You are here: Home / Archives for maturity

‘I teach to empower kids’

March 30, 2012 by

I teach to “empower kids to live satisfying and productive lives,”, writes Esther Wojcicki, a long-time English and journalism teacher at Palo Alto High School, on Learning Matters. “I am helping grow adults.”

(Teenagers) tend to be energetic, creative and humorous, and their drive for independence empowers them to think outside the box. I love to see what far-out ideas they dream up. Some of them have turned out to be real winners. Kids are amazing — if you encourage them.

I try to create a classroom atmosphere in which students are not afraid of making mistakes. In fact, they are encouraged to take intellectual risks and occasionally fail, because that is the way they learn best.

Paly journalism students develop their own story ideas, she writes. Student editors assign the stories and supervise the reporters.  She lets them “do the work themselves.”

I know this is true because Woj was my daughter’s journalism teacher. Working on the newspaper as a writer, news editor and editor was one of the most important experiences of Allison’s life. Woj lets students lead, even when she’s the one who’s going to catch the flak. She really does grow adults.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Before college, take ‘grownup training’

January 28, 2012 by

Postpone college for two years of “grownup training,” advises Brett Nelson on Forbes.

Specifically: six months spent working in a factory, six in a restaurant, six on a farm and six in the military or performing another public service such as building houses, teaching algebra or changing bedpans.

. . . I’d reckon that grownup training would put undergrads deeply in touch with 1) why they wanted to go college in the first place, 2) what a special opportunity college really  is, and 3) more than a vague notion of what — and better yet — who they wanted to be when they grew up.

Nelson isn’t proposing a government program. He wants selective colleges to require grownup training before they’ll consider an application.

However, it’s not practical:  Few employers want 18-year-old short-timers.

Today’s elites have little experience with the lives of ordinary Americans, argues Charles Murray in his new book, Coming Apart. I scored 24 out of 99 points on his 25-question quiz on mainstream culture.

We don’t want well-informed elites making decisions for the rest of us, writes Ilya Somin, who scored 37, on Volokh Conspiracy. Our goals should be “an elite whose power over those masses is more limited and decentralized.”

Filed Under: College Tagged With: , , , , ,

Redshirting doesn’t help kids

September 26, 2011 by

Delay Kindergarten at Your Child’s Peril, warn neuroscientists Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt, authors of Welcome to Your Child’s Brain: How the Mind Grows From Conception to College, in the New York Times.

Nine percent of children old enough to start kindergarten are “redshirted” each year by parents who want to give them an edge, they write. But the advantages usually fade by the end of elementary school.  “In high school, redshirted children are less motivated and perform less well.”

 In a large-scale study at 26 Canadian elementary schools, first graders who were young for their year made considerably more progress in reading and math than kindergartners who were old for their year (but just two months younger). In another large study, the youngest fifth-graders scored a little lower than their classmates, but five points higher in verbal I.Q., on average, than fourth-graders of the same age. In other words, school makes children smarter.

High achievers benefit from skipping a grade, they add. Acceleration has twice the effect on achievement as programs for the gifted.

Children do best when they’re challenged, but not overwhelmed.

Learning is maximized not by getting all the answers right, but by making errors and correcting them quickly. In this respect, children benefit from being close to the limits of their ability. Too low an error rate becomes boring, while too high an error rate is unrewarding. A delay in school entry may therefore still be justified if children are very far behind their peers, leaving a gap too broad for school to allow effective learning.

Young children’s brains are developing rapidly. For most, the best possible contest is the classroom, Wang and Aamodt believe. That’s especially true for disadvantaged children. The trend to move back the cutoff date for starting kindergarten is hurting children from low-income families, they write.

My husband skipped a grade in elementary school. My sister skipped in middle school.  Neither faced much of an error rate in the higher grade. My daughter’s half-sister skipped high school, starting college at 14. It was not an academic challenge.  Now 18, she’s started graduate school in classics.

 

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: , , , ,

Quirky kids shut out of 'gifted' classes

June 20, 2010 by

Gifted classes exclude very smart children who are good at math and science but weak on social skills, wrote Katharine Beals of Out in Left Field. Kids who are good in reading, writing and group work are preferred. Girls are much more likely to be placed in gifted classes, reports the New York Times.

. . . research has shown many gifted children (male and female) to be developmentally skewed or “asynchronous” (see, e.g., here and here), and, in particular, often socially, emotionally, and/or organizationally immature.

As I discuss in my book, the reasons for considering global maturity may have more to do with current fashions in education than with what academically challenging programming intrinsically requires. Today’s classrooms, and gifted classrooms in particular, increasingly emphasize collaborative work, reflections about personal feelings, and organizationally demanding projects. At the same time math–an area of relative strength for boys–has become less and less mathematically challenging (and increasingly infused with language arts).

In a follow-up, a reader adds the story of twin boys tested for the gifted program in elementary schools. Only one boy was accepted. The mother was surprised to see that the rejected boy had higher scores than his brother. He was “more socially shy and awkward.”

Another mother writes of her school:

Good behavior was “rewarded” by being admitted into gifted classes. When I subbed in emotional support and autistic support classes, I would see lowered expectations and some very brilliant insights. When I taught in gifted classes, I would see well-behaved kids who were great at regurgitating concrete facts.

It takes highly quirky, intelligent teachers to work with highly quirky, intelligent students, Beals writes. They may not be the sorts to make it through “dissent-crushing education schools, much less avoid getting fired for insubordination by today’s line-toeing principals.”

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: , , ,

British school bans Valentine's cards

February 14, 2010 by

Primary students aren’t prepared for the “emotional trauma” of Valentine’s Day cards, a British headmaster has decided. Children may not exchange cards at Ashcombe Primary School in Weston-super-Mare, reports BBC News.

Peter Turner told parents of the 430 pupils that cards would be confiscated.

. . . Mr Turner said in the newsletter that children get upset when they are “dumped” which interrupts their learning.

He said children should wait until they are mature enough emotionally and socially to understand the commitment in having a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Parents say the ban is “ridiculous.”

Via Jonathan Turley.

Famous Zeke, a teaching intern, shares a hand-made Valentine’s Day card from a student.

In my day, we were required to give a card to every classmate. Girls got “friend” cards for other girls and joke cards for boys. It was about candy, not love. I don’t think that’s changed.

Filed Under: Culture Tagged With: , ,