Children Haven't Changed...

 “Above all, young children need time—time to manipulate objects and ideas, time to make the information their own." 


 Yeah, what she said.


JUST. READ. THIS.  Harvard said so.

Teenagers Should Have Babies

I know!  It's crazy!  Here's the thing: I mean, they should be around babies, not involved in procreation themselves (yet).

Why should they be around babies?  Because babies help us to be more compassionate.  To parent is to empathize with your children.  It's not to solve their every problem and meet their every need, but to constantly work to understand how they are developing, what are their self-constructive tasks, and what is the best response or environment to support them.

It's easy to think of that for young children.  Teenagers can present you with a bit of a challenge because they don't always conspicuously show their nobility.  They're not cute and 'doughy' like a toddler working out the challenge of walking.  But adolescents are working things out.  They do have developmental tasks. They are becoming adults.  They are trying to figure out what they stand for and what they want their life to be about.  They are testing moral boundaries.  They are conducting thought experiments and considering the consequences of their actions (we often only hear about how they don't, but all teens understand outcomes, even if not all of them act in a way that adults think will support some 'best' possible outcome).

So take a look at this NYT article on the effect of the presence of babies on older children.  A teaser:

The results can be dramatic. In a study of first- to third-grade classrooms, Schonert-Reichl focused on the subset of kids who exhibited “proactive aggression” – the deliberate and cold-blooded aggression of bullies who prey on vulnerable kids. Of those who participated in the Roots program, 88 percent decreased this form of behavior over the school year, while in the control group, only 9 percent did, and many actually increased it. Schonert-Reichl has reproduced these findings with fourth to seventh grade children in a randomized controlled trial. She also found that Roots produced significant drops in “relational aggression” – things like gossiping, excluding others, and backstabbing. Research also found a sharp increase in children’s parenting knowledge.

I must tell you that my favorite part was the connection between thinking and feeling to effect long-term learning:

Follow up studies have found that outcomes are maintained or enhanced three years after the program ends. “When you’ve got emotion and cognition happening at the same time, that’s deep learning,” explains Gordon. “That’s learning that will last.”

Full article here.

If you just want to jump to the punchline about human compassion, here you go.

Are these really 'alternative' assessments?

Where to apply to college and how to stand out from the crowd are a couple big questions facing high school seniors.  Adolescence is almost equal parts figuring out how to stand out and how to fit in.  It is all at once, "Look at me" and "Stop looking at me!" (With a dash of, "Why are you looking at me?" or for some, "Whachu lookin at?")

It is the ultimate-multi-year questioning of others, "How you doin'," which is to really be asking, "How am I doing?"

So enjoy these offerings from the Post.  If you like some fun, outside the box questions, you'll like the examples they offer.  You might even consider them to be reasonable ideas for in-class essays.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/college-admissions/find-x-and-other-unusual-colle.html