Playing to Learn - NYTimes.com
Op-Ed Contributor - Playing to Learn - NYTimes.com
THE Obama administration is planning some big changes to how we measure the success or failure of schools and how we apportion federal money based on those assessments. It’s great that the administration is trying to undertake reforms, but if we want to make sure all children learn, we will need to overhaul the curriculum itself. Our current educational approach — and the testing that is driving it — is completely at odds with what scientists understand about how children develop during the elementary school years and has led to a curriculum that is strangling children and teachers alike.
In order to design a curriculum that teaches what truly matters, educators should remember a basic precept of modern developmental science: developmental precursors don’t always resemble the skill to which they are leading. For example, saying the alphabet does not particularly help children learn to read. But having extended and complex conversations during toddlerhood does. Simply put, what children need to do in elementary school is not to cram for high school or college, but to develop ways of thinking and behaving that will lead to valuable knowledge and skills later on.
(End Goal) -
So what should children be able to do by age 12, or the time they leave elementary school? They should be able to read a chapter book, write a story and a compelling essay; know how to add, subtract, divide and multiply numbers; detect patterns in complex phenomena; use evidence to support an opinion; be part of a group of people who are not their family; and engage in an exchange of ideas in conversation. If all elementary school students mastered these abilities, they would be prepared to learn almost anything in high school and college.
Theoretical Classroom
Imagine, for instance, a third-grade classroom that was free of the laundry list of goals currently harnessing our teachers and students, and that was devoted instead to just a few narrowly defined and deeply focused goals.
In this classroom, children would spend two hours each day hearing stories read aloud, reading aloud themselves, telling stories to one another and reading on their own. After all, the first step to literacy is simply being immersed, through conversation and storytelling, in a reading environment; the second is to read a lot and often. A school day where every child is given ample opportunities to read and discuss books would give teachers more time to help those students who need more instruction in order to become good readers.
Children would also spend an hour a day writing things that have actual meaning to them — stories, newspaper articles, captions for cartoons, letters to one another. People write best when they use writing to think and to communicate, rather than to get a good grade.
In our theoretical classroom, children would also spend a short period of time each day practicing computation — adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. Once children are proficient in those basics they would be free to turn to other activities that are equally essential for math and science: devising original experiments, observing the natural world and counting things, whether they be words, events or people. These are all activities children naturally love, if given a chance to do them in a genuine way.
What they shouldn’t do is spend tedious hours learning isolated mathematical formulas or memorizing sheets of science facts that are unlikely to matter much in the long run. Scientists know that children learn best by putting experiences together in new ways. They construct knowledge; they don’t swallow it.
Along the way, teachers should spend time each day having sustained conversations with small groups of children. Such conversations give children a chance to support their views with evidence, change their minds and use questions as a way to learn more.
During the school day, there should be extended time for play. Research has shown unequivocally that children learn best when they are interested in the material or activity they are learning. Play — from building contraptions to enacting stories to inventing games — can allow children to satisfy their curiosity about the things that interest them in their own way. It can also help them acquire higher-order thinking skills, like generating testable hypotheses, imagining situations from someone else’s perspective and thinking of alternate solutions.
A classroom like this would provide lots of time for children to learn to collaborate with one another, a skill easily as important as math or reading. It takes time and guidance to learn how to get along, to listen to one another and to cooperate. These skills cannot be picked up casually at the corners of the day.
The reforms suggested by the administration on Monday have the potential to help liberate our schools. But they can only do so much. Our success depends on embracing a curriculum focused on essential skills like reading, writing, computation, pattern detection, conversation and collaboration — a curriculum designed to raise children, rather than test scores.
Maurice Sendak and Child Psychology, Books that influence our World View
Maurice Sendak and child psychology - 1989 article - "Taming the wild things - Maurice Sendak and child psychology"
A lot of people specify 3 books that influenced their world view here - http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2004/12/
Excerpts from 1989 article -
Child development experts agree with Sendak. The distinguished child psychologist, Bruno Bettleheim, writes that today, as in times past, the most important task in raising a child is helping him to find meaning in life.[4] Many experiences are required to achieve this, for the child, as he develops, must learn step by step to understand himself better. With this knowledge he becomes more able to understand others and eventually to relate to them in meaningful ways.Excerpts from futureofthebook.org's link -
As a therapist of severely disturbed children, Bettleheim's main task was to restore meaning to their lives. He was confronted with the problem of finding out what experiences in a child's life are most suited to assist him in finding meaning in life and concluded that the most important experience was the impact of parents and others who care for the child. Next in importance was the impact of his cultural heritage, which, when children are young, is best communicated by literature.
In looking at literature for children, Bettleheim was deeply dissatisfied with preprimers and primers designed to teach necessary skills, irrespective of meaning, or with other child literature designed to entertain, irrespective of substance. To Bettleheim, nothing can be as enriching and satisfying to the child as fairy tales because they deal with inner problems of human beings and with useful solutions to their predicaments.
From another vantage point, educator Sara Zimet, in looking at primary reading texts, faults them for not dealing directly with people's aggressive drives.[5] Depiction of complexity in personality, of negative as well as positive emotions, helps the child-reader better to understand both the direction diverse drives can take him and the direction in which he can take them. Zimet cautions that unless we are successful in affording children more meaningful reading materials, we cannot expect them to want to read or to prepare themselves well in school for active participation in their society.
One remarkable fact which you'll notice when you look at the lists is the fantastic diversity in print culture. One can only dream that we will one day have such rich variety among works which are born digital.
This experiment of course hints at the bigger question: are books as important today in terms of forming world view as they were 35-40 years ago, and if not, what is taking their place? Most importantly: if not, what effect does the shift in dominant media have on the creation of world view?
