When my daughter started kindergarten there were 3 ELL children 1 had been in Canada 2 weeks and spoke no English. Within a month that girl was speaking broken English and communicating with most of the kids in the class. The more she was exposed to other English speaking kids the better she spoke. She speaks beautifully now, with no accent, she also helped her mom speak English by practicing with her.

That said, I still am not a huge supporter of all day kindergarten, and I've already mentioned that in previous blogs, but if it will get me a full time position, I'll work with it (for now).

Now for year round school....Aghhhhhhh!!!!!!!!, Please... can't our children have time to explore the world? Can't they have unprogrammed time to figure out who they are? And can't they have free time to learn how to entertain themselves (self regulation, time for development of imagination and all that stuff).

As for rankings and GCI, It takes about 14 years of education to finish high school, and about 20 years to finish an undergrad. If we are to connect GCI to education pillars and ranking shouldn't we connect the GCI to the country's education level ranking from At Least 20 years prior? Just a thought. And yes, I do agree that GCI is affected by many more criteria than education, (international trade for one) but a country's quality of education does help.

As for our amazing school system (yes Canada does have very good standings educationally), why is it that after 13 years of school, college, university courses, I only first heard of the residential schools four years ago? (I knew about internment camps but not residential schools) At least now, we are finally starting to admit to our appauling behavior. Hopefully we have learned from our behavior and do not repeat these sins.

One more unrelated note. Thank you for your support, understanding and putting up with all of my classroom comments (I couldn't help myself because I thoroughly enjoyed your course).

I never really connected all day kingergarten to any head start program. I was always under the assumption that headstart programs were meant to prepare at risk children for their future school years by exposing the children to educational resources (books, songs, games and interaction) that they may not be receiving at home and parental support. I suppose that a full day program could give at risk children more opportunities to be exposed to language and language development tools but I can't help but feel its a situation of too little too late. Ideally, we want children to have plenty of exposure to books and parental interaction long before kindergarten. I believe true headstart programs have enormous benefits to at risk children and families regardless of skewed studies and politicians with different agendas.

Unfortunately, I'm not convinced that all day kindergarten will have the same benefits and don't think they should really be compared to each other. Personally I'm glad my children were not in all day kindergarten, because the half day system allowed me to spend time with my kids. I do believe that they benefited from the experience. But, I was lucky, not many parents have that same luxury and desperately need daycare for their children. Full time kindergarten eases the financial load a great deal and provides a structured environment that benefits some children. I hope that all day kindergarten will be beneficial to the children enrolled in it and it may even raise EQAO scores down the road.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if all learning environments consisted almost entirely of active learning! Sarena mentioned in her lecture that university students can focus for about 15 minutes in a lecture. That focus time decreases dramatically and incrementally for senior, intermediate, junior and primary students. Lectures like Serena's are particularily poignant for me as I contemplate my teaching style and its effects on my future students.

As a parent I've always subscribed to the belief that providing my children an opportunity to make their own discoveries is extremely important in their intellectual development. As a teacher, I've also seen first hand, the difference in the motivation level of students when they are actively engaged in their learning compared to being passively engaged. They retain much more of what they learn too. Why then do elementary teachers fall back on giving photocopies of seat work to their students? Some elements of the school curriculum lend themselves to active learning more than others. Some aspects are learned best through repetition. Active learning lessons take a great deal of time. The process of making your own discoveries takes much more time than being given the answers and frankly, there isn't enough time in the school day to cover the entire curriculum effectively as it stands. So... teachers need to blend active and passive learning opportunities. I also believe that passive learning opportunities are necessary to help child develop the skills needed for sustained attention. Let's face it, sometimes people need to just shut up and listen.

So yes, I will plan as many lessons as I can to actively engage my students, but I will also need to blend some passive learning opportunities into my lesson plans as well. Hopefully, I will find the balance that provides enough active learning opportunities to engage, excite and motivate my students, and enough passive learning opportunities to develop skills and help develop their sustained attention.

Three interesting presentations this week.
When Natanel started his, I got a little concerned because the topic of his was the Importance of Parental Interaction and my presentation involves parental input/interaction and the social aspects of language. But fortunately, most of what he spoke about was different from what I will present. Watching the video of the still face experiment was extremely difficult for me to watch. I don't know how that mother was able to continue with her still face for as long as she did. I wonder if the experience stayed with the infant for any length of time. Children need to feel as if their primary caregiver will always be there for them. The still faced mother almost appeared as if she had been turned off and was no longer present mentally. Will the child fear the mother returning to that state? I can understand why it would be so difficult to get ethical approval to run an experiment with still face in it. As an adult, I think I would be bothered by someone using the still face with me, although, I would probably be much more concerned for the person with the still face. Quite interesting idea though.

The one point that sort of stuck with me with Emanuella's presentation was the assumption shown in the video that women know how to parent instinctively, and that men don't know how (or are struggling to figure it out). I believe that is, sort of a load of rubbish. The truth is people assume women will instinctively know how to parent, but that is where the problem lies. When a new mother is feeling unsure, she often is pressured by the perception that she should know what to do. Often mother's are embarrassed to admit they aren't sure what to do, after all, aren't we all supposed to be born knowing how to parent? I have yet to meet a new mother who isn't feeling a little insecure about her ability to be a good mother - and most won't talk about it until they've become more comfortable with their new role. After 15 years of mothering I'm still not exactly sure what the right thing to do is in every situation. My mother tells me, that after 55 years of mothering, she's still not sure (and I think she's an amazing mom). So I guess, women don't instinctively know how to mother.

I'm always intrigued by infants ability to recognize all phones and phonemes and their eventual loss of that ability. I'm looking forward to watching the online video of the demonstration from Wendy's presentation.

Just checked out the KidSpark webpage and kinda kicking myself for not discovering it sooner. Inquiry based learning is such a huge part of the education philosophy right now, and after 3 years in York's Concurrent Ed program I definitely know the benefits of having children find and answer their own questions. When students are involved in their own learning, they make a much deeper connection to the material - it sticks with them for a long time. Talk about intrinisically motivating students! I just checked out the program for March at KidSpark and I'm pretty sure my kids would've loved them when they were younger, especially Gross Olympics (on second thought, they probably would still love playing around there). Never thought, to find interesting and engaging lesson plans by googling - inquiry based lessons. I will definitely be adding that to my lesson plan research repetoire (Thanks Kelly).

The overschedulization of children has been a concern of mine for quite a long time. I have always believed that giving children free time, allows them to develop their imagination, creativity, intelligence and quest for knowledge. Not to mention gives them time to discover who they are and what they can do. Having time to investigate a blade of grass while playing outside can instill curiosity about the world in a child.

It's interesting that ADHD rates rise as time for imaginative play decrease. (I do not consider time spent in front of a tv, gaming system of computer terminal free time. It consumes your attention without allowing you time to imagine.) It was mentioned in the presentation that pretend play helps develop impulse control. If that is true, than maybe the risk of developing ADHD increases when children have not had plenty of opportunity to entertain themselves.

Even though all-day kindergarten may allow me find a teaching position (yes, most of the teacher candidates are excited about this), I can't help but feel the implementation of all day kindergarten may have some drawbacks. After logging many hours in JK and SK classes, I have seen how tired the children become after a half day of classes. I've also seen how difficult it can be for 1 teacher (and a parent volunteer) to manage 18 tired four year olds. I'm concerned that parent volunteers will drop off dramatically after ECEs are brought into the classroom, so the thought of upping the class size to 26 will be very tough on everyone.

From what I've seen, getting testing for potential ADHD, LD, mentally retarded and many other disorders is held often for years. It has little to do with teachers identifying at risk kids. Waiting lists for psyc evaluations often take years (8 years in the case of the son of a friend of mine), so the claim that all day kindergarten will assist educators in identifying at risk kids is meritless.

I'm also concerned that the students will be pushed a little too hard for their age group. The report commented that kindergarten should be a place to learn through play. That claim is idealistic. No matter how much teachers are not supposed to teach to EQAO, administrators are quite concerned with low scores and push teachers to prepare the kids years in advance. Will administrators start pushing the literacy skills even harder in kindergarten? How will December babies and slower learners keep up with the increased work load?

Funny, how much more relevant the articles on adolescents' dating are when your 12 year old tells you she has a boyfriend....

Can't say that any of the information in the articles was surprising... But, as a parent, it was reassuring to read that the inevitable break-up will actually be good for her (even though I knew that, it's different when its your kid).

Wow, I really enjoyed Dr. Jim Stieben's lecture on Monday. Who would'da ever figured a talk about the anterior cingulate could be that interesting.

DIR seems like such a natural way to interact with children, especially special needs kids. After spending many many hours supply teaching in special needs classrooms, I realize how frustrating it can be to try to interact with an autistic kid. Without knowing what I was doing, I have in fact (on a very minor level) utilized some of the DIR techniques to play with one student in particular (Although, he is rather high functioning and does have some language). Wouldn't it be amazing if we could provide enough support to families of autistic kids to allow for DIR and ABA therapy. It would be even more amazing if we could take Cuba's lead and attempt to identify and treat autistic symptoms in children as early as three months of age.

As a (future) educator and definitely as a mother, bullying is an enormous concern for me. In the classroom I try to be sensitive to signs of bullying. At home, my husband and I have always tried to instill compassion in our children, so that they would reach out to others who were left out or centred out.

A little over a year ago we discovered our confident, rather large, very strong for his age son was being bullied by a 'good' friend. Even though he knew the threats he was receiving would not be carried out (the bully was smaller and weaker than him) he felt that he had to take the verbal threats and not defend his honour or himself. The bully was the center of all the grade eight boys. They shared all of the same friends. He knew he could easily put a stop to the cyber threats at home and the embarassing taunts at school by confronting the bully. He also knew if he confronted him, their shared friends would have to choose between the two of them. He was pretty sure they would pick the side of the school's coolest kid. After two months he had enough and responded to the threat "you wanna go" with yes! Without hurting the boy, he put him in a submission hold on the ground in a matter of a second or two. The boy cried foul, my son let him up. The boy lunged for him and my son put him back on the ground in a submission hold. The bully was embarassed. My son won the fight, but lost the battle. The bully has never threatened him since, but did put pressure on the other kids not to hand around him. Our son started to become socially isolated. Many of the 'friends' choose cool. Instead of always having tons of buddies around, he only had a few.

It's taken a year, but some of the old friends are starting to come around again. My son puts up with them but feels betrayed and prefers the friends who stuck around him.

As a parent, we really felt like we could do nothing to put an end to it and all we could do was support him. If we turned to the school, we knew the social isolation would become worse.

Our son never lost his sense of confidence and did not regret standing up to the boy (although, he's lucky the boy didn't want to retaliate with a weapon), because losing a few friends was better than putting up with the harassment. He was lucky, he's the type of kid who will always have a few friends around.

The antibullying video you posted, drove home how detrimental bullying can be. There are no easy solutions to bullying. Hopefully, videos like this will help bystanders choose to be strong and back the victim. Adults can provide emotional support to the victim, they must provide safety, but they can't stop the social isolation that bullys can orchestrate. All adults can do is to try to instill a social consciousness in our adolescents.

After listening to Dr. Stuart Shanker's radio broadcast about the Bonobo Apes, I couldn't help but research the topic further. I found an amazing TEDtalks video at: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/susan_savage_rumbaugh_on_apes_that_write.html with Susan Savage-Rumbaugh presenting her research and videos on the Bonobo Apes she works with.

Probably what stuck with me most after listening to Dr Shanker's broadcast was the fact the these apes have the ability to not only learn another language, they have in fact learned two languages (spoken english, and a form of sign language).

If it is true that we lose our ability to learn language without exposure before the age of 6, then it seems reasonable that apes would lose that ability at some point as well. Considering the fact that these apes (of various ages) have learned human like language, then possibly some Chomskian, language acquisition device is present in them, which must mean the ape comunities must use some form of language to communicate. (Maybe if not an aquisition devise, possibly a biological predisposition towards language aquistion ). It is amusing that without being taught these apes have learned to understand our language, yet we still can't communicate with them in their language.

It is also quite amazing that this species has the ability for empathy and self soothing. Could we learn more about the treatment of conditions such as autism by observing Bonobos?

I'm still pretty intrigued by the brain plasticity video we watched last week. I can't help but wonder about all of the implications of brain plasticity, especially in areas such as PDD's, and learning disabilities (although many other areas have me interested too, like Alzheimers{family history and aging parents}). I found the link between reading disorders and processing rapid auditory signals pretty promising. (Been wondering about the link between auditory processing and dyslexia for a couple of years myself). The fact that training the neural systems responsible for this processing is improving reading skills in the reading disordered kids, has me pretty optimistic that similar training may improve other L.D.'s. (from the Foundations for a New Science of Learning article) The research with externalizing/internalizing comorbid kids and the Go/No Go testing could lead to new types of therapy for these kids (including ADHD kids).

I'm not sure how much of the information on MNS I fully understand, but I found the connection to Autism (and ASD) rather interesting. (interesting article on the deficit of MNS in autistic individuals at this site, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/04/050411204511.htm) If you consider that children with autism have dysfunction with the MNS its easy to make a connection between the MNS and development of social relationships through responding to others with mimicry . Infants who are later diagnosed with Autism respond differently to their parents almost immediately, they don't recognize faces as distinct from objects which could mean that they are not programmed to watch facial expressions in order to mimic them. Parents have reported that their infants did not follow their gaze, but also did not respond to a parents embrace/hold. Instead of imitating the parents embrace and snuggling in, they lay limp which could be interpreted as not mimicking the embrace. I guess what I'm trying to say is in retrospect many parents of autistic children recognize differences in their autistic babies almost from the start of life. If the MNS is responsible for much of the social deficiencies in autistic people, it possibly provides evidence of the existance of the MNS at birth. It could be that the reason that a confident diagnosis of autism can't be made until children are older (6-10) is because either the MNS is still developing, or because the effects of inability to mimic create an escalating problem that isn't fully visible until later.

As would be expected, after reading all of the articles on attachment it appears secure attachment is quite important in the lives of infants, children and adolescents.

It seems like common sense, when a child has a secure bond with their parents they are free to explore the world without the fear of being left alone to fend for themselves. They develop confidence in their ability to face the world because they have an inner sense that they are not alone. Although not every securely attached individual has high self confidence, there is no doubt that if you didn't develop a secure attachment your confidence level has got to be affected negatively.

Secure attachment helps us believe that ultimately, everything will be all right and that we have alternatives. Just like the female rats that did not receive affectionate licking from their mothers, humans that received lesser amounts of affection and bonding are more likely to be victimized. Perhaps, in humans its a belief that they are not worthy of better. Like the rats, humans exposed to stressful situations (natural disasters etc.) will have less innate factors to protect them from anxiety if they didn't have that initial secure attachment. Perhaps, your initial belief as an infant that your protector will always come back to you, protects you when you mature into an adolescent (and even as an adult) from disasters by giving you a sense that you are not alone and you are protected.

Over the past year or two (which coincides with the maturation level of my children), I've started to believe that adolescents begin pulling from their parents (and increasing conflict) in order to enable them to go out into that big bad world (and it also helps the parents let them go). Maybe as siblings begin to get older, they realize its them against their parents and they start to transfer their parental bonds to their sibling (who should be around for most of their lives).

My grandmother, who would be over 100 now (if she were still alive) was a firm believer in physical contact between mother and infant. She often reminded my mother, (who reminded me) how important it was to hold our babies, cuddle them, message their feet, stroke their backs, speak directly to them, make eye contact, etc. She was a peasant, who never had the opportunity to go to high school, but still, she new that it was imperative to the babies well being to have positive physical and mental stimulation from their caregivers. She didn't talk about attachment but she did say babies needed to feel secure if they were going to grow up "into good people". She said that loving physical contact made babies more alert and inquisitive. She also believed this close contact with the baby would make the trials of sleepless nights and collic more bearable for the new mother.

It's a little funny that science has finally caught up to the wisdom of another 'old wives' tale.

It is apparent that almost every aspect of our lives is effected by our attachment style. How we handle stress, issues of trust, risk taking, our self confidence and many other things are effected by the relationships we had/have with our caregivers.

At first, I was surprised to read that rats were so overtly effected by lack of maternal grooming but the more I thought about it the more it made sense. Social animals need to feel secure emotionally and physically. Even rats need to feel loved in order to function in society (and yes, rats live in a rat society).

While reading this study I was reminded of Harlow's Monkeys and how important warmth and security was to their behavior. (I've attached a link to a UTube video of Harlow's monkeys)

While reading the other two studies on attachment I realized the role attachment can play in personality disorders and mental health issues such as depression. I wonder how can we undo the effects of insecure types of attachment. I also wonder if educating at risk expectant parents of the requirements for secure attachment to develop would suffice. Surely, many of us know the correct way to act, but aren't always capable of following through.

We know the importance of developing secure attachment, but what next? Can we do anything to reduce insecure attachement?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsA5Sec6dAI&feature=related

I was happily surprised to read the requirements necessary to become a Naturopathic Doctor and Naturopathic Midwife. I was also surprised to hear how few naturopathic midwives there are in Ontario.

Ideally, its wonderful if want-to-be mothers have the opportunity to create ideal preconception and conception conditions. Although I have my doubts about the ability to detoxify the body by cleansing your colon, especially after having heard how things my mother was exposed to could effect my child (or even my child's child).

I also found it hard to accept the line "When both parents are working hard to pay attention to achieving optimal health before conception, the health of both parents is reflected in healthy pregnancies and healthy babies". Yes, I agree that parents have a responsibility to avoid any substance or life style that can be detrimental to the health of the baby, but that line almost blames parents when things go wrong. And things do sometimes go wrong, no matter how hard you work to achieve optimal health, or how healthy you are. Unfortunately, comments like that lead people to believe that all miscarriages, birth defects and any health issues in the baby are directly linked to behavior of the parents. Sometimes the egg just doesn't develop properly and sometimes genetic issues are present that can not be changed prior to conception. Sometimes things just happen and when they do, the parents have enough to deal with, without adding to the problem with guilt for being at fault.

After reading the Arsenault article I couldn't help but wonder, have any studies been done to track the behavior of children born during OB complications from 'supportive' families? What is the damaging factor that seems to be undone by stable supportive families? Is it that these children have learned to suppress violent or deliquent behavior?

My next question is, what are the rates of complications in births from 'at risk' mothers? Is it possible that the mothers of children who are violent and delinquent have higher risk of OB complications, possibly because of lower SES factors?

What is the percentage of birth complications in the general public?

I also wonder what the common factor is between each of the complication factors studied. I imagine the prolapsed cord and forceps can easily restrict blood flow during delivery, but what is the common factor in preeclampsia and induction? Is it possible that these difficult deliveries interfere with the at risk mother's bonding with her child?

Just so many questions, and possible confounds....

Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009

After reading the initial studies relating birth rate to CHD and diabetes I was somewhat relieved that both of my children were a healthy birth rate (and maintained a steady rate of growth)... Then I read the studies relating birth weight with breast cancer risk. Thank God that we have no family history of breast cancer.

In regards to the study of Swedish woman I wondered what the average birth weight of Swedish children is in relation to the rest of the population (I realize that some cultures usually have larger or smaller babies). I also am curious as to what the national breast cancer rates are like compared to other cultures. Can we generalize the birth weight and associated risk to other cultures?

I also wonder if there is some other variable at work. Some woman are genetically predisposed to larger babies just as some woman have a higher risk of breast cancer. Would trying to mediate the birth weight of babies alter their later breast cancer risk or is there some other factor that is correlated to both? Of course this would be a rather unethical study (considering low birth rate is a risk factor in CHD, diabetes as well as other health problems). I do know that OB's go through phases where they suggest different ideal weight gains for their pregnant patients. Possibly, large babies who's mothers only gained 20 lbs. etc. could be compared to those who gained more.????? Not sure if that would answer my question or not. I guess my question is what is causing the weight of the baby, hormones, genetics or maternal caloric intake? and which factor is related to breast cancer?

P.S. I googled the image and used it from the site www.babytalkers.com

This is my new blog, updates will appear shortly.