Mothering Through Breastfeeding is a new documentary produced by the Halifax Metro Chapter of La Leche League, the international breastfeeding support and advocacy group…

Despite hefty evidence of its physical and emotional benefits, fewer than 20 per cent of babies here are breastfed exclusively for six months, and then continue for two years and beyond, as recommended by the Canadian Pediatric Society…

LLL was founded in 1956 by seven young Chicago moms who wanted to help others breastfeed in an era when the medical establishment had convinced most women their milk wasn’t good enough.

The name La Leche (”lay-chay”) comes from a Spanish shrine dedicated to Nuestra Senora de la Leche y un Buen Parto: Our Lady of Happy Delivery and Plentiful Milk.

“Just seeing a film where there are women breastfeeding their children helps to normalize that experience for women who are pregnant or thinking of breastfeeding, when all around them they are surrounded by people feeding with bottles,” says Millar…

“One of the main messages in the film is that responding to you baby is not spoiling your baby,” says Millar.

“It is a good and healthy way to mother your baby and will also promote breastfeeding, because I think that’s one of the key points that’s often discouraged in our culture - things you see on TV and new books that come out are all about training baby to not impose on you. It’s all about convenience and early independence.” …

Source: The Daily News, Canada
http://www.hfxnews.ca/index.cfm?sid=64758&sc=258

The former premier, in an eloquent and emotional speech at a luncheon to honour James K. Irving for his dedication to education, told New Brunswick the province must recognize it can be an educational leader across Canada - and the globe.

“We’re living in a knowledge economy, that is fact,” he said. “Success or failure will be determined by bandwidth and by brain-width, and that is fact. New Brunswick, whatever disadvantages we might have had, we have all of the essential tools to surpass any other country, and any other province in winning this knowledge battle.”

McKenna said in a “perfect world” the provincial government would place greater emphasis on early childhood development, reward exceptional teachers and invest more in public education…

In a perfect world, said McKenna, “health would not be Canada’s number-one priority - it would be education, not because health isn’t our most pressing national issue; it clearly is.

“The evidence is clear that education will give us the tools to create the prosperity to purchase the kind of quality health care that we so richly deserve.” …

Under the province’s five-year education plan, called “When Kids Come First,” teachers will be financially rewarded for introducing new and better ways to help children learn…

McKenna said that in his perfect world, the government would reinvest significantly in early childhood education. Citing experts in the field, including researchers Fraser Mustard and Margaret McCain, he said that important human development happens at an early age.

Mustard, head of a Toronto-based health-care think tank, will headline an international conference in Saint John next month that is expected to serve as the basis of the province’s highly anticipated health plan.

“Surely, if we even ignore the social reasons for early intervention, we must recognize the economic costs associated with future remediation and the loss to our economy of such magnificent human potential,” said McKenna.

“In a perfect world, we would set the bar high,” he said. “We would create a high expectation level for our young people, the only thing higher would be our praise for their accomplishments because there are no words that you could ever utter in whatever language you chose than to say something like, ‘You can do it, I believe in you, congratulations on a job well done.’” …

McKenna also took aim at parents, saying they should be entirely involved with their child’s education; teaching their children to “learn math without a calculator and introduce them to the magic of reading as opposed to the opiate of television.”

“In a perfect world, parents would be reading to their children every single night, provoking their curiosity, raising their expectations, developing their self-esteem, creating an endless curiosity that would be with them for the rest of their life,” he said. “Their children would learn as much at the kitchen table as they would at the classroom desk.” …

Source: Canada East, Canada
http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/front/article/79342

“In the past, boys were more inclined to do well in school,” says Kamloops/Thompson school trustee Chris Rose, the conference chair. “Now, even young boys tend to pooh-pooh the idea of being smart and doing well in school. Any academic youngster is termed a ‘geek.”

Rose theorizes that, paradoxically, the problem may have started with educators’ emphasis on increasing graduation rates.

“We’re so concerned about kids getting a middle C right across the board that we’re not meeting the needs of kids who are exceptional, or who would benefit from being able to concentrate on a specialty. These kids are getting bored.”

Girls, tending to be “more studious, to follow instructions, to make sure they’re doing what the teacher wants them to do,” can shrug off geek labels.

Besides, notes conference keynoter Steve Biddulph, the Yorkshire-born, Tasmania-based author of Raising Boys, “From the 1970s and onward, there was a huge effort to raise girls’ achievement and opportunities, and this has been very successful.”

We forgot about boys, he says — but don’t reach for Marilla’s raspberry cordial just yet. What we can do is now put the same energy into reviving boys’ interest in school, Biddulph says. “If we make education more tailored to the special gender needs of boys, of their biology and their brain development, they could be much happier.”

From working with schools in Northern Ireland, England, Germany, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Biddulph will offer his British Columbia audience some strategies, including:

Give them male role models. Boys just don’t have as many now. “This is a result of many things, ranging from the disappearance of men into the workplace in the industrial age to the diffidence and shyness of men around children arising from lack of experience of being fathered well.” …

Source: Vancouver Sun, Canada
http://tinyurl.com/2cqgnm

If anything sets humans apart from other animals, it must surely be our way with words. For something so ubiquitous, our gift for gab still has strangely obscure roots. The appearance of language has been ascribed to factors ranging from finer control over our voices, the evolution of a grammar module in the brain, even the shift to a meat-based diet that fuels more gray matter.

Berkeley professor of anthropology Terrence Deacon takes a very different view. His research into neurobiology and brain development indicates that our species attained its silver tongue in a far less dramatic manner. The human flair for language, he says, emerged in the very same way as all other body structures: in the embryological minuet between evolution and development…

Our language facility, Deacon writes in his award-winning 1997 book The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain, was an adaptation to a new set of environmental needs. About two and a half million years ago, our ancestors made a radical shift in culture: they began using stone tools to scavenge meat on the open savanna. They had to cooperate in small social groups to compete with other animals for downed prey. At the same time, such social closeness sparked conflicts over food resources and mates. To overcome these challenges, early hominids needed an unprecedented form of communication…

Source: HULIQ, NC
http://www.huliq.com/35293/the-launch-of-language

Whenever humans recognize a mistake, a mysterious wave of electricity passes through the brain. Researchers think the signal could explain addiction, error correction and even the sixth sense.

Errors, Ullsperger is convinced, are in fact one of the most valuable sources of knowledge. “A man’s errors are his portals of discovery,” Irish writer James Joyce once said, anticipating a conclusion modern neuroscience has now confirmed…

Ullsperger, like a dozen other research teams around the world, is currently studying how the brain tracks down and processes its own errors. “Our brain has the fascinating ability to detect errors and, if they have already occurred, to learn from the experience,” he explains…

In the early 1990s, Michael Falkenstein, a neurophysiologist from the western German city of Dortmund, observed for the first time how voltage declines by at least 10 millivolts in a specific group of nerve cells, and that this occurs only 100 milliseconds after a person has made an error — about the time it takes for your cursor to respond to a click of the mouse.

Falkenstein’s discovery marked the beginning of a period of systematic study of the brain’s fine-tuned error detector. It paved the way for fascinating new theories on questions such as why compulsive disorders occur or why some people hesitate while others make confident decisions. It also shines a new light on the development of addiction.

Suddenly it becomes clear why a person can often avoid making a certain mistake based purely on gut feeling. “The experiences of the error system provide precisely that subconscious knowledge on which intuition is based,” explains Ullsperger…

The error system acts in two ways. First, it intervenes in a corrective way when a person has committed an error. But it also has a warning capability. When it recognizes that an action may not lead to the desired outcome, this recognition is expressed in a vaguely uneasy feeling…

The Cologne-based neurologist can also demonstrate that subjects who have made a mistake in the Flanker test take more time for their ensuing responses. “People change their decision-making strategy,” he says. “They begin to learn from their errors.”

But what does the drop in dopamine production cause? What triggers the entire chain of signals? Ullsperger’s explanation is that whenever the brain decides to take a specific action, it simultaneously develops an idea of the expected consequences. If the desired result occurs, the brain rewards itself with the feel-good hormone dopamine. But if something unexpected happens, the reward is withheld — a form of self-inflicted punishment…

Source: Spiegel Online, Germany
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,507176,00.html

Parents partnering with teachers to improve their children’s success in school is the theme of a day-long conference scheduled for Oct. 13th from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Wor-Wic Community College in Salisbury.

The conference titled, “Parents Are Teachers Too: Supporting Your Child’s Learning and Success in School,” is free and child care is available at the college. Lunch will be provided to participants at no charge.

Experienced educators and community leaders will conduct 15 different workshops designed to give parents and caregivers the information and strategies they seek to insure their children’s success in school.

Workshop titles include: Understanding and Guiding the Behavior of Young Children and Middle Schoolers, Mastering Mathematics, Understanding Attention Deficit Disorder and Resources for Bilingual Parents…

“The conference will provide parents with practical strategies that can be used to support our students. I encourage parents to take advantage of this opportunity,” said Dr. Jon Andes, Superintendent of Worcester County Public Schools…

Source: Delmarva Daily Times, MD
http://tinyurl.com/29lzf4

A new report commissioned as part of an initiative to improve Math, Science and Technology (MST) education throughout the Kansas City area suggests that on the whole, parents, students, and local communities nationwide are complacent about or even resisting efforts to strengthen MST education, failing to realize the opportunities that knowledge of such subjects can bring in the 21st century…

With lawmakers and school leaders alike stressing the importance of math, science, and technology (MST) education in preparing students for 21st-century jobs and careers, one might assume that parents and students would agree these subjects are crucial to their future success. But a new report challenges this assumption.

According to the report, titled “Important, But Not for Me: Parents and Students in Kansas and Missouri Talk About Math, Science, and Technology Education,” parents and students say they understand the importance of MST skills in general–but they don’t see these as important for themselves…

“The dilemma is really twofold,” says Jean Johnson, executive vice president of Public Agenda. “One is that parents, students, and local communities may be complacent about or even resist efforts to strengthen math and science education. Right now, most just don’t share leaders’ sense of urgency. The second is that many young people and their families may not recognize the vast and interesting opportunities available to students with strong math and science backgrounds. They just may not have absorbed how much the economy and future jobs are changing.” …

… While parents and students believe that having basic math skills is “absolutely essential,” many say understanding higher levels of math, such as calculus, is not essential. Ninety-two percent of parents and 83 percent of students value basic skills, while only 23 percent of parents and 26 percent of students value higher-level skills…

Source: eSchool News, MD
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=7380

The Ontario Liberals’ plan to introduce full-day kindergarten, which will help give our kids the best start in life, help busy Ontarians who are juggling work and child care responsibilities, and save families money, Premier McGuinty said today.

“Many parents find themselves juggling the demands of a busy career with the responsibility of raising young children, so places where kids get quality care are particularly important to moms and busy young families,” said the Premier at the Debbie Yeung Child Care centre at Woodgreen Community Services.

“Moving to a full-day of kindergarten will help our kids succeed in school down the road, save families time and money and free up thousands of licensed child care spaces.” …

Full-day kindergarten also helps academic achievement in later grades.

A recently published report in the Heinz School Review showed that vocabulary scores in children who attended publicly-funded pre-school were 31% higher than children without the program; math skills improved by 44%; and print awareness by 85%. The study also found that, in order to obtain these favourable results, the child must spend a minimum of 3 1/2 hours in the preschool, five days a week.

“Full-day preschool is good science,” said Margaret McCain, co-author of an important study on early years education. “Preschool is when children develop the emotional and social skills needed to succeed in school.” …

Source: CNW Telbec, Canada
http://www.cnw.ca/fr/releases/archive/September2007/21/c3779.html

Some children are leaving Lothian schools with such poor basic skills that they can’t even add up the number of hours they have worked, business leaders said today.

The Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce warned too many pupils were starting jobs without basic reading and writing skills.

It said the situation was “tragic” and a threat to the future prosperity of the Capital, with firms struggling to recruit the staff they need.

The chamber has highlighted the problem in a new report, Tale of the Cities, which identifies a shortfall in basic literacy and numeracy among school leavers, as well as a lack of understanding of the world of work, personal organisation and teamwork…

Recent figures show 35 per cent of 14-year-olds in Edinburgh are failing to meet basic reading standards, with 49 per cent failing to achieve basic writing and 44 per cent basic maths standards.

Source: Edinburgh Evening News, UK
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1513852007

… While Raising Awareness and Funding for Early Education in Low-Income Communities

The Pearson Foundation helped make history yesterday as hundreds of thousands of children and adults read the classic The Story of Ferdinand across the U.S. and in Latin America. The reading campaign raised more than $1 million for the non-profit group Jumpstart’s early education programs in low-income communities while shining the spotlight on the growing disparities in early childhood literacy.

For Jumpstart’s Read for the Record campaign, in addition to publishing nearly 200,000 books in English, the Pearson Foundation published a Spanish-language version of this children’s classic so the Spanish-speaking community could participate and help break the record for the number of people reading the same book on a single day. More than 8,000 copies of the Spanish edition of The Story of Ferdinand, with a foreword by the TODAY Show’s Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira, were donated across Latin America and in the U.S.

Pearson Latin America sponsored Read for the Record events all across Latin America with more than 2000 children participating in 10 countries - Mexico, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina and in Puerto Rico. Pearson Latin American looks to expand participation in this global reading campaign to additional regions next year.

Jumpstart’s Read for the Record also included thousands of events across the U.S, and a national event at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Many event featured Spanish-language readings of The Story of Ferdinand, including Sacramento, California where Sacramento King’s basketball player Francisco Garcia read the book in Spanish to school children.

“This is truly a global campaign that includes diverse cultures and languages,” Pearson Foundation president Mark Nieker said. “It is critical that we continue to raise awareness of the early childhood education crisis that is rapidly reaching epidemic proportions.”

Juan Manuel Romero, president of Pearson Education Latin America, echoed Nieker’s comments and added, “This is a problem that goes well beyond the borders of the United States and touches the lives of countless families around the world.”

Nieker explained that one-third of children enter kindergarten developmentally behind their peers and without the skills necessary to succeed at grade level, and that the Pearson Foundation was committed to helping change this alarming statistic…

Source: CSRwire.com
http://www.csrwire.com/News/9706.html