You know that famous scene in The Princess Bride, when the legendary Spanish swordsman, Inigo Montoya, says, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Grandma’s Wisdom: Little Shoulders and Allowing Children to Bloom
I’m re-sharing some of my grandma’s wisdom today. Funny how a grandparent’s wisdom grows in value over the years, like the priceless investment that it is — you know, the wisdom you didn’t understand as a kid, but it means so much to you now. Read more about what I learned from my grandma in the post, Allowing Children to Bloom in Season.
Succeeding Through Failure: Read Along Section 7–What If Everybody Understood Child Development?
Growing up in the 80s and 90s, my brother’s room was a shrine to Michael Jordan. After I came home one day, devastated about missing out on a part for a children’s theater production, I was taken by my brother to his display. He pointed at one of his favorite posters.
An Assessment of the Testing Culture: Read Along Section 6 – What If Everybody Understood Child Development?
The topic of “testing” gets a very passionate response from educators (and parents), and not usually a very good one. But ask them about assessments, and you’re likely to get a very different response. It may be a matter of semantics, but the underlying cause is not something to consider lightly.
Wait! What Happened to Recess? : Read Along Section 5 – What If Everybody Understood Child Development?
The mystery of the disappearing recess, is not an uncommon topic of discussion in elementary education. The majority of adults remember a morning recess, a lunch recess, and an afternoon recess. I think most Americans would hazard a guess and say that there is probably less time devoted to recess today than in years gone by.
It’s OK to Go UP the Slide: Renegade Rules for Raising Confident and Creative Kids
“Our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”– M. Scott Peck
Can you relate to that? To coming up against a feeling that accepting the status quo just might not work any longer? That some of the “should’s” and “have-to’s” are rooted in misconceptions and “that’s-just-the-way-we’ve-always-done-it”?
Peck’s words form one of the guiding quotes in Heather Shumaker’s newest book,It’s OK to Go Up the Slide: Renegade Rules for Raising Confident and Creative Kids
Trouble Sitting Still: Read Along Section 4 — What If Everybody Understood Child Development?
It was years ago that I read the passage, but it is one of the first that comes back to me as I consider the importance of recognizing that the work of the mind and the work of the body are inextricably linked.
Speak Up! How to Make Conversation A Powerful Part of Your Child’s Day
In my most recent post, I wrote about how powerful words are in a young child’s development. As I mentioned then, it’s been said that sometimes we’re in such a hurry to give kids the things we never had, that we forget to give them the things we did have. Meaningful conversation may rank high on that list of simple, yet powerful things we take for granted.
Speak Up! How Words Can Make a Big Difference for Little Kids
The 30 million word gap has become somewhat legendary. But in case you missed the recurrent rumbling, here’s the quick rundown. Back in 1995, researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley recorded hours and hours of interactions between parents and children. What they found was startling. By age three, the average child from a family in the professional class heard 30 million more words than did the average child living on welfare. What was perhaps most striking about this research was their finding that there was a tight link between the number of words a child heard and their future academic success. This link was so strong that it appears to exist even when other factors, including socioeconomic factors, were controlled for. In essence, they asserted that closing that word gap could close the achievement gap between the social classes.
Subsequent studies have found that it isn’t just the quantity of words, but the quality of conversation that makes such a big difference for kids. [Read more…]
Let Them Be Little: Read Along Section 3 – What if Everybody Understood Child Development?
Until about the mid 1700s, childhood wasn’t recognized as part of the lifespan. Children were viewed as miniature adults. The same rules, expectations, and responsibilities were applied equally to children and adults. (Hence, the child kings, child brides, child laborers, etc.) No one considered that children might have different needs, different ways of thinking, or different capacities. The shift in perspective that allowed adults to consider children and childhood to be unique was one of the great advances of the 18th century
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