The mail’s come in on who should teach “social skills” to tender-age children. As previously reported here, “social skills” is among the most cited reasons why some parents want local school districts to provide all-day kindergarten.

Apparently there are some who believe that if a child is not socialized early, away from home and by non-parents, the child risks becoming a social wash-up by age 6.

After that, who knows the dread ahead for such a kid. Not being picked for basketball in gym class. No date for the senior prom. All because of “SSDD” — Social Skills Deficit Disorder. Maybe a pill can be created for that.

A single, anonymous dissent came via voicemail, taking issue with my skepticism on the need for all-day kindergarten, with regard to the “social skills” argument. The dissent is refreshing because there is no pretense: “People … have to work to support their families.”

For this caller, the mask drops. It is not about social skill instruction for kids but about grown-ups and their work.

Of course, some grown-ups are in unenviable circumstances. That is, they are single parents struggling to raise and provide for their children. You would have to be hardhearted to begrudge this kind of parent placing a child in all-day K, or day care, or wherever the kid will be safe while the parent works. If you want a working class hero, observe a single parent trying to make a kid’s life as serene and as normal as possible.

But what of able-bodied marrieds who choose to work full time, but who wish to outsource social skills instructional sessions so they are not inconvenienced?

Most readers who responded do not sympathize with such people.

“It’s nothing but glorified babysitting for parents who want to go to work and have someone else take care of their kids for free. It’s my job to teach my children social skills. I take all three wherever I go — to the store, to the playground. I discipline them. Yeah, it would be great to go back to work, make more money and not be broke all the time. That is not fair to my kids. They did not ask to be born. I had them. I chose to bring them into the world and we can get by on my husband’s salary. No, we do not have all the expensive things, but it won’t always be this way.”

A woman: “Parents who want all-day kindergarten want money so they can buy things. Look at the cars that pull up in front of day cares. Maybe if they didn’t drive big [gas] guzzlers, they wouldn’t need to work so hard.”

A man: “Nobody has time for their kids anymore. I see kids go into day care when they are young, and they hang on to strangers. The love’s gone. I know what this feels like. I came out of an orphanage. I feel sorry for these kids.”

The trend is toward all-day kindergarten. Eventually, it will come to us, whether we want it or not. This is not to say it is the dawn of the Apocalypse. The wealthy have been outsourcing their parenting to nannies ever since there have been wealthy people.

Still, for us non-wealthy types, I wonder.

If we are too busy working to raise our own kids during their tender years, perhaps the problem isn’t the lack of publicly funded all-day “social skills” instructional services.

Maybe the problem is us, and our desire for more money, so we can buy more stuff.

Source: phillyBurbs.com, PA
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/219-02282008-1495152.html

New research in Elementary School Journal questions deeply held assumptions about the educational achievement gap

No more vexing problem in education exists today than the achievement gap in this country. The difference between the extremes has rightfully attracted national attention, and one of the most popular policy proposals is to reduce class size—not surprising, since benchmarks are easily measured. In his provocative article for the March 2008 issue of Elementary School Journal, “Do Small Classes Reduce the Achievement Gap between Low and High Achievers” Evidence from Project STAR”, Spyros Konstantopoulos (Northwestern University) explores the hard data and finds that some of our basic assumptions about class size may be incorrect.

Konstantopoulos worked with data on mathematics and reading achievement provided by Tennessee’s Project STAR (Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio), an unprecedented four-year longitudinal class-size study encompassing over 11,000 K-3 students in 79 schools. The project found, not surprisingly, that smaller class size is a better situation for the children at all achievement levels, and previous analyses saw rising achievement on average. For most advocates, parents, and policy makers, this was enough. But when Konstantopoulos dug deeper, he found that the children who are already high achievers benefited the most from the extra attention afforded by smaller classes. Low achievers also benefited from being in small classes (compared to low achievers in regular size classes), but they did not benefit not as much as high achievers. Unfortunately, he also found that the smaller classes produced higher variability in achievement which indicates that the achievement gap between low and high achievers is larger in small classes than in regular size classes, especially in kindergarten and first grade.

Do smaller classes help students” Yes…and no. Konstantopoulos finds that “although all types of students benefited from being in small classes, reductions in class size did not reduce the achievement gap between low and high achievers” He concludes by calling for more observational studies of classrooms themselves, as we still do not know how to address one of the most vexing problems—the achievement gap between students—facing educators and policy-makers, today. (…)

Source: EurekAlert, DC
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/uocp-dcs022808.php

Researchers have uncovered another damaging consequence of spanking: risky sexual behaviors, or even sexual deviancy, when the child grows up.

Straus, who was the author of all four studies, hopes the findings will raise awareness among child development experts.

“My hope is to convince my colleagues that they ought to put this in their textbooks,” said Straus, co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire, in Durham. “It’s amazing. Something experienced by all American kids gets an average of half a page in child development textbooks, and not a single one comes to the conclusion that parents should never spank.”

Even the revered Dr. Spock, who was anti-spanking, never came right out and advised parents outright not to do it, he added. Instead, Spock advised “avoiding it if you can.”

A meta-analysis of spanking studies conducted by Gershoff found 93 percent agreement among studies that spanking can lead to such problems as delinquent and anti-social behavior in childhood along with aggression, criminal and anti-social behavior and spousal or child abuse as an adult.

“There’s probably nothing else in child development that has 93 percent agreement in results,” Straus said.

Five percent of people who have never been spanked hit their partners, versus 25 percent of those who were spanked frequently.

However, some 90 percent of U.S. parents spank toddlers, according to Straus.

The review being presented at the meeting are the first to look at the relationship of spanking to sexual behavior.

They found that spanking and other corporal punishment is associated with an increased probability of verbally and physically coercing a dating partner to have sex; risky sex such as premarital sex without using a condom; and masochistic sex such as spanking during sex.

There is a “dose response” at work here. “The more parents spank, the higher the probability of harmful side effects,” Straus noted.

Of course, there’s a similar dose response for smokers. But if someone reaches the age of 65 without developing lung cancer, it doesn’t mean that smoking isn’t harmful. It means the person was one of the lucky ones.

It’s the same with spanking, Straus said. “If a person says, ‘I was spanked, and I don’t have any interest in bondage and discipline sex, that’s correct, but it’s not because spanking is OK, it’s because they’re one of the lucky ones.”

And spanking a child once may be like picking up that first cigarette. “The trouble is, if you have a 2-year-old, you pretty soon decide you can’t avoid it. The recidivism rate for whatever ‘crime’ you correct a 2-year-old for is about 50 percent in two hours.”

“I’ve been researching corporal punishment for 30 years and, in the course of that time, the evidence has accumulated that it doesn’t work any better than non-corporal punishment but has harmful side effects. I have come to the conclusion that parents should never, ever spank because, although it does work, it’s no better than non-hitting methods that don’t have harmful side effects. If there was an FDA for spanking, they’d say use an alternative that doesn’t have harmful side effects.”

Source: U.S. News & World Report, DC
http://tinyurl.com/3crcf2

A generation of youngsters is having its childhood ruined by mounting political correctness and bureaucratic red tape, a hard-hitting Government report states.

Children’s education is being fundamentally damaged and communities undermined by ludicrous rules and an “everyone must have prizes” mentality.

It means that school sports days are being cancelled due to wet grass and pupils are sent home for wearing the Cross of St George in case it causes offence to non-English pupils.

Talented pupils are not praised or encouraged and are simply paired with “klutzes” in school plays and dance classes as part of policies to include every child.

They also say that childhood is being damaged by growing materialism, celebrity culture and footballers’ wives - known as WAGs - who set poor examples.

The findings have been revealed in a report, Childhood Wellbeing, commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

The DCSF asked Counterpoint research agency to discover what parents and children believed to be the key issues undermining a good and contented childhood.

It acted after a recent Unicef report found that British children are among the unhappiest in Europe.

They found that one of the major factors affecting a happy childhood was political correctness, along with limited opportunities for quality family time and pressure to buy expensive clothes and equipment.

Other major findings include:

• Celebrity culture is leading young girls into “dangerous and inappropriate behaviour”. Pop stars and WAGs are bad role models.

• Seeing super-rich people and their lifestyles across the media is encouraging children “to steal or to nag their parents”.

• Parents worry about the content of TV programmes, such as EastEnders, and rap music. Children are mimicking the clothes and language of “gangsta” rappers.

• Mothers are being forced to work in order to afford a better life for their children, resulting in less family time.

• Parents feel guilty for substituting presents such as DVDs and TVs for time with their children. (…)

Source: Daily Mail, UK
http://tinyurl.com/2gs7ms

Quality of teachers is more important than quantity of pupils, ministers told

The Scottish Government’s target of a maximum of 18 pupils in P1-3 is “nowhere near enough”, according to one of the UK’s leading experts who labelled part of its stratey as “stupid”.

Dylan Wiliam, deputy director of the Institute of Education in London, argues that classes in the first two years of schooling should have no more than 15 pupils.

“If they (the Scottish Government) don’t have enough money to do that, they should just cut class sizes in P1 and P2, rather than P1-3,” he said.

Basing his comments on the Tennessee Star project, which he describes as the “gold standard” of research into class sizes, he argues that the American research showed there was no additional benefit in cutting pupil numbers in the equivalent of P3.

The rationale behind having very small classes in P1 and P2 is that it allows pupils to develop good learning habits, such as socialisation and reading skills, and these gains are maintained in future years.

However, at other stages of children’s education, Professor Wiliam argues that it is far more cost- effective to focus resources on embedding formative assessment.

He suggests that cutting a class of 30 to 20 gives children the equivalent of four extra months of learning per year but the additional costs of teachers’ salaries and school buildings make this a very expensive option of around £20,000 per class, per year.

On the other hand, the implementation of a formative assessment approach could provide eight extra months of educational development for an outlay of only £2,000, he says. This includes the costs of training, supply cover and development. That calculation depends on setting up “teaching learning communities” of groups of 8-10 teachers who meet once a month to share good practice.

Professor Wiliam, who was speaking at the annual Chartered London Teachers Conference this week, said the only caveat in his argument, that reducing class sizes to raise pupil achievement was a waste of money, occurred when pupils were badly behaved.

“Smaller classes do confer a benefit if pupils are unruly, because having fewer pupils in a class means less disruption,” he commented. “But as long as pupils are well-behaved hen what you can do with a class of 20 is generally possible with a class of 30.”

He told The TESS: “If we are willing to pay a bad teacher £25,000, then, rationally, we should be willing to pay an excellent teacher £100,000. Teacher quality trumps almost everything else. What you do when you do reduce class size is dilute teacher quality.”

Training large numbers of teachers to teach smaller classes is not cost-effective, he argues.

The SNP-led Government has pledged to train 20,000 teachers by 2011, but Professor Wiliam describes that strategy as “a stupid way to spend the money”. A further way to raise both teacher quality and pupil attainment would be to reduce teachers’ non-contact time from the current 22.5 hours per week to 15 hours per week, he suggests. This would give teachers more time to prepare and deliver better lessons.

Ronnie Smith, general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, which wants all classes reduced to 20 pupils or fewer, disputed Professor Wiliam’s cost-benefit analysis. He pointed out that the average primary class size in Scotland was now just above 23, and that it would not cost as much as £20,000 per class to cut pupil numbers to 20.

As Scotland operated a standards-based system for teachers, the only way that teacher quality would drop was if the standard had been lowered in recent years – and that was not the case, said Mr Smith.

Source: Times Educational Supplement, UK
http://www.tes.co.uk/2584183

Chinese parents might feel proud in a way: they have beaten pop celebrities to top their children’s “most admired” list, a survey has found.

The survey, conducted by the All-China Women’s Federation among 5,030 children from 28 cities all over the country, asked the respondents to name three persons they admire most. “Parents” were the top choice, followed by “pop stars/artists” and “other relatives”.

The survey, released here Wednesday, also found that among the family members, over 80 percent of children consider their father or mother as the one that influences them most, with 43.1 percent choosing mother and 37.6 percent father.

Fu Guoliang, editor-in-chief of the People’s Education magazine, recalled a similar survey done a few years ago, where Chinese parents failed to make it into the top three positions as their children invariably chose pop stars as their most adored persons.

“The survey sent us a new message concerning parents-children relations in China,” Fu said. “With children admiring their parents so much, it creates a favorable environment for family education.”

Source: Xinhua, China
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/27/content_7681883.htm

For as long as anyone can remember, humans have identified and treated babies as special, almost like some sort of knee-jerk reaction. Long ago, Charles Darwin made it clear that there is some sort of adult-infant connection that allows the human race to survive. A recent study shows that this instinct to love and care for babies may be biological. This study reveals that the subconscious reactions adults have to infant faces differs greatly from their response to adult faces.

This study led by Morten Kringelbach and Alan Stein revealed that an area in the human brain, the medial orbitofrontal cortex, responds in less than a second after seeing the face of an infant, but not an adult face. This cranial region is located directly over the eyeballs, in front of the brain. Until this recent discovery, scientists, such as Konrad Lorenz had claimed that it was viewing the head structure of the infant which generated the response to treat a baby as special, yet a biological basis had not been discovered.

Kringelbach carefully gathered still frames of 27 infants who were videotaped in their own homes. Ninety-five female and male adults, including some who had never had children, were asked to rate emotional expressions of these babies from “very negative” to “very positive”.

Then, a research team from the University of Oxford used magnetoencephalography, a type of neuroimaging, to study twelve of the subjects at Aston University. The scanning technology provides images of the activity of the entire brain both incredibly quickly and at a very high resolution.

The participants in the study were asked to watch a red cross on a computer screen and to push a button if the red cross changed color. Between color changes, photos of unfamiliar adults and babies flashed on the screen for 300 milliseconds – not long enough for anyone to consciously register that it was happening.

The brain scans showed a wave of activity 1/7th of a second after each baby photo was flashed. This type of response was entirely too quick to not be instinctive. This reaction in the medial orbitofrontal cortex may explain many behaviors including what pulls a parent toward their child, why adults connect with and coo over babies, as well as why men are often attracted to women with infant-like features (which has been researched prior to the study). This segment of the brain which responds is a key region for emotions.

This study has potential to make a difference for the 13 to 15 percent of mothers (and 3 percent of fathers) that experience postnatal depression. People at the highest risk of developing postnatal depression may be identified by measuring the response in women and men. If the response to babies’ faces is not intense, they are more likely to become postnatally depressed or ignore their babies.

A professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan, Kent Berridge, was very impressed with Kringelbach’s confirmation of Darwin’s prediction about the wiring of human brains. He believes, “The beauty of Kringelbach and colleagues’ paper is its use of new baby faces that the adults hadn’t seen before, to rule out alternative explanations based solely on learning of social attachment.”

Kringelbach and Stein would eventually like to test the differences between men and women’s reactions, as well as if stimuli from other species, such as precious puppies, affect the human “love center” in the same way.

Source: RedOrbit, TX
http://tinyurl.com/3xd3kx

Filling classrooms with computers does not seem to be making students any smarter and may actually be harming the education of younger children, a new report suggests.

The analysis questions the millions of dollars that are being spent each year by school boards across the country to make sure elementary and high school students have access to the best technology.

Released by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy think-tank, it cites several studies — including an international review that found students with less access to computers actually earned higher grades in math, reading and science.

The report was penned by Manitoba high school teacher Michael Zwaagstra, someone with first-hand knowledge of the ways computers are changing classrooms.

“More computer access does not automatically mean a better education,” Mr. Zwaagstra said yesterday after teaching a class in Grunthal, Man., about 65 kilometres southeast of Winnipeg.

Mr. Zwaagstra said the push to make students computer literate could come at the cost of teaching them such basic subjects as reading by cutting into class time.

“I’m not a Luddite trying to say there shouldn’t be any computers anywhere,” the 32-year-old said. “I’m just simply issuing a call for some balance.”

His main concerns are not for high school students, but for children in Grade 1 or Grade 2. He questioned how much sense it makes to teach young elementary school students to use computers and software that inevitably will be obsolete in just a few years.

“[Students’] time would be better spent getting a solid grasp of the basics — such as reading and mathematics,” the report said. (…)

Mr. Zwaagstra, whose report focused on Manitoba, said the money could instead be spent on capital costs for schools and hiring more teachers.

The Manitoba government says its schools integrate computers into their lesson plans.

“We have a balanced approach to our curriculum, and we see information technology as one of those basic skills for students,” said Darryl Gervais, a government co-ordinator of instruction, curriculum and assessment. (…)

The Zwaagstra report cites a 2004 analysis by a pair of University of Munich economists.

They looked at the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment, which tests 15-year-old students in dozens of countries, including Canada.

The review found that when variables such as household income were taken into account, students with the most access to computers at home and at school had lower scores in math, reading and science than students with less computer access. It concluded that while moderate computer use was beneficial, excessive access had a negative impact on students.

“We must not delude ourselves into thinking that more computer use increases academic achievement,” writes Mr. Zwaagstra, who is also a city councillor in Steinbach, Man.

One expert said that if there was a problem adapting classrooms to technology, it was the lack of funding for teachers’ professional development.

“It’s not the computer that makes kids smarter or not smarter, it’s what they’re doing with the technology,” said Don Herbert Krug, a professor of curriculum studies at the University of British Columbia. Still, he said, computers offer schools the chance not just to augment traditional lessons, but to teach students about things, such as cyberbullying, that have become commonplace in today’s society.

“[Education] is not just for down the road into employment, it’s really to help socialize people into particular ways of living around how society is progressing.”

Source: National Post, Canada
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=336432

For decades mothers of young children have complained about not being taken seriously in the workplace, but research published today reveals for the first time the extent to which professional women are forced to slide down the career ladder to find jobs that allow them to spend time with their family.

Almost half of women professionals who downgrade to lower skilled part-time roles move to jobs where the average employee does not have A-levels, leaving three years or more of higher level education and training underused, according to academics at Oxford University and University of East Anglia.

“The ‘one-and-a-half breadwinner’ model is not doing well by the more highly-qualified among Britain’s mothers,” they conclude. “At present the low quality of many part-time jobs means that women are paying the price of reconciling work and family.”

The study, published in the Economic Journal, the journal of the Royal Economic Society, is the first to quantify the extent of the so-called “hidden brain drain” for professional and managerial women who become mothers.

It found that a third of female corporate managers moved down the career ladder after having a child. Two-thirds of that number took clerical positions and the rest moved into other lower skill jobs.

Women managers of shops, salons and restaurants were more seriously affected by occupational downgrading. Almost half gave up their managerial responsibilities to become sales assistants, hairdressers or similar roles when they sought part-time jobs after motherhood.

Teaching and nursing were the most favourable careers for supporting moves to part-time hours while continuing within the same profession, the study found, but even there, nearly one in 10 quit for lower skill jobs.

The research used two national databases: the New Earnings Survey, an annual survey of employment details of a random sample of employees including 70,000 women and the British Household Panel survey covering a representative sample of 5,500 households providing details of women’s employment from 1991 to 2001.

It highlighted the continuing problem of the frequently lowly status of part-time work, which is linked to lower pay and, because part-time work is female-dominated, a big contributor to the UK’s entrenched gender pay gap. It showed that despite government moves to allow parents of children under six to request flexible working, highly-qualified women still traded job status and responsibility for the hours many felt their family needed.

Mary Gregory, an economist at Oxford University and co-author of the report with Sara Connolly of the University of East Anglia, said: “This loss of career status with part-time work is a stark failure among otherwise encouraging trends for women’s advancement. Girls and young women are outperforming males at all educational levels. They are moving into an expanding range of occupations, and building successful careers. The gender pay gap is narrowing. But for many all this comes to an abrupt halt when childcare claims part of the working week.”

Six million women - 40% of those in work - are in part-time jobs, a number that includes the majority of mothers. Occupational downgrading is not happening because mothers want less demanding jobs, but because part-time opportunities in higher-level jobs are restricted, according to the study.

Researchers found women were most able to avoid downgrading if they could reduce their hours with their current employer.

Gregory said the findings placed a question mark over part-time work as a solution for professional women seeking to juggle career and motherhood. The government should make flexible working a right for parents of young children unless an employer could prove a case against, she said.

Another study in the Economic Journal revealed how close the link is between motherhood and part-time work. The research by Gillian Paull of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, based on data from some 84,000 interviews from the British Household Panel survey since 1991, revealed the birth of the first child was the single most important event in women moving to part-time work.

Before having children, more than four-fifths of working women are in full-time employment, but once they become mothers only a third of those who have pre-school children and work were employed full time. For fathers, the pattern went the other way, with 91% of working men employed full time prior to having children, while 96% of working fathers with a pre-school child are full time.

Part-time working is also entrenching a pay divide between different groups of women. Women working part-time have hourly earnings that are on average 26% lower than women working full time.

Source: Guardian Unlimited, UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/27/worklifebalance

Must we continue to perceive a woman’s choice of career over motherhood as the ultimate sacrifice?

Minister for Health and Children Mary Harney has gone on record – it’s hard to avoid the political language – saying that she might not have made a life in politics had she married and had babies in her youth.

While her mates were out pairing up and hitching up, she was, she says, ‘going to Cumann meetings.’

At 54, decisions made 30 years ago have set in stone, and there is ample time for second guessing, and regret.

What is most frustrating about Ms Harney’s statement is the implicit belief that she couldn’t have been both mother and politician. Unfortunately, she is probably right. How many mums go into the office in a panic because the wee ones are feeling poorly?

How many feel they are taking their lives in their hands, should they ask for time off for a school fete or play? How is it that the working world has not made the necessary adjustments to suit working mums? Why are women still being punished for wanting it all?

It may be the inherent arrogance in that phrase that keeps women on the low end of the pay scale, the promotions ladder, and the esteem of employers.

A better phrase would be ‘managing it all’ – because if anyone can manage everything, be it scheduling, shopping, nurturing, time and space, it’s a working mother.

Which begs the question: where’s dad? The families in which Papa Bear figures as highly in the physical and emotional management of the clan are few and far between – and in fairness, it’s not for lack of Mama Bear trying to delegate, nor for the man of the house trying to participate. It’s society itself that’s not allowing this shift to take place.

Sneery comments about Mr Mom still have common currency.

The disparity in pay between male and female employees sends the message of who is valued and who is not, loud and clear.

ROLE

The result is often the woman throwing up her hands and settling into the role that the world at large prefers its women to take up: that of stay-at-home mum, minding the hearth, and producing progeny.

This is not going to turn into a diatribe against those who choose to make raising their families their primary concern. In fact, it’s the pitting of Professional Mum against Mum the Professional that turns this topic into an emotional minefield.

It’s as if there is only one choice in the world for women – children or career – a dilemma that I certainly thought we’d left far behind.

Could it be possible that it is motherhood that is the ultimate sacrifice? Maybe that’s what is so terrifying to those who would keep the gals barefoot and pregnant with their feet under the sink.

Should women start choosing not to bear the brunt of childrearing and home-making with a clear conscience, who knows what might happen?

The world population might reach manageable levels. Some of the aspects of femininity that have long been reviled in the workplace – compassion, peaceful negotiation, flexibility – would become the norm.

Perhaps men would be able to choose to remain at home, without the attendant scorn. God help us if the world became a more accommodating place to live in.

Happy are those who can look back on their lives without regret. Harney’s choice led her to a life in a high profile position.

Whatever you think of her politics or her performance, she has achieved an extraordinary amount for a woman in a sphere that requires far more representation of the female of the species in its hallowed halls.

If that choice is now the subject of sentimental retrospect, well, sure, she’s only human.

REGRET

The notion, though, that women still have to choose one life course, and then regret it or apologise for it for the rest of their lives, is tiresome and time wasting.

There’s more than one way to be a parent as well – perhaps Ms Harney might investigate the numerous options available to those who would like to help young folk, such as the Big Brother/Big Sister mentoring programme.

There are plenty of kids out there who need a helping hand, whether one has birthed them or not, and plenty who might benefit from a woman who has had a life quite different from the common run of things.

Source: Irish Independent, Ireland
http://tinyurl.com/yu6tar