What makes kids smart?
August 25, 2013
With Labor Day approaching, Back to School has already happened in many communities and it makes perfect sense to ask ourselves: “What makes kids smart or better stated, what do kids need to succeed in school?”
All parents know children need to be good learners to be successful in and out of school. The smartest Kids in the World, is a recent book that points to 3 reasons kids excel in school—and the author looks to schools not in the United States to find the factors that seem to determine academic success.
In Norway teachers are well trained and love their jobs. Only top students are allowed to enroll in teacher-training programs, which are more demanding than such programs in America. Coupled with that belief in the idea that students know they need to work hard to graduate, go to university and get a good job. Compare this with the fact that a quarter of American students fail to graduate from high school.
The second piece of information comes from Korea, where rigor is on steroids, with kids attending hagwons, the cram schools where Korean kids get their real education. Parents see this as the only way their children will pass the country’s stringent graduation exam, which is seen as the key to a successful, prosperous life.
The third piece of information comes from Poland, reproducing best practices learned from Finland and Korea—well trained teachers, a rigorous curriculum and a challenging exam required of all graduating seniors.
Every child deserves well-qualified teachers who like their students, a vigorous curriculum and a way to evaluate students’ knowledge upon high school graduation.
As the school year begins, these ideas should be front and center of any debate about children and education.
Don’t Shoot! It’s an ‘Empathy Game’.
August 18, 2013
A new generation of Video games, which are telling a story are pumping empathy as opposed to adrenaline. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324 769704579010641205335768.htmlWSJ I welcome the arrival of the video game industry to the world of story telling which is how children learn empathy. Man is a storytelling animal who needs stories to help us understand others and […]
Readers bring books to life.
August 9, 2013
P.L. Travers, author of the well loved Mary Poppins would be 113 years old today. In addition to creating one of the most well known and loved character in a children’s book, she wrote extensively about the power and influence story has on our lives. Travers informed my long held belief that a book is […]
Begin the school year with a mindset that encourages excitement about learning.
August 8, 2013
We live in an age of information. We are inundated by it. Too much information can swamp the boat of wonder, especially for a child. Creative & critical thinking depends crucially upon habits of mind that are most readily acquired by children: curiosity; voracious observation; sensitivity to rules and variations within the rules; and fantasy. […]
Vocabulary and achievement in life
July 24, 2013
Children entering school with a vocabulary of 22,000 words have a distinct advantage over the child who enters school with a vocabulary of 2,000 words. The child with the lower vocabulary is word improvised and that does not bode well for attaining success in school. Many of the skills a child needs to get ready […]
