The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers – from NYTimes

A few weeks old, but I just caught wind of this article in the New York Times business section. It presents research based on adult outcomes rather than test scores about how an excellent Kindergarten teacher can have an excellent long-term effect for education.

Early this year, Mr. Chetty and five other researchers … examined the life paths of almost 12,000 children who had been part of a well-known education experiment in Tennessee in the 1980s. The children are now about 30, well started on their adult lives.

On Tuesday, Mr. Chetty presented the findings — not yet peer-reviewed — at an academic conference in Cambridge, Mass. They’re fairly explosive.

This is right in line with our thinking as we develop el Rio – one of our main core values being teacher support, empowerment, and professional development.

I don’t know about $320,000 salaries – we’ll have to sell a LOT of birds.

NY Times article: Can the Right Kind of Play Teach Self Control

In the 9/27/09 NY Times Sunday Magazine journalist Paul Tough takes a look at a new early education program called Tools of the Mind in his article Can the Right Kind of Play Teach Self Control.

“If you want to succeed in school and in life, they say, you first need to do what Abigail and Jocelyn and Henry have done every school day for the past two years: spend hour after hour dressing up in firefighter hats and wedding gowns, cooking make-believe hamburgers and pouring nonexistent tea, doing the hard, serious work of playing pretend.”

According to Tough’s article, Tools of the Mind program also incorporates techniques to nurture a child’s “executive function”, his/her ability to self-regulate behavior to work collaboratively and function socially.

Although researchers say they see some promising trends for kids learning, they also say they don’t know what aspect of Tools of the Mind is working. It could be any of the components (i.e. serious play which is a major component of Waldorf and Waldorf-inspired education) or any combination of the components. Regardless, the article offers a view from the Zeitgeist on early education.

What is “Waldorf” education?

“Waldorf education”  means an approach to parenting and education that produces a climate which is respectful and accepting of childhood and supportive of whatever level the individual child is capable achieving. In the U.S., Waldorf education is an initiative to move change in the mainstream educational system and an interconnected  learning organization of independent and public schools, homeschooling initiatives, teacher education colleges, teacher education for at-risk students, enrichment for public school teachers,  school leadership and adminstration courses, childcare centers, early childhood centers and early childhood and pre-school education, parentingsupport and resources,  Waldorf researchers and cognitive researchers, “extra lesson” (special education) practitioners, curative education communities, play specialists, and research on learning difficulties.  Waldorf education is also a worldwide movement.