christy Hale
32 pp. Feiwel & Friends. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 5 to 9)

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The new girl: from "Each Kindness."
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Spreading joy in "Because Amelia Smiled."
“Each Kindness,” by the Newbery Honor-winning author Jacqueline Woodson (“After Tupac and D Foster,” “Feathers,” “Show Way”), has beautiful watercolors and prose, strong characters and a plot that pricks the conscience. Maya, the new girl in Chloe’s class, wants to be friends but she wears old dresses and eats odd food. “On that first day, Maya turned to me and smiled,” Chloe tells us. “But I didn’t smile back.” Chloe’s coldness persists as Maya tries to woo her over the weeks that follow, with offerings like jacks, a deck of cards, pick-up sticks and a tattered doll. Each time, Chloe and her friends refuse to play, giving Maya the nickname Never New for her secondhand clothes, and laughing while she jumps rope alone.

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"A Right to Choose Single-Sex Education"

A Right to Choose Single-Sex Education

For some children, learning in girls-only or boys-only classes pays off. Opponents of the idea are irresponsible.

By KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON And BARBARA MIKULSKI

Education proponents across the political spectrum were dismayed by recent attempts to eradicate the single-gender options in public schools in Virginia, West Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Maine and Florida. We were particularly troubled at efforts to thwart education choice for American students and their families because it is a cause we have worked hard to advance.
Studies have shown that some students learn better in a single-gender environment, particularly in math and science. But federal regulations used to prevent public schools from offering that option. So in 2001 we joined with then-Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Susan Collins to author legislation that allowed public schools to offer single-sex education. It was an epic bipartisan battle against entrenched bureaucracy, but well worth the fight.
Since our amendment passed, thousands of American children have benefited. Now, though, some civil libertarians are claiming that single-sex public-school programs are discriminatory and thus illegal.
To be clear: The 2001 law did not require that children be educated in single-gender programs or schools. It simply allowed schools and districts to offer the choice of single-sex schools or classrooms, as long as opportunities were equally available to boys and girls. In the vast and growing realm of education research, one central tenet has been confirmed repeatedly: Children learn in different ways. For some, single-sex classrooms make all the difference.
Critics argue that these programs promote harmful gender stereotypes. Ironically, it is exactly these stereotypes that the single-sex programs seek to eradicate.
As studies have confirmed—and as any parent can tell you—negative gender roles are often sharpened in coeducational environments. Boys are more likely, for instance, to buy into the notion that reading isn't masculine when they're surrounded by (and showing off for) girls.
Girls, meanwhile, have made so much progress in educational achievement that women are overrepresented in postgraduate education. But they still lag in the acquisition of bachelor's and graduate degrees in math and the sciences. It has been demonstrated time and again that young girls are more willing to ask and answer questions in classrooms without boys.
A 2008 Department of Education study found that "both principals and teachers believed that the main benefits of single-sex schooling are decreasing distractions to learning and improving student achievement." The gender slant—the math-is-for-boys, home-EC-is-for-girls trope—is eliminated.

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443768804578038191947302764.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

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"Character Education for the Digital Age"

Character Education for the Digital Age

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Feb11cover_blog“Should we teach our children as though they have two lives, or one?”
That’s the question Jason Ohler poses in “Character Education for the Digital Age.”
Current policy norms—blocking large portions of the Internet in schools or fragmented, case-by-case approaches to cyberbullying and inappropriate online activities—treat students as if they live two lives: a traditional, digitally unplugged life at school, and a digitally infused life outside school.
We’re missing an enormous opportunity to help students live one integrated life by not using school as a forum to teach digital citizenship, Ohler asserts.
In her interview in the same issue of EL, director of the U.S. Office of Educational Technology, Karen Cator, emphasizes digital citizenship:
“The ability of people to live in a globally networked society depends on developing a sense of personal responsibility and applying it online, just like offline. . . . For example, it’s really important that students understand that their voice is amplified and persistent when it’s online.”
Ohler recommends students study and question technology’s role in their lives. He asks how a school district might behave differently with this goal in place: “Students will study the personal, social, and environmental impacts of every technology and media application they use in school.”
Read more ...
http://inservice.ascd.org/educational-leadership/character-education-for-the-digital-age/
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