Momlogic’s Andrea: I thought timeouts were the progressive way to punish. But are even they too cruel?

Yesterday, when I picked my daughter up from her new preschool, the teacher told me my two-year-old was having trouble following directions that day. I nodded in weary agreement — she’s been very defiant this week.

“I give her timeouts,” I offered, “That’s what you guys do, right?”

Oh. Crap. This discipline thing is tricky. And here I was secretly patting myself on the back for not spanking my toddler’s backside. Meanwhile, it turns out the preschool’s mode of discipline makes mine seem like Abu Ghraib. But, hey, it’s not like I’m waterboarding.

As the teacher expounded on the preschool’s principles of punishment, my mind wandered to my timeout experience the night before. My daughter was locked in her chair prison — it’s amazing to me she stays put. She can escape any time — instead, she begs for mercy. Her crime? Hitting me in the face when I tried to put on her new Dora pajamas. (Maybe I should’ve bought Diego instead?) I don’t know if “distracting” her would’ve helped either of us at that moment. It took every bit of my moral strength not to punch her back.

Has the pendulum swung too far when it comes to doling out punishment for our kids? I don’t even know ANY moms these days who spank. Maybe I’m hanging out with the wrong crowd?

Source: Mom Logic
http://www.momlogic.com/2008/09/time_outs_are_the_new_spanking.php

… despite £12bn Spent on Nursery Education

One in seven children struggles to write his or her name after a year at primary school, official figures showed yesterday.

Overall, just half of the 556,000 children at this stage were judged to have reached a ‘good level of development’.

The figures, which come from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, apply to pupils in both state and private sectors. While the five-year-olds’ progress was judged to be better than last year, it was still down on 2005 in most areas.

Officials have blamed tougher assessment arrangements for the decline in results since 2005 but the Tories have warned that performance is ’slipping back’.

Ministers have also missed a 2008 target for 53 per cent of children in state-maintained schools and nurseries to meet the expected level of development.

Boys remain behind girls in all developmental areas, especially in writing, where girls are 18 points ahead.

The results mean that a majority of pupils are beginning Year 1 this month lacking key skills.

Under the Government’s system of assessments for five-year-olds, children are judged to have reached a ‘good level’ if they can show they are attentive in class; know the importance of school rules; take turns in conversation; guess at the meaning of simple sentences; write a letter to Father Christmas; blend sounds together to say simple words; and respect others.

Teachers are meant to observe children as they work and play and then record their progress.

Yesterday’s results will intensify calls for the current developmental goals in writing to be scaled back because they are too tough for young children.

One of the goals is for five-year-olds to write simple sentences using basic punctuation.

Just a quarter of youngsters met the standard this year.

Childcare experts have warned that a new ‘nappy curriculum’ being introduced this month - a statutory learning framework for children from birth to five - will put teachers under greater pressure than ever to push youngsters towards such goals.

Children will be forced into formal lessons too soon, they say.

Ministers have asked an inquiry into the primary curriculum to consider the complaints when it reports back next year.

Yesterday’s assessments also showed a persistent gap in attainment between the richest and poorest youngsters.

Children from more affluent areas are already well ahead of pupils in the most deprived parts of the country before they even start school, and the gulf shows little sign of narrowing.

Among five-year-olds in the most deprived 30 per cent of areas in the country, only 38 per cent achieved a good level of development.

This compares with 54 per cent in all other areas - a gap of 16 points. While this is down from 17 points last year, ministers missed a target aimed at reducing the gap to 12 points.

Children’s minister Beverley Hughes said the results showed ‘continued improvements’.

‘But there is more to do to ensure that all children achieve their potential, especially the most disadvantaged.’

Why teenagers are maths dunces

Half of schools are failing to teach maths properly, an Ofsted report warns today.

The education watchdog said that this means millions of teenagers are finishing compulsory education with a poor grasp of the subject.

Teachers are increasingly drilling pupils to pass exams instead of encouraging them to understand crucial maths concepts, the report adds.

Ofsted’s damning conclusion was that rising exam results owe little or nothing to better teaching or a deeper understanding among pupils.

They have instead been inflated by ‘teaching to the test’. Inspectors-also highlighted a growing-culture of dependence on quick-fix ‘booster’ classes for pupils on the borderline between grade thresholds.

Exam bodies were also criticised for designing national exams which test maths skills in bite-size chunks.

Ofsted’s verdict is embarrassing for ministers who have attempted to make political capital out of rising results.

Schools Minister Jim Knight said: ‘There is no reason why testing should result in a narrow focus or uninspiring lessons.

This year’s new secondary curriculum will help bring mathematics to life.’

Source: This is London
http://tinyurl.com/3wafrq

While high school is important, education should begin when children are much younger than that. Because what they learn will ultimately influence the economy of the community they live in.

Bill Millett, founder of Scope View Strategic Planning, spoke at the Champions of Education breakfast Wednesday morning, saying schools and communities need to stop promoting the “warm fuzzy” image and focus more on early education.

“USA is no longer No. 1 like we were in the 1950s,” Millett said. “We are under intellectual and educational assault, and we are getting our butts kicked. Early education is imperative. It’s under-appreciated and under-funded. Today’s kids’ competition for jobs is growing up on at least five other continents.”

He said schools need to focus on not teaching students memorization, per se, but cognitive skills they can use to advance their learning. That can begin with children’s early education — before they’re in kindergarten — so later years will be successful.

“All aspects of adult human capital from work force skills begin with early education,” he said. “In the first four years of a child’s life, a child’s brain learns a lot with cognitive development. We should put more emphasis there. It’s something our competitors in other parts of the world are doing, and we should also.”

Millett said programs such as Smart Start and More At Four give children the early childhood assistance they need so they excel at school during their formative years. This will, in turn, benefit society.

“In 2006, the majority of people getting doctoral degrees in the U.S. — 60 percent — were foreign nationals. A lot of them are getting their degrees in the U.S. and are going home because the opportunities are better,” Millett said. “Americans are getting fat, lazy and complacent.”

He urged community leaders at the meeting to get involved with children’s education and encouraged them to get active in getting students excited about going to school and getting additional degrees. Millett said the U.S. can catch back up to other countries, despite having a larger pool of people to select their workers from, assuming the U.S. doesn’t get complacent with our standing in the world.

“It’s a knowledge competition,” Millett said. “China and India have more honor students than we have students.”

He encouraged the business community to invest in early education, because it’s an investment in the work force development of the future.

“Sometimes, it’s measured long after a term of office expires, but you will see the results,” Millett said.

Source: Hickory Daily Record
http://www2.hickoryrecord.com/content/2008/sep/18/expert-says-early-education-imperative/news/

Children who worry a lot about conflicts between their parents are more likely to have problems in school, according to a new study.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Rochester, Syracuse University, and the University of Notre Dame, found that this happens because such kids have more difficulty paying attention to the tasks before them.

This study is one of the first to chart how children’’s concerns about their parents” relationship may increase their vulnerability to later adjustment problems.

For the study, researchers looked at a group of 216 predominantly White 6-year-olds, their parents, and their teachers annually over a three-year period.

Children were evaluated to determine their negative thoughts and worries about how their parents got along, based on how they completed unfinished stories about conflicts between parents.

Teachers reported on children’’s ability to get along with their classmates and take part in class activities, and on their behaviour as a measure of how they had adjusted to school.

Specifically, they were asked whether the children were cooperative with peers, followed teachers” directions, used classroom materials responsibly, and usually acted appropriately.

Children’’s attention problems were assessed through reports by parents and computerized measures of how they were able to focus and sustain attention.

The researchers found that kids who had concerns about how their parents got along had more attention problems a year after the concern was first identified, according to the study.

In many cases, children’’s negative thoughts were based on witnessing actual relationship problems between parents, and the study suggests that the children may have used the negative thoughts to help them cope with stress in high-conflict homes.

The study appears in the September/October 2008 issue of the journal Child Development.

Source: Times of India
http://tinyurl.com/3oh3cm

Every occupation has its catch phrases. Tony the barber always said, “You’re right next,” whenever an impatient customer asked how long he’d have to wait for a haircut. When I worked as a carpenter, our daily refrain was a tongue-in-cheek, “Close enough.” In workshops and education courses, teachers are always informed that the breakthrough theory or method that the course is promoting is based on “what the research tells us.” The instructor’s tone is never tongue-in-cheek.

It should be. Consider these sample specimens of actual education research.

A study of juvenile crime, conducted by federal and university experts, determined that most of it happens after school hours, as opposed to during school hours, when most juveniles are in school, or after 11 at night, when most juveniles are in bed.

According to a specialist in teenage sexuality, teenagers who drink alcohol are more likely to wind up having sex. This confirms what teenagers themselves discovered a few generations ago at drive-in movies.

Investigators probing adolescent behavior computed that a 20 cent tax on six-packs of beer would lower gonorrhea rates for 15-to-19-year-olds “by almost 9 percent.” Their precise calculations apparently rest on the assumption that teenagers who are thinking of having sex will decide not to if it costs them each an extra dime.

A bestselling pediatrician-turned-education-expert has deduced that there’s no such thing as a lazy student. His “science” tells him that children never “decide not to make an effort.”

British and American researchers concurred that overweight kids are more likely to be picked on.

A Georgia team discovered that students who study algebra in eighth grade tend to do better in “higher level” ninth-grade math classes. Also there appears to be a correlation between “success” in ninth-grade English and “reading lots of books” in eighth grade.

An ACT-sponsored analysis determined that students who can read “complex” material are more likely to be ready for college than students who can’t read complex material.

Students who are “rejected by their classmates” are “more likely to withdraw from school activities.” Equally astounding, students rejected by their peers in kindergarten are often the same kids rejected by their peers in later grades.

Preschoolers whose parents drink and smoke are more likely to choose alcohol and cigarette accessories for their Barbie dolls.

Students who “rank in the bottom fifth of basic skills have a low probability of completing college.”

Kids with “academically oriented friends” tend to do better academically, while kids whose friends are “delinquent types” are more likely to wind up in trouble.

Impressed?

In 1993 the research conclusively told us that girls were achieving less than boys and were victims of an education “gender gap.” By 1994, these conclusions were “under attack,” and by 1999, the data were telling us that “boys, not girls,” were actually the ones achieving less and the victims of an education “gender gap.” Along the way the research proved that single-sex schooling could solve the problem, at least until a March 1998 report “cast doubt on the value of single-sex schooling,” a charge that was irrefutable until an April 1998 report confirmed the “benefit in single-sex classes.” In 2001, the research demanded that schools “give single-sex classes a chance,” except when it concluded with equal certainty that single-sex programs were a “failure.”

When most people think of research, they picture facts, figures, and experimental results. Unfortunately, in education research most of the numbers we have come from standardized testing, which has proven so unreliable that its reputation for producing meaningful data lies in well-deserved ruins. When the RAND Corp. concludes that today’s standardized tests identify not “good” and “bad” schools, but “lucky” and “unlucky” schools, you’ve definitely got a data problem.

When education researchers aren’t citing faulty numbers, they’re basing their conclusions on feelings. For example, those conflicting gender studies rested on notoriously unreliable student surveys and dubious evidence as weightless as “boys call out in class eight times more often than girls,” which is why scholars and critics complained about “flawed research claims,” a “small body of research,” and “questionable findings.”

Similarly, a 2004 evaluation of Maine’s statewide laptop distribution headlined that laptops made a “significant and positive impact” on the “quality of work and student achievement.” If you read further, though, you found that those rosy conclusions were based on the “perceptions” of “teachers, parents, and students,” on their “opinions, but not actual hard data.” In other words, the evidence consisted of what students and teachers “believed” had happened, not on any documented improvement in student performance.

The American Educational Research Association even endorses a scientific tool they call “data poems,” which experts demonstrated at a professional development seminar offered at the association’s 2002 convention. Employing this method, educators can “focus, interpret, clarify, and communicate qualitative research” by writing and reciting a poem. Researchers have the option of collaborating with a professional poet to revise and polish their “poetic representations of data.”

Don’t look for this species of research at a physicists’ convention.

Education research rarely satisfies real scientific standards. That’s because education isn’t a science. It’s an art and a craft. That doesn’t mean that teachers don’t need knowledge of their subjects, or that I can’t improve my technique in the classroom. But education “research” is fundamentally anecdotal, so that what I observe for free in my classroom isn’t necessarily any less valid or informative than an expensive study of someone else’s classroom, especially when most of those studies are conducted by, and the conclusions drawn by, experts who’ve rarely, if ever, worked in a classroom.

The education establishment has lavished a fortune, often public funds, on research that’s yielded little more than meaningless data and feelings dressed up as evidence. Schools have squandered scant resources and time hopping on a long parade of research-based bandwagons. Even worse, decades of students have been the unwitting guinea pigs of a bastardized pseudoscience that more often suits education experts’ philosophical preferences than it serves either students or the truth.

The nation, its schools, and our students would be better served by common sense.

If the research tells us anything, that’s it.

Source: Rutland Herald
http://tinyurl.com/5ntgjl

Is school breaking our boys? Accumulating evidence says yes:

* Boys are kicked out of preschool at 4.5 times the rate of girls.
* Boys lag behind girls in reading and writing in elementary school, a lag that gets bigger in middle school and high school.
* Teenage boys are four times as likely to commit suicide as girls.
* Girls are doing so much better than boys at academics that by 2016 only 40 percent of college undergraduates are expected to be men.

I saw the roots of this miserable trend up close and personal last week when I visited my daughter’s elementary school lunchroom. The girls sat quietly talking and eating. The boys were jumping up, poking each other, spilling juice, running around the table, smooshing their pb&js into a ball. The lunchroom ladies’ response: Sit down and zip your lip. Yikes! These are 5-year-olds we’re talking about here, and this was their first break after a morning of literacy and math lessons. In kindergarten. Is it any wonder boys might conclude that school is not for them?

So I feel lucky to have come across The Trouble With Boys, a new book by Peg Tyre. Peg’s my kinda gal, a former investigative reporter for Newsweek who doesn’t take anyone’s word for it. She’s also the mother of two sons. When she heard that even at fancy New York private schools the struggling students were almost all male, she decided to investigate, looking for solid data as to why. What she found isn’t pretty. Among her findings:

• Teachers and principals know that boys are struggling but feel it’s politically incorrect to suggest that the curriculum needs to be changed to help boys.

• Schools have cut recess and gym and increased classroom time to boost test scores, but the lack of exercise is actually making it harder for boys (and girls) to learn.

• Most reading curricula are based on narrative fiction that turns off boys. How many boys want to read Little House on the Prairie?

There’s a lot of misinformation out there on how boys learn, Tyre found. She cites the example of Michael Gurian, who tells teachers at his popular workshops that neuroscientists have identified a “boy brain” that is less adept at staying focused than is a “girl brain.” At first, Tyre thought this made sense. But then she took the next step and asked the neuroscientists who did the research Gurian cites if this is true. They all said, no way do we know enough about the brain to say there’s a “boy brain.” “When we talk about gender, we’re talking about something that’s pretty complicated,” Tyre told me. “It’s not just nature. It’s not just nurture.” And there will be no simple solutions. But there are smart parents, smart teachers, and smart principals out there who are trying their own experiments to help boys, and getting good results. Tyre’s reporting provides solid information that parents can act on now:

• Boys do much better at reading and writing when the subject matter matches their interests. Savvy parents offer nonfiction books and stories with action and don’t cringe when their darling wants to write about Pokémon or Star Wars. Who cares if the kid’s reading Captain Underpants or The Day My Butt Went Psycho, as long as he loves to read?

• Dads can encourage their sons to read by reading to them on topics they both love. One smart school invited uniformed police officers (macho male ones) to come read to the kids each day.

• Find out how much PE and movement time your child gets, and advocate for more. Research unequivocally shows that all kids do better in school when they get plenty of time to run, jump, and play, and boys need time for tag and other rambunctious games. When you have your kids at home on the weekend, Tyre notes, you don’t keep them locked inside from 8 to 3 because you know they’ll turn into screaming meemies if you do.

All parents want their children to grow up to be happy and successful. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if reading The Gas We Pass: The Story of Farts helped boys get there?

Source: U.S. News & World Report
http://tinyurl.com/6movp5

Times Tables, the Key to Your Child’s Success?

When did you lose interest in math? Never had any? Maybe, but Eugenia Francis knows exactly when it started to happen to her son. The moment? The dread rite of passage all children face: the multiplication tables.

As her son struggled with endless drills, Francis realized there had to be a better way. Why not learn the tables in context of one another and emphasize the commutative property (i.e. 4 x 6 is the same as 6 x 4) of the multiplication tables? Francis drew a grid for tables 1-10 and discovered patterns for her son to decode. The mysteries of the times tables unfolded as a daily exploration of “magic” never discussed in his third-grade class. Their fridge eventually was papered with patterns that made the times tables intriguing. “Patterns made my son smile,” Francis says. “He could see the structure and knew he got it right.”

Ever the creative educator, Francis taught college English. “Patterns whether in literature or math,” she says, “reveal the underlying structure. There is an inherent simplicity in them, an inherent beauty. Math should engage your child’s imagination.”

At the kitchen table, Francis applied her skills to math. Why not learn the tables in order of difficulty? Tables 2, 4, 6 and 8 are easy to learn as they end in some combination of 2-4-6-8-0. Tables for odd numbers also have distinct patterns. Why not a more creative approach? Thus was born Teach Your Child the Multiplication Tables, Fun, Fast and Easy with Dazzling Patterns, Grids and Tricks! (available on Amazon and www.TeaCHildMath.com ) and mom the entrepreneur.

Patterns appeal to children. Learning to recognize patterns teaches analytical skills. A review in California Homeschool News stated: “My daughter thinks it’s lots of fun. She’s already had quite a few ‘ah-ha moments as she recognizes and predicts the various patterns.” Patterns enhance recall. “Children with ADHD, dyslexia and autism do well with my method,” Francis says.

Parents and teachers must ensure children learn the multiplication tables. “Without them a child is doomed,” Francis states. A child who has not mastered the times tables has difficulty succeeding in mathematics beyond the third grade.

A recent editorial in the Los Angeles Times noted that failure to pass Algebra I was the “single biggest obstacle to high school graduation” and that failure to master the multiplication tables was one of the main reasons. A survey of California Algebra I teachers report that 30% of their students do not know the multiplication tables. It is hardly surprising then that fifteen-year olds in the U.S. rank near the bottom of industrialized nations in math skills.

“We have one of the highest high school dropout rates in the industrialized world,” Bill Gates stated. “If we keep the system as it is, millions of children will never get a chance to fulfill their promise because of their Zip Code, their skin color or their parents’ income. That is offensive to our values.”

Teachers must innovate and bring the magic of math into the classroom. Parents must do their part. “Parents have a huge influence over a third or fourth grader,” Francis states. “By high school it may be too late. Why not take the opportunity that teaching the multiplication tables provides to give your child a head start in math and develop analytical skills necessary for algebra? Mastery of the multiplication tables is essential to your child’s future.”

Francis published her innovative workbook to help other families. “If more of us would do for other people’s children what we do for our own, the world would be a better place.”

About Eugenia Francis
Eugenia Francis taught English at the University of California at Irvine. Faced with the challenge of teaching her son the multiplication tables, she developed her own innovative method, discovering patterns to the multiplication tables. She has also published a Spanish edition of the workbook. Teach Your Child the Multiplication Tables sells on Amazon in the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany and Japan.

Source: NewsBlaze, CA
http://newsblaze.com/story/20080913052623zzzz.nb/topstory.html

Parents know more about their phone bills and bank balances than how well their child is doing at school, research suggests.

A poll of almost 1,500 parents found that only 16% receive monthly or weekly information about their child’s progress.

More than eight in 10 (85%) said they received information just four times a year at the most, with a similar amount (81%) saying they were informed of their child’s progress at parents’ evenings. And a massive 81% said they would like more feedback from their child’s school.

In contrast, almost three quarters (71%) of parents said they monitor their bank balance either online or by phone once a month, and 67% receive information from their mobile phone company on a monthly basis, via the internet or text messaging.

The survey, commissioned by the government technology agency Becta, found that parents want schools to adopt a similar updating system.

It found that almost seven in 10 (68%) want schools to use text messaging and emails to communicate with them on a regular basis. As it stands, only 8% currently receive information about their child this way.

Becta is encouraging parents to talk to schools about more effective ways of communicating regularly.

Niel McLean, spokesman for Becta’s Next Generation Learning Campaign, said: “Engaging parents is key to a child’s success at school. Yet it appears parents and schools are not talking as much, or as frequently, as parents would like.”

In July, the Government’ top adviser on behaviour in schools, Sir Alan Steer, called for schools to use new technology to update parents, including sending text or email alerts if a child fails to turn up to lessons.

TV parenting expert Tanya Byron said: “I think that parents are right to be asking to have greater and more regular access to information relating to their child’s development at school. Using a variety of digital platforms, such as the internet and text, will enable schools

Source: The Press Association
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5g4dF3tUrGnRxCYCKoXiMBth-UDHQ

Business leaders have reiterated concerns about the quality of UK graduates in a new survey.

Employers are concerned about the literacy, numeracy and employability of today’s students, according to the survey conducted by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). It found that improving education standards tops the list in its annual survey of employers’ concerns, monitoring trends in employment and the workplace.

Almost a quarter of those questioned (23 per cent) said that graduates struggled with literacy, and 20 per cent complained about poor numeracy. A quarter said they were unhappy with graduates’ employability skills. Employers also perceive a growing demand for graduate-level skills - more than three quarters (78 per cent) said there would be increased demand for high-level leadership and management, and two thirds (66 per cent) said they needed graduates with technical skills.

A CBI task force is to look at ways to help graduates become more employable. “Business must play its part here by providing high-quality work experience,” the 2008 employment trends survey Pulling Through says. “(It) must be more relevant to help graduates develop their employability skills.”

“The labour market cannot thrive without an adequately skilled workforce,” said Richard Lambert, CBI director general. “The message from business is clear: ensuring that young people leave education with the functional skills to prosper is essential to everyone’s future prosperity.”

Philip Ternouth, associate director of research and development and knowledge transfer at the Council for Industry and Higher Education, said it should not be up to businesses to tell universities that basic skills should be possessed by graduates seeking employment.

“If we are allowing large numbers of people to graduate without basic skills there is something wrong with the messages we are communicating to schools about the expectation of the standards people should reach,” he said. “It should not be for universities to remedy this, but it is for universities to set standards.”

times higher education, UK
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=403506&c=1

The Government’s Sure Start initiative was founded on the most well-meaning of principles.

Children from disadvantaged homes were lagging behind those from more affluent homes by the time they started schooling because their parent/s did not have the resources to give them the stimulation they might get in a better-off setting.

So the answer was to provide the parents with day-care or nursery places where their children could get development help and a start to learning the basic skills which they might otherwise have missed out on.

Now comes a report from the Centre for Social Justice – headed by the former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith – which indicates this simplistic thinking may be missing out part of the equation: that the child may get more from the one-to-one attention at home rather than separation from his or her parents at an early age. The think-tank argues that much antisocial behaviour and violence by children has its roots in that early separation from the home.

Of course, the answer would not be to just turn the clock back. The CSJ report recognises this. After all, that would just mean that those parents who were struggling to bring up their children in a disadvantaged home – sometimes on their own – would be sentenced again to doing just that. The gap in developmental skills between rich and poor children as they start compulsory schooling would therefore still be there.

One of the answers that it comes up with is to concentrate more aid on helping parents to cope in the home. This teaching of skills so that parents can better make use of play time and home time with their children is certainly an alternative, and productive, use of the nation’s resources in care provision for nought to three-year-olds, if not a better one.

Source: Independent, UK
http://tinyurl.com/63yclm