Posted: August 1st, 2010 | Author: Joan Jaeckel | Filed under: Child mental health, Parenting, play, Teacher Training | No Comments »
PRESSURE TO PERFORM, SUCCEED, WIN, COMPETE, PLEASE
- NO RIGHT OR WRONG WAY TO PLAY: FREE, SELF-INITIATED PLAY WITH “LOOSE PARTS”.
Imagine a kindergarten where PLAY is the main subject. Where play is the pre-requisite for acquiring proficiency in the three R’s? Where free, experimental, child-initiated play is the pre-requisite for critical & creative thinking, getting along & collaborative networking, and taking individual initiative in life?
What if free play becomes the new way to keep students’ brains active?
Is there anything about the idea of non-prescriptive, self-directed, no-rules, no winners/losers play as children’s essential ‘work’ that worries you?
What are the obstacles you think stand in the way of giving L.A. children and students the play they need for a satisfying childhood and meaningful life?
How would your own life change if you adopted more of a no-right-or-wrong-way-to-play approach to your world-view, your relationships, your activities?
- “Building a Better Playground” TIME [video: http://bit.ly/bYfrIs] [story: http://bit.ly/bAMpXD]
- “State of Play” The New Yorker [article: http://bit.ly/aGkb95]
- Monique’s Magical Waldorf Kindergarten Class 2010 San Francisco: [video http://bit.ly/cRF27q]
CHILD-INITIATED PLAY GROUND: Who would we be if this was our daily experience as children?
TRY IT OUT FOR YOURSELF THIS SUMMER
“Play Every Day” ideas and fact sheet from the Alliance for Childhood
Posted: June 10th, 2010 | Author: Jennifer Patton | Filed under: Child mental health | Tags: aggression, commercial free childhood, television, toddlers, TV | 1 Comment »
The only reason i don’t have a ‘Kill Your Television’ sticker on my bumper is because I don’t know where to get one. I try not to proselytize to my parent friends who find nothing wrong with TV in their homes, and of course I understand what a handy tool an age-appropriate DVD, TV program, or a YouTube can be when you just need a little time to get something done or on a road trip or airplane flight.
photo credit MikeWebkist
Lately, fellow development team member Julia P. has been getting me all riled up about television’s assault on children’s minds. It’s becoming more and more difficult to keep my dirty secret that we don’t watch TV in my house.
Especially when I run across an article like this – I read a brief snippet in a magazine on recent research that links toddler aggression to too much television exposure. I followed the link they gave and found the root article online, which I share with you here – and especially you, Julia P!
“TV is not a benign influence. It does have impact,” said Richard Gallagher, director of the Parenting Institute at the New York University Child Study Center in New York City. And, while content may impact children, he pointed out that children’s behaviors may also be affected by the “opportunities lost.”
That about sums it up for me; not only does television have a negative influence, it also keeps kids sitting indoors passively when they could be outdoors playing in the sunshine.
What do you think? Please share with me your links to other research and articles about the hazards of television for developing minds. Opinions and research of dissent are totally welcome too. Let’s hear it.
Posted: April 24th, 2010 | Author: Joan Jaeckel | Filed under: Child mental health, Inventing markers for public schools inspired by Waldorf education, Teacher Training | No Comments »
The young son of Chilean biologist, Humberto Maturana, became unhappy at school because he felt his teachers were making it impossible for him to learn. “I only want to enjoy my childhood, ma.” So his father wrote, for him and all students:
The Student’s Prayer
Don’t impose on me what you know,
I want to explore the unknown
And be the source of my own discoveries.
Let the known be my liberation, not my slavery.
The world of your truth can be my limitation;
Your wisdom my negation.
Don’t instruct me; let’s walk together.
Let my richness begin where yours ends.
Show me so that I can stand
On your shoulders.
Reveal yourself so that I can be
Something different.
You believe that every human being
Can love and create.
I understand, then, your fear
When I ask you to live according to your wisdom.
You will not know who I am
By listening to yourself.
Don’t instruct me; let me be.
Your failure is that I be identical to you.”
Posted: April 22nd, 2010 | Author: Joan Jaeckel | Filed under: Child mental health, Education Policy, events, K-12 curriculum, Parenting | No Comments »
TODAY’S CULTURE is increasingly interested in mental fitness. Yet, despite the staggering amount of new information in the popular media about children’s healthy brain development, the data is not being applied practically in most K-12 schools’ curriculum or methods of teaching. The result, says an educational psychologist, are “escalating rates of learning and behavioral disorders”. “Crisis in the Kindergarten” tells us even the youngest have an opinion.
Yes. Dr. Jane Healy‘s research suggests to her that the pressure curriculum of today’s one-size fits all classroom “can be the cause of learning disorders”.
To effect a change of the world’s mind about how to educate children for mental health Waldorf educators are teaming up with various colleges, universities and childhood mental health organizations in the Sacramento area to put on a day-long workshop by an educational psychologist, Dr. Jane Healy, based on her new book, “Different Minds”, called “Developing Creative Minds: How Genes, Brains, Homes and Schools Interact to Help Children Succeed (or not)”.
Details here.
Posted: April 17th, 2010 | Author: Joan Jaeckel | Filed under: Child mental health, Education Policy, Movies!, Parenting | No Comments »
Go the the website for the “Race to Nowhere: The Dark Side of America’s Achievement Culture”. Watch the three-minute trailer. Look for a screening near you. Heck, organize a screening. It’s a documentary film by a parent, Vicki Abeles, for parents, educators and anyone with an empathetic heart about the staggering increases in homework kids get and the resulting sleep deprivation, sedentary lifestyle and depression – even suicide – among kids who pick up on the pressure to ‘excel’, ‘succeed’, ‘achieve’ and ‘win’. This is the other side of the ‘achievement gap’. This is the ‘achievement trap’.
