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12 Mar

Screen Time and Childhood

Fourteen years ago the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement addressing children’s screen time that created a media hubbub. The statement was weak and ineffective. The ruckus was in grand disproportion to the Academy’s ho-hum recommendation that parents “avoid television for children under the age of two years.” It generated no positive results. Screen time for all children continues to increase. Parents still consider the television a member of the family. Mobile apps are every parent’s new best friend.

Parents now assume screen time is an important element in early childhood development. Only 14% of parents remember their pediatricians giving any advice about media use, despite the Academy’s 2011 reassertion of their policy. Pediatricians know parents quit listening to that message more than a decade ago. Our best educators worry about the influence of unregulated technology use on the growth of young minds, wonder at the obvious but under-reported connections between screen time and the deterioration of attention. They know they cannot hold the attention of children raised on two-second sound bites.

Children spend an average of five to seven hours every day in front of a screen. The only activity that occupies more time for children is sleeping. These same young kids are experiencing speech and language delays, and chronic attention problems. Literacy is becoming increasingly hard to achieve, creativity rare. Though there is little research to establish connections between so many young children’s failure to thrive and their over-exposure to technologies, the conclusion that screen time is corroding young minds seems ridiculously obvious to most teachers.

The AAP’s most recent research indicates that a shocking 90% of children younger than two watch some form of electronic media. By age three, one third of these kids have televisions in their bedrooms. Modern parents consider one of the most unpredictably dangerous influences on the lives of young children to be a peacekeeper, a “safe” activity for their children.

Well-educated, upwardly mobile parents fancy educational technology for kids. Lower income families use the television as a babysitter. The New York Times calls this the “app gap.” The Times points out that both sets of parents are thumbing their noses at the AAP, relying on screens to occupy their children.

The Mayo Clinic’s available information for parents acknowledges a lack of definitive research, but links too much screen time to behavioral problems, irregular sleep, poor academic performance and, most convincingly, obesity. Most major public health organizations have described obesity in epidemic terms. Screen time is obviously not the only cause of obesity, but experts consider it a primary gateway to things like soda pop, sedentary lifestyles and high-fat snack foods.

The effects of screen time on the health of families are easy to visualize. They are All American images: An overweight family gathered around the television, eating separate, high-fat meals, sharing two-liter bottles of soda. Young children eating finger-foods in their car seats, mesmerized by the screens attached to their parents’ head rests. Bug-eyed youngsters passing time on iPads and cell phones loaded with mobile apps.

The AAP, the National Institute of Health and the Mayo Clinic urge parents to limit and plan screen time, and strongly discourage allowing children to eat in front of a screen. Do not allow children to have televisions or computers in their bedrooms, they say. Do not leave the television on throughout the day. Make choices. Plan outdoor activities. Turn the television off for a day. Though teachers know parents are not following the AAP guidelines, they know less screen time for longer would build a healthier child.

A paltry 10% of parents follow the AAP guidelines. There are apps available for kids so young they are more inclined to chew the cell phone. Fishing poles and family meals are Norman Rockwell, retro visions of a time that may be forever gone. The thought of commuting or eating or falling asleep without a screen makes most parents shudder.

Teachers do not have spare time and money to sponsor research. Studies into the effects of screen time on children will probably always be poorly funded and inherently limited in scope and value. Even the best studies cannot compare a mature adult with the person she might have become, had she enjoyed a different upbringing. When a child is diagnosed with hyperactivity or an attention deficit, parents can get a prescription with relative ease. But they cannot get a do-over. When an adolescent commits an act of violence, it’s too late to turn off the video games.

Good parenting has never been easy. Bad parenting has never been easier. Screen time seems like a safe, peaceful, educational way for parents to entertain their children. Teachers of every age group know we will have to change our approaches to remain relevant and keep kids engaged in learning. Good teachers of the world will continue to dream of every child reaching his or her potential. Good parents of the world will dream too, resisting, adjusting and adapting to protect our children from the influences most of the world has accepted without question.

17 Jul

The Case Against Flash Cards

by Laura Flores Shaw | Montessori Blog

6 Comments

Mother and Daughter Reading Together — © MariaMontessori.com

As the director of a Montessori school, one of the most frequent questions I get from parents is, “What should I be doing at home to help my child academically?”

My answer is always the same: “Talk and read with your child.”

Of course, this never satisfies parents because this seems too simple, and parents – who want to ensure they’re doing right by their child — feel as if they should be doing something more. But it’s often the simple solution that is most effective (and backed by research!).

One of my favorite longitudinal studies was conducted by a Standford linguistic anthropologist, Shirley Brice Heath (1982). She examined the use of bedtime stories and interactions between children and parents in different communities. For the purposes of this post, I will focus on two of them: “Maintown” and “Roadville”.

Heath found that the Maintown children had a greater advantage academically because of how their parents spoke with them. Maintown parents asked their children a lot of “rehearsal questions” (questions where the parent knew the answer). They asked questions that were genuine requests for new information (where the parent didn’t know the answer). And they asked a lot of open-ended questions, where the child was allowed to relate experiences. Additionally, Maintown parents verbalized connections between what the child saw in the real world with what he or she read about in bedtime stories. They also allowed their children to read books as they wished. If the child wanted to skip pages, move ahead, or read from back to front, the parents acquiesced. Finally, when Heath looked at the reading materials of the Maintown parents, she found they had far more critical and educational sources than Roadville parents. In other words, Maintown parents were more interested in gaining new perspectives through reading and didn’t only read books reinforcing their already held beliefs.

The Roadville parents, on the other hand, insisted the children read books from beginning to end, with no skipping ahead. Rather than rehearsal questions, the number one communication parents had “with” their children was “running commentary” involving “rhetorical questions.” Parents would comment on their own behavior or tasks and would ask questions like, “Where are my keys?” without expecting any kind of answer from their children. Essentially, their main communication wasn’t really an interaction.

Roadville Parents did ask rehearsal questions but far fewer than Maintown parents. The other most common communication was a “question directive,” where the parent gave an order in the form of a question. The least type of question Roadville parents asked was that which involved requests for new information. Finally, Roadville parents rarely made connections between what the child saw or experienced in real life and what was read at story-time.

In a nutshell, Maintown parents – simply through speaking and reading with their children – promoted critical thinking in their children. True, they gave them rehearsal questions to practice learning new facts or words, but they also wanted to know their children’s thoughts. They helped their children get into the habit of thinking about connections between different things, which promotes thinking beyond the information given and developing more sophisticated inferences.

Thus, you don’t need to be doing flashcards with your children or showing them how to do math via “tricks.” All you need to do is talk and read with your child.

13 Dec

Keeping It Real – Part I

by Pilar Bewley | Montessori Blog

28 Comments

In our increasingly competitive world, the key to professional success is said to lie in our ability to be creative. Even more importantly, we know that in the future our children will be faced with huge technological, social, and ecological challenges; providing them with an education that supports their creative problem-solving skills is therefore essential!

We are all aware that creativity stems from a well-developed imagination. You have to imagine something before you can create it, right? We also rightly assume that the capacity to imagine is formed in early childhood (a time when children are read fantasy stories and are encouraged to participate in pretend-play). And yet, you won’t find a single fairy tale, doll, or talking animal in a Montessori Children’s House classroom!

While this approach might seem counter-intuitive at first glance, Montessori’s focus on reality actually has a proven positive impact on creative development: Current research shows that children who received a Montessori education solve problems more creatively than do their public school peers, even beyond elementary school.

It turns out that fantasy – ideas that have no basis in reality (such as fairies, talking animals or talking trains), has no place in education and is not what strengthens imagination and creativity. Children develop their imaginative and creative powers through hands-on experiences in the real world.

Following the Child

When Dr.Montessori started her first school in 1907, she believed the same thing most adults do – that children love fairy tales and pretend-play. She was amazed to discover that, when given freedom of choice and the opportunity to have real-life experiences, the children under her care became passionately attracted to reality. Her little pre-schoolers walked away from a teacher who was telling a fairy tale in order to examine worms and insects in the garden; they shunned a group of pretty dolls for the privilege of serving real tea to adult visitors; they ignored an expensive dollhouse and instead chose to sweep and tidy the classroom.

Dr. Montessori observed the children’s natural drives and developed an approach that satisfied their desire to interact with the world around them. She realized what scientific research now confirms: A child develops knowledge based on impressions fixed in his mind by his experiences in reality. (These perceptions are absorbed into the child’s mind without a filter during the first six years of life; a phenomenon Dr. Montessori termed the absorbent mind.)

The impressions that form the child’s new knowledge can then help him understand new and more complex concepts, which is how intelligence develops. Here’s a simple example: Through hands-on work with precise learning tools (materials), a child understands the quantity represented by each number from 0-9. When he is introduced to addition, he will be able to focus on the process of putting numbers together (and not worry about the concept of the numbers themselves). He will have an easy time mastering the operations because the initial concepts were clear in his mind. If precision is maintained throughout this learning process, the child will easily understand more and more complex mathematical concepts (the same process holds true for all areas of knowledge).

The child will be said to be “intelligent”. But intelligence unfolds seamlessly only if the initial impressions were clear and precise. A precise impression is one that does not contain any concepts that might confuse the child and create an incorrect image in his mind, and this is precisely where fantasy becomes an impairment.

Credulity is NOT imagination

One of the main reasons why fantasy is not a part of the Montessori curriculum is because it disorients young children. This might be difficult for us as adults to understand, but research has shown that most children before the age of five are unable to differentiate between real and fictitious characters and situations.

I once heard about a mom who wanted to follow the Montessori approach with her young daughter, Jenny, but also wanted to share with her several lovely fairy tale books. She thought she would solve the problem by letting the three-year old child know when a character was not real.

When mom read about fairies, she gave Jenny a knowing look and said: “Jenny, we know that fairies don’t exist, right?” Jenny replied with a smile: “Noooo, they don’t exist.”

When she read about a dragon, she gave Jenny a wink and said: “Jenny, we know dragons don’t exist, right?” Jenny replied with a smile: “Noooo, they don’t exist.”

This went on for a few days. Then one day, they read a nature book about giraffes. Halfway through, Jenny gave her mom a wise and knowing look, and said: “Mom, we know giraffes don’t exist, right?”

Credulity is NOT imagination. Children will believe what we tell them (or show them on TV) and it will form part of their foundational knowledge; this huge responsibility cannot be taken lightly.

“How is it possible for the child’s imagination to be developed by that which is in truth the fruit of the adult’s imagination? We alone imagine, not they; they merely believe.” -Maria Montessori

Author’s note: In Part II of this article we will discuss:

The difference between pretend-play and creative imagination
How Montessori encourages the child to develop a strong and useful imagination
How Montessori uses imagination as a POWERFUL TOOL FOR EDUCATION and for the continued development of intelligence

02 Oct

Meeting the Needs of Each Student

by Ed Stanford | Montessori Blog

7 Comments

Remember the years you spent as a student.

Remember fresh new school supplies on the first day, the school cafeteria, the playground at recess, lockers and school buses.

Remember more than a decade of teachers and classrooms with chalkboards, whiteboards, overhead projectors, desks, textbooks and bulletin boards.

In more than 2000 days as a student, do you also remember thinking any of the following thoughts, whether in 2^nd grade, middle school, or high school?

The teacher is going too fast and I can’t keep up!
The teacher is sooo slow and I am completely bored.
Why are we switching topics? This is actually interesting and I want to learn more.
I already know this stuff, why can’t I do something else?
Why do we have to give a speech? I would rather make a poster.
Why do we have to write a paper? I would rather give a speech.

These are the frustrations that Educators hope to eliminate through Differentiated Instruction, which is defined by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) as

“instruction that seeks to maximize each student’s growth by meeting each student where she is and helping the student to progress. In practice, it involves offering several different learning experiences in response to students’ varied needs. Learning activities and materials may be varied by difficulty to challenge students at different readiness levels, by topic in response to students’ interests, and by students’ preferred ways of learning or expressing themselves.”

Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Students learning at their own pace, being challenged but not overwhelmed or bored, following their interests and showcasing their learning in speeches, posters, or papers as they choose. The chances are good that you have already experienced some of traditional education’s attempts at differentiation.

The most common examples of differentiation in traditional schools are ability grouping within classrooms or between classes. Ability grouping continues to be a controversial approach, but odds are good you experienced it without realizing. In elementary schools, teachers may divide a class into smaller groups of advanced, average, and remedial students for specific instructional topics such as reading or mathematics. Often these groups have cute names to belie the inherent judgment of ability, but students quickly figure out who are “good” readers and who are “slow” readers.

Tracking is a more obvious practice as it creates entire classes of advanced, average, or remedial students. Perhaps you remember being a freshman, junior, or senior in a geometry classroom full of sophomores, knowing you were seen by your classmates and teacher as extra clever or less than clever. You may also have experienced or observed “pull outs” for special education or gifted and talented classes. In a “pull out”, students leave their classmates and for specialized instruction with specialized teachers.

Consider the definition of differentiated instruction again; perhaps one can make an argument that ability grouping offers several different learning experiences in response to students’ varied needs, and that learning activities and materials may be varied by difficulty to challenge students at different readiness levels, but it would be difficult to argue that topics vary in response to students’ interests, and by students’ preferred ways of learning or expressing themselves.

Why is it so difficult for traditional education to differentiate?

Traditional education depends on teachers to instruct students and deliver content. Remember the lectures, assignments, and teacher guided activities from your classes. All of these require a high level of teacher involvement. Traditional education curriculum is scheduled on the premise that a single teacher will deliver a set content to a group of children on a set timetable. Even when there is a more independent project such as a research paper or speech, these are the exception and not the rule.

Imagine a class with 30 students. How can a single teacher, each and every day, provide individual instruction to all 30 children that is tailored to meet their specific needs and interests with just the right amount of challenge and some choice in how to learn? It can’t be done. Teachers are already stretched far too thin trying to create group lesson plans and grade homework, imagine if their work was increased 30 times over.

Dr. Maria Montessori discovered a brilliant and elegant solution to the challenge of meeting every child’s needs. She created, tested, and refined the through observation auto-didactic (self-teaching) materials to convey particular knowledge to children. Today’s Montessori teachers rely on the same materials and do very little direct instruction.

One example of auto-didactic materials is the bells, each of the 16 bells produces one of the 8 notes of the diatonic scale when struck, yet appear completely identical. 8 of the bells have wooden bases and 8 have white painted bases, and each note has a wooden bell and a white bell. Following a presentation from a teacher on the proper use of the bells, children are free to choose to work with the bells anytime. Young children begin by refining their ability to hear and differentiate musical pitches, then to sequence notes in ascending or descending order, then the names of pitches, and eventually to reading and writing simple songs.

The auto-didactic materials free the child from requiring a teacher to receive instruction and practice. A musically gifted child in a Montessori classroom is able to proceed through the sequence of activities with the bells very quickly, only needing a teacher periodically to demonstrate the next step. Meanwhile, a less musically inclined child is free to practice each step until they are confident enough for the next, without a teacher being forced to hurry the child along to “stay with the class”.

Children have an ever expanding set of materials so they can choose to practice something familiar are challenge themselves, providing hours of self-directed learning. This allows the teacher to observe and to move from child to child presenting new materials as needed.

Although Montessori teachers rarely gather all 30 children together to instruct a single skill, they don’t sit around drinking tea all morning. Teachers have many roles, the most important of which is embedded in the above definition of differentiated instruction.

“instruction that seeks to maximize each student’s growth by meeting each student where she is and helping the student to progress. In practice, it involves offering several different learning experiences in response to students’ varied needs. “

Dr. Montessori understood the need for an individualized learning experience in her first classroom in 1906 and her approach continues to be an elegant and effective model of differentiated instruction for theorists of today.

27 Jun

I Am a Montessori Geek

by Ed Stanford | Montessori Blog

3 Comments

I am a geek. Many people use geek as an insult, but I use geek to denote an intense fascination and enjoyment of any particular subject. Common examples of geeks include sports geeks, fashion geeks (fashionistas), and gastronomical geeks (foodies). The difference between enjoying something and geekdom is a level of fascination; sports geeks quote player statistics from memory, and foodies have a favorite food critics.

I’m an education geek. I enjoy learning and teaching, and exploring the theoretical, philosophical, and scientific underpinnings of learning and teaching. I enjoy reading books, articles, and research studies about education; therefore I am an education geek.

Geeks hunt for the best. Movie geeks want theatres with the best sound systems and projectors. Fashionistas shop for cutting edge, unique fashions. Education geeks pursue the most elegant and effective educational practices and my search led me to the Montessori Method. I beg your indulgence as I share my journey.

In college I decided to teach, so in addition to declaring an art major I also joined the education department. After 13 years as a student I thought I understood education; my ignorance was soon revealed.

Professor Jean Ketter opened my eyes when she introduced me to Resistance in Education, a field of research into why some students defy the educational system, usually to their own academic devastation. An example of a Resistance in Education study is an exam question describing a problem with the cafeteria followed by the directions “Write a letter to the Principal of your school explaining the problem in the cafeteria and proposing a solution.” Most students wrote a letter; many surely resented the assignment, but they knuckled under and completed the task as directed.

However, few students did not write the letter. Interviews revealed these students had refused to attempt the task because they “would never write a letter to the Principal to solve a problem”. The assignment required was so out of character for these students that they refused to participate.

Resistance in Education was my first recognition that traditional school is a game. I had naively believed schools were objective meritocracies in which students succeed or fail according to ability. Reading, debating, and analyzing Resistance in Education revealed the reality that schools are systems with objectives and rules and strategies, and like any system, schools can be “played” or manipulated.

It is my belief that most teachers were good students and felt accomplished. It is hard to imagine anyone wanting to return to classrooms for 30+ years unless they had positive memories. Perhaps some knew how to play the “game of school”, or perhaps, like me, they just “played nice” without asking why and quietly collected high marks and accolades.

Delving into writings about Resistance in Education, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and Hidden Curriculums, I began to review my years as a student with new insight into my classmates’ behavior and my own. I had accepted the rules of the game without question and excelled in school, but the “game of school” is rigged; not everyone has a fair chance at success. Those unwilling to set aside their personalities to assume the role of student and “write letters to Principals about problems in cafeterias” are only one example of the skewed circumstances that are common in the “game of school”.

Knowing children are playing a game without understanding the rules, without even realizing they are playing a game with profound impacts on self-worth, self-confidence, and a whole host of beliefs and attitudes is unsettling. Realizing that this game is unfair is appalling.

Professor Ketter again changed my life by introducing a wide range of educational research and thought inspiring me to seek alternatives to traditional education. The writings of John Dewey, father of Experiential Education, introduced me to Constructivist educational thought and the hope that education isn’t limited to a “game” bearing only an abstract relationship to real life. Dewey envisioned a curriculum evolving from student interests with direct connections to life; unfortunately he did not develop a practical methodology, leaving a dream with no blueprint.

Each new educational thinker challenged my pre-conceptions about standard elements of traditional education standards such as grading, testing, and social reform. I was excited by the possibilities, but no one provided a concrete plan to make these ideas reality.

Graduating college, I began teaching high school art during the academic year and spending summers at SuperCamp, an academic/life skills program for students built on cognitive and neuropsychological research. I am fascinated by education built on an understanding of cognitive functions to fully engage the brain. After a few years I began looking into Montessori education and the more I learned about the Montessori Method the more I felt I was finding what education should be.

In future posts I will define current education terminology and discuss how these ideas relate to the Montessori Method. I believe Dr. Maria Montessori was the kind of genius seen once in a century, a Newton or Einstein of education. In 1906 she anticipated dozens of educational principles identified in recent decades through independent research. Her work influenced Jean Piaget, the father of developmental psychology, and Erik Erikson’s Psycho-Social Development theory. The Montessori Method is an impressive pedagogy that integrates many of the best educational practices for children and families.

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