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Strollerderby
I remember watching an old movie with my father — I think it starred Jimmy Stewart — about an FBI agent and thinking, as agents slipped into phone booths during a manhunt at a ballgame, about how different the world was given the technological advances we’d seen since the movie was made. No longer are secret agents searching out payphones; even the most humdrum Walter Mitty type has a relatively powerful cell phone. But do such devices really have a place in education? There are those who believe the answer is a decisive “yes”.
It’s no secret that our schools, in general, are not doing the best they could be at educating our children. Some blame the teachers, saying they are slackers who only teach because they aren’t qualified to do anything else. Others put the blame on parents who don’t take time to emphasize the importance of education at home and who can’t — or won’t — support teachers by working with their children to reinforce what they have learned in class. In reality, it’s probably some of both. There are certainly a lot of hard-working, dedicated teachers out there, but some are more effective than others — what if we could make every teacher as good as the best teachers? Some researchers think they have the means to do that.
If the 2007 University of Washington study wasn’t enough to convince parents that Baby Einstein videos don’t turn babies into little Einsteins, perhaps this one will. In what is being called the most definitive study to date of the effectiveness of educational videos for babies, researchers at the University of California at Riverside investigated the Baby Wordsworth video from the Baby Einstein series.
The video, which claims to teach babies new vocabulary words, was found to have absolutely no impact whatsoever on language acquisition. Continue reading »
Do kids need Santa, or the Tooth Fairy? Maybe. A growing body of research suggests that children’s imagination is not simply an escape from reality, but an important learning skill on its own.
Imagination allows children to practice empathy, and some research is showing that children with autism rarely engage in fantasy play. That may contribute to their social deficits, according to this Wall Street Journal article. Continue reading »
Recently a commenter asserted that raising a child is identical to raising a dog. “Both can be encouraged to good behavior through rewards and discouraged from bad behavior through punishment.” “Both demand enthusiastic praise and consistant (sic) (non-angry) discipline.” “Just like a dog, you must put a plastic cone on a child’s head to keep them from chewing on their butt.” Okay, I made that last one up. Or did I?
Many took umbrage with the commenter’s remarks, but I (always the scientist) decided to put them to the test. Over a weekend I pitted my three-year-old against our 1 ½ year old border collie to once and for all resolve the question: who is smarter, a toddler or a dog? Here are the competitors.
As I’ve always said, the best way to reach kids is by framing the lesson through the malaise of post war America.
Today on Babble:
“The City Kid/Country Kid Reading List”
12 favorite books to make your child feel at home.
Read it here.
Lori Garcia 
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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