Archive | December, 2012

The 12/21/12 ‘Joy Jar’

30 Dec
Looks like we are all here and the world didn’t end. Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ is Dare to Be
“Dare to Be

When a new day begins, dare to smile gratefully.

When there is darkness, dare to be the first to shine a light.

When there is injustice, dare to be the first to condemn it.

When something seems difficult, dare to do it anyway.

When life seems to beat you down, dare to fight back.

When there seems to be no hope, dare to find some.

When you’re feeling tired, dare to keep going.

When times are tough, dare to be tougher.

When love hurts you, dare to love again.

When someone is hurting, dare to help them heal.

When another is lost, dare to help them find the way.

When a friend falls, dare to be the first to extend a hand.

When you cross paths with another, dare to make them smile.

When you feel great, dare to help someone else feel great too.

When the day has ended, dare to feel as you’ve done your best.

Dare to be the best you can –

At all times, Dare to be!”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

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The 12/21/12 ‘Joy Jar’

30 Dec
Depending upon whom you believe, December 21 will be the end of the world. Not for moi, she is starting a ‘Joy Jar.’ Every day she will put a positive affirmative or goal in her jar for the next year. December 21 truly is the beginning of the rest of moi’s life. The first affirmation:

New International Version (©1984) Psalm 118:24
This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
This is moi’s change:

This is the year that the LORD has made, moi will rejoice and be glad in it.

Happy December 21!

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Study: Kindness helps students become more popular and improves school culture

30 Dec

Whenever there is a mass murder like happened at Virginia Tech or Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, the focus turns to the killer. Often,these killers are loners with few social skills. Sarah D. Sparks wrote Education Week article Experts Begin to Identify Nonacadmic Skills Key to Success which examines some of the traits which can lead to success both in college and later life.

Dispositions for Success

Across education and industry, research by Mr. Sackett; Neal Schmitt, a psychology professor at Michigan State University in East Lansing; and others shows the biggest predictor of success is a student’s conscientiousness, as measured by such traits as dependability, perseverance through tasks, and work ethic. Agreeableness, including teamwork, and emotional stability were the next-best predictors of college achievement, followed by variations on extroversion and openness to new experiences, Mr. Sackett found.

“If you take a close look at these commercial tests [given during job interviews], they are compound traits of the top three traits” predicting post-high school success, he said, and the top three traits are also closely associated with a student’s ability to perform well on a task and avoid bad work behavior, such as theft or absenteeism.

Each student’s personality is different, of course, Mr. Sackett said, but, “we have to differentiate between that and behavior.”

“You can learn to behave contrary to your disposition,” he added. “You can learn to behave in dependable ways. For some people, it’s second nature, for others, it’s a real struggle.” Either way, he said, schools can teach and measure noncognitive, college-readiness skills just as they do reading or mathematics—and they may be just as important.

More and more researchers are beginning to study the concept of emotional intelligence.

Business Balls.Com has a concise summary of emotional intelligence:

Emotional Intelligence – EQ – is a relatively recent behavioural model, rising to prominence with Daniel Goleman’s 1995 Book called ‘Emotional Intelligence’. The early Emotional Intelligence theory was originally developed during the 1970s and 80s by the work and writings of psychologists Howard Gardner (Harvard), Peter Salovey (Yale) and John ‘Jack’ Mayer (New Hampshire). Emotional Intelligence is increasingly relevant to organizational development and developing people, because the EQ principles provide a new way to understand and assess people’s behaviours, management styles, attitudes, interpersonal skills, and potential. Emotional Intelligence is an important consideration in human resources planning, job profiling, recruitment interviewing and selection, management development, customer relations and customer service, and more.

Emotional Intelligence links strongly with concepts of love and spirituality: bringing compassion and humanity to work, and also to ‘Multiple Intelligence’ theory which illustrates and measures the range of capabilities people possess, and the fact that everybody has a value.

The EQ concept argues that IQ, or conventional intelligence, is too narrow; that there are wider areas of Emotional Intelligence that dictate and enable how successful we are. Success requires more than IQ (Intelligence Quotient), which has tended to be the traditional measure of intelligence, ignoring eseential behavioural and character elements. We’ve all met people who are academically brilliant and yet are socially and inter-personally inept. And we know that despite possessing a high IQ rating, success does not automatically follow.

Researchers are studying social interactions among students and how these interactions affect the climate of a school.

Mathew Tabor writes in the Education News article, Research: For Students, Kindness to Others Boosts Popularity, which describes a study about kindness behavior among adolescents.

In the wake of the Newtown shootings, social interactions between students is gaining more attention, with some experts saying that the way students treat each other can be a determining factor in a school’s overall well-being. And now research from Kristin Layous, a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside may show that students who are kind to their peers experience an individual benefit — a boost in popularity.

In an observational study of students in Vancouver, British Columbia, researchers had students aged 9-11 perform three acts of kindness per week over the course of a month, while others visited three places. Results showed that:

“Students in both conditions improved in well-being, but students who performed kind acts experienced significantly bigger increases in peer acceptance (or sociometric popularity) than students who visited places.”In short, students demonstrating kindness reaped benefits of their own as their peers recognized their efforts and rewarded them socially.

There appears to be a reciprocal link between student happiness and positive behavior. Happier students tend to be kinder to others, and extending kindness to peers results in happier students. http://www.educationnews.org/k-12-schools/research-for-students-kindness-to-others-boosts-popularity/

Here is a portion of the press release:

Kindness Counts: Prompting Prosocial Behavior in Preadolescents Boosts Peer Acceptance and Well-Being

  • Kristin Layous mail,
  • S. Katherine Nelson,
  • Eva Oberle,
  • Kimberly A. Schonert-Reichl,
  • Sonja Lyubomirsky

Abstract

At the top of parents’ many wishes is for their children to be happy, to be good, and to be well-liked. Our findings suggest that these goals may not only be compatible but also reciprocal. In a longitudinal experiment conducted in 19 classrooms in Vancouver, 9- to 11-year olds were instructed to perform three acts of kindness (versus visit three places) per week over the course of 4 weeks. Students in both conditions improved in well-being, but students who performed kind acts experienced significantly bigger increases in peer acceptance (or sociometric popularity) than students who visited places. Increasing peer acceptance is a critical goal, as it is related to a variety of important academic and social outcomes, including reduced likelihood of being bullied. Teachers and interventionists can build on this study by introducing intentional prosocial activities into classrooms and recommending that such activities be performed regularly and purposefully.

Citation: Layous K, Nelson SK, Oberle E, Schonert-Reichl KA, Lyubomirsky S (2012) Kindness Counts: Prompting Prosocial Behavior in Preadolescents Boosts Peer Acceptance and Well-Being. PLoS ONE 7(12): e51380. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0051380

Editor: Frank Krueger, George Mason University/Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, United States of America

Received: August 12, 2012; Accepted: November 6, 2012; Published: December 26, 2012

Copyright: © 2012 Layous et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: These authors have no support or funding to report.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

* E-mail: klayo001@ucr.edu

Introduction

At the top of parents’ many wishes is for their children to be happy, to be good, and to have positive relationships with others [1]–[2]. Fortunately, research suggests that goals for happiness, prosociality, and popularity may not only be compatible but also reciprocal. Happy people are more likely to engage in prosocial behavior [3]–[4] and have satisfying friendships [5]. Similarly, students who are well-liked by peers (i.e., sociometrically popular) are also helpful, cooperative, and emotionally well-adjusted [6]–[8]. Past studies indicate that the link between happiness and prosociality is bidirectional–not only do happy people have the personal resources to do good for others, but prompting people to engage in prosocial behavior also increases well-being [9]–[12]. Based on this prior research–which is predominantly cross-sectional–we predicted that prompting preadolescents to engage in prosocial behavior will boost not only their happiness but also their popularity.

To our knowledge, this study is the first longitudinal experimental intervention of prosocial behavior in preadolescents (“tweens”), and the first to link a manipulation of a simple helping behavior to increases in sociometric popularity (as assessed by peer reports). To explore whether doing good for others (versus engaging in a simple pleasant activity) over 4 weeks would simultaneously increase happiness and promote positive relationships with peers, we randomly assigned 9- to 11-year-olds either to perform acts of kindness (“kindness”) each week or to keep track of places they visited that week (“whereabouts”).

Although the efficacy of happiness-increasing strategies is better established in adults [13], some interventions have boosted well-being in children and adolescents by encouraging gratitude [14]–[15]. Prompting youth to engage in kind acts, however, may have benefits beyond personal happiness, as prosocial behavior predicts academic achievement and social acceptance in adolescents [16]. The dearth of work on enhancing happiness and prosociality in youth, coupled with evidence of their many benefits, highlights the desirability of extending research to this age group.

We predicted that committing kind acts (e.g., carrying groceries) and tracking whereabouts (e.g., visiting grandma’s house or the mall) would both be rewarding activities that would increase well-being in preadolescents. Indeed, the whereabouts task was designed to be a mildly pleasant and distracting control activity (for similar mood-boosting benefits of such activities, see [17]–[18]). For ethical and pragmatic reasons, we wanted to avoid potential harm or waste by not administering the types of “neutral” activities previously used as control tasks (e.g., listing daily hassles or writing essays), which preadolescents may find boring, pointless, or even unpleasant. We also wanted to include a mildly positive comparison group to rule out the possibility that doing kindness increases popularity merely because it feels good. Accordingly, we expected students who practice kind acts–an activity that promotes positive relationships–to experience increases in peer acceptance in addition to increases in well-being. Distinct from other animals, humans as young as 18 months eagerly engage in altruistic acts [19], suggesting that prosociality has a unique evolutionary advantage for human social behavior. Indeed, prosocial behavior has a strong positive association with later peer acceptance [16], and this relationship is likely bidirectional, as children who feel accepted are more likely to do things for others [20], and, in turn, children who do things for others might gain the acceptance of their peers. This latter path has not been studied experimentally. Increasing peer acceptance is a critical goal, as it is related to a variety of important academic [21] and social [22] outcomes, including reduced likelihood of being bullied [23].

Discussion

Our study demonstrates that doing good for others benefits the givers, earning them not only improved well-being but also popularity. Considering the importance of happiness [27]–[28] and peer acceptance in youth [21]–[22], it is noteworthy that we succeeded in increasing both among preadolescents through a simple prosocial activity. Similar to being happy [29], being well-liked by classmates has ramifications not only for the individual, but also for the community at large. For example, well-liked preadolescents exhibit more inclusive behaviors and less externalizing behaviors (i.e., less bullying) as teens [20]. Thus, encouraging prosocial activities may have ripple effects beyond increasing the happiness and popularity of the doers (cf. [30]). Furthermore, classrooms with an even distribution of popularity (i.e., no favorite children and no marginalized children) show better average mental health than stratified classrooms [8], suggesting that entire classrooms practicing prosocial behavior may reap benefits, as the liking of all classmates soars. Teachers and interventionists can build on our work by introducing intentional prosocial activities into classrooms and recommending that such activities be performed regularly and purposefully.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: KL SKN EO KAS SL. Performed the experiments: KL EO. Analyzed the data: KL SKN. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: KL SKN EO KAS SL. Wrote the paper: KL SKN EO KAS SL.

See, Kindness Boosts Student Popularity, Study Shows http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2012/12/kindness_boosts_middle_school_.html

Creating a culture of kindness in schools has to be an intentional act.

The Arizona Daily Sun reports in the article, ‘Kindness Revolution’ at Killip leaves little room for bullying:

But as we reported earlier this month, even grade-schoolers are jumping on the anti-bullying bandwagon — even if they don’t know it. Killip Elementary School has started a “Kindness Revolution” that gives students tips on how they can make a positive contribution every day — a smile, a word of encouragement, a polite “thank you.” They’ve even learned a word — “empathy” — that most students a generation ago would not have encountered until about seventh grade.

But at Killip, it’s hard for bullies to get much traction when an entire school has signed a contract that binds them to treating each other with respect and compassion so that they feel “happy, safe and loved….”

Schools, of course, cannot entirely replace the life lessons that young people might be missing from parents, siblings, churches and other adult mentors. But as the place where a young person spends about half his waking hours through the age of 18, a school and its culture can’t help but be a major influence in much more than formal academic learning. We applaud Killip and its entire school community for taking a positive and creative approach to a problem — bullying — that has been identified as a major contributor to the behavioral problems of young males later in life. A little kindness indeed can go a long way.

Killip Kindness Revolution Contract

We as the Killip Community

Agree to treat others with kindness

In our words and in our actions

We will treat all people

With respect and as equals

So they feel happy, safe, and loved

We will show compassion

And we will help others in need

As a Killip Cougar

I will show kindness and respect

To all members of my community. http://azdailysun.com/news/opinion/editorial/kindness-revolution-at-killip-leaves-little-room-for-bullying/article_4077e426-f7f0-5859-8ee1-7310a66afecf.html

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu. Chinese philosopher (604 BC – 531 BC)

Resources:

Creating a Culture of Respect and Kindness http://www.growingseeds.net/respect.php

Prevent Bullying, Promote Kindness: 20 Things All Schools Can Do http://www2.cortland.edu/dotAsset/340b8b7f-e067-4231-9dd8-1eaed2a8962e.pdf

Related:

College readiness: What are ‘soft skills’                    https://drwilda.com/2012/11/14/college-readiness-what-are-soft-skills/

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IQ might not be the best measure of intelligence

29 Dec

Moi wrote about IQ tests in After the Bell Curve: Research starts the conversation about IQ, again:

Cam Soucy has written an excellent summary of IQ tests for the Livestrong site in the article, What Is the Definition of IQ Test?

History

French psychologist Alfred Binet developed the the first IQ-style tests at the beginning of the 20th century. The first tests were designed only to assess the intelligence of children. The U.S. military relied on intelligence testing to assess and place recruits during World Wars I and II. Psychologist David Wechsler used the military IQ tests as a model in devising his own test in 1949. Today, a group of tests derived from Wechsler’s work are the most widely used IQ tests.

Download Free White Paper on assessment and teaching from CTB/McGraw-Hill CTB.com

Tests

The fourth version of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, the WISC-IV, was released in 2009. A companion test, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, targets people 16 and older. Other frequently used IQ tests include the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, the Das-Naglieri Cognitive Assessment System and the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children.

Elements

IQ tests commonly assess the taker’s logical reasoning, math ability, spatial-relations skills, short-term memory and problem-solving skills.

Scoring

IQ tests originally were scored by dividing the subject’s “mental age,” as determined by which questions she answered correctly on the test, by her “chronological age,” her actual age in years, then multiplying that quotient by 100. For example, an 8-year-old child with a mental age of 12 would have an IQ of 125, with the calculation being 12/8 = 1.25, and 1.25 x 100 = 125. A person whose mental age precisely matched his actual age would have an IQ of 100, so a 100 IQ was defined as “average.”
Modern IQ tests no longer use such a formula. They simply compare a person’s test results with those of everyone else in the same age group, on a scale where 100 is defined as average intelligence.

Criticism

Criticism of IQ tests focuses on the content of the tests–that is, the type of questions they ask–and their application. Such areas as vocabulary and “logic” can be strongly influenced by culture and socioeconomics. For example, consider a test that asks what word goes best with “cup”: saucer, plate or bowl. The test may intend “saucer” to be the correct answer. However, a test-taker who grew up in a home where tables weren’t set in a formal fashion might not know what a saucer is. He may be just as “intelligent” as the next person, but his score will suffer because of cultural factors. Authors of IQ tests are continually refining tests to address such concerns; some tests have removed verbal elements entirely.
Even test creators argue that the results are only one tool for assessing a person’s abilities, and that “intelligence” in a person is not a fixed quality, but changeable–even from day to day. In reality, however, people and institutions tend to put great weight on IQ scores. Students have been labeled “learning disabled” based on the outcome of IQ tests alone. As authors revise their tests, they also are revising their instructions to stress the tests’ limited application. http://www.livestrong.com/article/130019-definition-iq-test/

Daniel Willingham, cognitive scientist and a psychology professor at the University of Virginia and author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?” His next book, “When Can You Trust The Experts? How to tell good science from bad in education,” will be published in July. He is written an interesting summary of his latest IQ study for the Washington Post.

In IQ: Willingham on the newest thinking, Willingham makes the following comments:

The importance of the environment for IQ is established by the 12 to 18 point increase in IQ observed when children are adopted from working-class to middle-class homes. In most developed countries studied, gains on IQ tests have continued, and they are beginning in the developing world Sex differences in some aspects of intelligence are due partly to biological factors and partly to socialization factors. The IQ gap between blacks and whites in the United States has been reduced by 0.33 standard deviations in recent years. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/iq-willingham-on-the-newest-thinking/2012/05/12/gIQAB9J9JU_blog.html

Here is the citation and abstract of the work Willingham is commenting about:

Nisbett, R. E., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, D. F., & Turkheimer, E.

(2012, January 2). Intelligence: New Findings and Theoretical Developments. American Psychologist. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0026699

http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Nisbett-et-al.-2012.pdf

We review new findings and new theoretical developmentsin the field of intelligence. New findings include the following:

(a) Heritability of IQ varies significantly by social class. (b) Almost no genetic polymorphisms have been discovered that are consistently associated with variation in IQ in the normal range. (c) Much has been learned about the biological underpinnings of intelligence. (d) “Crystallized” and “fluid” IQ are quite different aspects of intelligence at both the behavioral and biological levels. (e) The importance of the environment for IQ is established by the 12-point to 18-point increase in IQ when children are adopted from working-class to middle-class homes. (f) Even when improvements in IQ produced by the most effective early childhood interventions fail to persist, there can be very marked effects on academic achievement and life outcomes. (g) In most developed countries studied,gains on IQ tests have continued, and they are beginning in the developing world. (h) Sex differences in aspects of intelligence are due partly to identifiable biological factors and partly to socialization factors. (i) The IQ gap between Blacks and Whites has been reduced by 0.33 SD in recent years. We report theorizing concerning (a) the relationship between working memory and intelligence, (b) the apparent contradiction between strong heritability effects on IQ and strong secular effects on IQ, (c) whether a general intelligence factor could arise from initially largely independent cognitive skills, (d) the relation between self-regulation and cognitive skills, and (e) the effects of stress on intelligence. https://drwilda.com/2012/05/13/after-the-bell-curve-research-starts-the-conversation-about-iq-again/

IQ is not a simple concept and this newest research points to more questions than answers.

Michelle Castillo of CBS News reports about IQ in IQ scores not accurate marker of intelligence, study shows:

Could IQ scores be a false indicator of intelligence?

Researchers have determined in the largest online study on the intelligence quotient (IQ) that results from the test may not exactly show how smart someone is.

“When we looked at the data, the bottom line is the whole concept of IQ — or of you having a higher IQ than me — is a myth,” Dr. Adrian Owen, the study’s senior investigator and the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging at the university’s Brain and Mind Institute said to the Toronto Star. “There is no such thing as a single measure of IQ or a measure of general intelligence.”

More than 100,000 participants joined the study and completed 12 online cognitive tests that examined memory, reasoning, attention and planning abilities. They were also asked about their background and lifestyle.

They found that there was not one single test or component that could accurately judge how well a person could perform mental and cognitive tasks. Instead, they determined there are at least three different components that make up intelligence or a “cognitive profile”: short-term memory, reasoning and a verbal component.

Scientists also scanned participants’ brains with a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine and saw that different cognitive abilities were related to different circuits in the brain, suggesting that the theory that different areas of the brain control certain abilities may be true.

Researchers also discovered that training one’s brain to help perform better cognitively did not help….

For some reason, people who played video games did better on reasoning and short-term memory portions of the test.

However, aging was associated with a decline on memory and reasoning abilities. Those who smoked did worse on short-term memory and verbal portions, while those with anxiety did badly on short-term memory test components.

“We have shown categorically that you cannot sum up the difference between people in terms of one number, and that is really what is important here,” Owen told the CBC…

The study was published in Neuron on Dec. 20.

Here is the citation:

Neuron, Volume 76, Issue 6, 1225-1237, 20 December 2012
Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
10.1016/j.neuron.2012.06.022 

Authors

Adam Hampshiresend email, Roger R. Highfield, Beth L. Parkin, Adrian M. OwenSee Affiliations

  • Highlights
  • We propose that human intelligence is composed of multiple independent components
  • Each behavioral component is associated with a distinct functional brain network
  • The higher-order “g” factor is an artifact of tasks recruiting multiple networks
  • The components of intelligence dissociate when correlated with demographic variables

Summary

What makes one person more intellectually able than another? Can the entire distribution of human intelligence be accounted for by just one general factor? Is intelligence supported by a single neural system? Here, we provide a perspective on human intelligence that takes into account how general abilities or “factors” reflect the functional organization of the brain. By comparing factor models of individual differences in performance with factor models of brain functional organization, we demonstrate that different components of intelligence have their analogs in distinct brain networks. Using simulations based on neuroimaging data, we show that the higher-order factor “g” is accounted for by cognitive tasks corecruiting multiple networks. Finally, we confirm the independence of these components of intelligence by dissociating them using questionnaire variables. We propose that intelligence is an emergent property of anatomically distinct cognitive systems, each of which has its own capacity.

The traditional way of looking at intelligence may be limited.

Sarah D. Sparks has written a good synopsis of the report, Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century in the Education Week article, Study: ’21st-Century Learning’ Demands Mix of Abilities:

The committee found these skills generally fall into three categories:

  • Cognitive skills, such as critical thinking and analytic reasoning;

  • Interpersonal skills, such as teamwork and complex communication; and

  • Intrapersonal skills, such as resiliency and conscientiousness (the latter of which has also been strongly associated with good career earnings and healthy lifestyles).

Stanford University education professor Linda Darling-Hammond, who was not part of the report committee, said developing common definitions of 21st-century skills is critical to current education policy discussions, such as around Common Core State Standards.

“Unless we want to have just a lot of hand-waving on 21st-century skills,” Ms. Darling-Hammond said, “we need to get focused and purposeful on how to learn to teach and measure these skills, both in terms of research investments and in terms of the policies and practice that would allow us to develop and measure these skills.” http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2012/07/study_deeper_learning_needs_st_1.html

The National Research Council has published the report, Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century which looks at transferable knowledge and skills.

The goal is to recognize those who can contribute to society in a positive manner no matter what their raw IQ score happens to be.

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Scrubbing your online reputation: Yes, words can hurt

27 Dec

Here’s today’s COMMENT FROM AN OLD FART: Reputation takes a long time to burnish and nurture. It can be destroyed by a smear or an ill-thought-out act in a nanosecond.

“The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.”
Socrates

“Your reputation is in the hands of others. That’s what the reputation is. You can’t control that. The only thing you can control is your character.”
Wayne W. Dyer

In an attempt to control online reputation, many schools are now helping their students clean their online presentation. Why? Because people like to gossip and most of us have been young and stupid or old and ill-advised.

“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

“Isn’t it kind of silly to think that tearing someone else down builds you up?”
Sean Covey, The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Teens

Carolyn Thompson of AP reports in the article, Colleges help students scrub online footprints:

Samantha Grossman wasn’t always thrilled with the impression that emerged when people Googled her name.

“It wasn’t anything too horrible,” she said. “I just have a common name. There would be pictures, college partying pictures, that weren’t of me, things I wouldn’t want associated with me.”

So before she graduated from Syracuse University last spring, the school provided her with a tool that allowed her to put her best Web foot forward. Now when people Google her, they go straight to a positive image — professional photo, cum laude degree and credentials — that she credits with helping her land a digital advertising job in New York.

“I wanted to make sure people would find the actual me and not these other people,” she said.

Syracuse, Rochester and Johns Hopkins in Baltimore are among the universities that offer such online tools to their students free of charge, realizing ill-considered Web profiles of drunken frat parties, prank videos and worse can doom graduates to a lifetime of unemployment — even if the pages are somebody else’s with the same name.

It’s a growing trend based on studies showing that most employers Google prospective hires and nearly all of them won’t bother to go past the first page of results. The online tools don’t eliminate the embarrassing material; they just put the graduate’s most flattering, professional profile front and center.

“These students have been comfortable with the intimate details of their lives on display since birth,” said Lisa Severy, president-elect of the National Career Development Association and director of career services at the University of Colorado-Boulder, which does not offer the service.

“The first item on our ‘five things to do before you graduate’ list is ‘clean up your online profile,'” she said. “We call it the grandma test — if you don’t want her to see it, you probably don’t want an employer to, either.”

After initially supplying BrandYourself accounts to graduating seniors, Syracuse University this year struck a deal with the company — begun by a trio of alumni — to offer accounts to all of its undergraduate and graduate students and alumni at no additional charge. About 25,000 people have access to it so far.

“It’s becoming more and more important for students to be aware of and able to manage their online presence, to be able to have strong, positive things come up on the Internet when someone seeks them out,” said Mike Cahill, Syracuse’s career services director.

Online reputation repair companies have been around for at least a couple of years, often charging hundreds or thousands of dollars a year to arrange for good results on search engine result pages. BrandYourself, which normally charges $10 a month for an account, launched two years ago as a less expensive, do-it-yourself alternative after co-founder Pete Kistler ran into a problem with his own name.

“He couldn’t get an internship because he was getting mistaken for a drug dealer with the same name,” said co-founder Patrick Ambron. “He couldn’t even get calls back and found out that was the problem…”

BrandYourself works by analyzing search terms in a user’s online profile to determine, for example, that a LinkedIn account might rank 25th on Google searches of the user’s name. The program then suggests ways to boost that ranking. The software also provides alerts when an unidentified result appears on a user’s first page or if any links rise or fall significantly in rank.

Nati Katz, a public relations strategist, views his presence online as a kind of virtual storefront that he began carefully tending while in graduate school at Syracuse…. 184052483.html;_ylc=X3oDMTNzMjR1dWM5BF9TAzc2NjUxNDkEYWN0A21haWxfY2IEY3QDYQRpbnRsA3VzBGxhbmcDZW4tVVMEcGtnA2I2MDMzYTdkLWJiMDAtMzI5Mi1hNDc0LTNlYTA1ZDhmNzdkNwRzZWMDbWl0X3NoYXJlBHNsawNtYWlsBHRlc3QDTjRVX2NvcmU-;_ylv=3

Back in the day, folks had to worry about their reputation in their local community. With the advent of social media, the community is now global and folks have to worry about their global reputation.

Because a person’s reputation is key to future opportunities of all types, a new business of helping people rid themselves of unwanted online information is developing. Lini S. Kadaba of the Philadelphia Inquirer in the article, Online Reputation Can Make or Break Opportunities which was reprinted in the Seattle Times writes:

For 20 years, the Philadelphia psychotherapist had treated his clients’ anxiety, fear, and depression, and built a healthy practice along the way.

Then in late 2006 he noticed a precipitous drop in new patients. At a suggestion, he Googled himself and made a devastating discovery: The top search hits questioned his credentials because he had earned a distance-learning doctorate from an institution that was later shuttered. Essentially, a popular consumer health blogger had deemed him a quack.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” said the licensed therapist, who is 71 now. “I just felt powerless. I didn’t know what to do.”

Enter Reputation Defender. For a few hundred dollars, the California-based company scrubbed clean the therapist’s badly smudged Internet profile. And within weeks, a search of his name delivered hits — bios and even a blog entry — that characterized him as a respected mental-health professional. (It worked so well, he did not want his name used in this article. To do so would revive the negative information that once threatened his livelihood.)

In an age of tell-all status updates, real-time video feeds, and Everyman bloggers with caustic opinions, the cyber-reputations of individuals and businesses — really the only image that counts these days — are constantly in danger of attack, according to Internet profile experts. As a result, in the last three years, the business of online reputation management has flourished. Even parents of college applicants are eager to dispose of those Facebook pictures before admissions officers discover them.

“It’s like anti-virus protection for your life,” said Michael Fertik, who was at the leading edge of the fledgling industry when he launched Reputation Defender in October 2006. Companies such as Reputation Defender and Reputation Hawk promote themselves as the superheroes of the Internet, often with names to match….

In a Microsoft-commissioned survey titled “Online Reputation in a Connected World” and released this year, 70 percent of the 275 U.S. recruiters and human resources professionals surveyed said they had rejected candidates based on information found online. Most went well beyond Google, searching social networks (63 percent), photo and video sharing sites (59 percent), and Twitter and other news-sharing sites (41 percent).

Given that reality and an especially tight job market, some individuals are taking a super-proactive approach — hiring rep managers to scan the Web for information to see what’s out there and, as an insurance policy, add positive content. This year, Syracuse University offered its graduating seniors a six-month membership to Brand-Yourself.com, an Internet reputation-management company focused on social media promotion and started by Syracuse students in 2009.

To quote Clint Eastwood in “Heartbreak Ridge,” “Shut your face, hippy.”

“How would your life be different if…You walked away from gossip and verbal defamation? Let today be the day…You speak only the good you know of other people and encourage others to do the same.”
Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“Gossip is just a tool to distract people who have nothing better to do from feeling jealous of those few of us still remaining with noble hearts.”
Anna Godbersen, Splendor

“Rumor travels faster, but it don’t stay put as long as truth. ”
Will Rogers

“Allow enemies their space to hate; they will destroy themselves in the process.”
Lisa Du

Where information leads to Hope. ©                    Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                            http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                               http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                                https://drwilda.com/

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Why libraries in K-12 schools are important

26 Dec

Kimberly Shearer, Kentucky Teacher of the Year, has a great piece in Kentucky Teacher, Why You Need Your School Librarian:

Now, think about the Common Core Standards. These standards emphasize 21st-century skills and require our students to be able to collaborate with others within small and large communities. They require our students to be able to locate and evaluate sources using technology. And they require our students to be able to share information and to build their own arguments while considering things such as audience, purpose and language. Sound familiar? All of these skill sets are not too far from the behaviors our students exhibit when they utilize social media like Facebook. Those relevant connections between their personal and their academic lives are so important for teachers to make in our classrooms.  

Unfortunately, it takes a lot of creativity and know-how to generate such connections for our students. The good news? We have our school librarians to help. School librarians have the resources, training and knowledge to help us make those meaningful connections between the Common Core Standards and our students’ interests and lives. Here’s why you need your school librarian now more than ever:

  • Students must be able to evaluate information. Technology has ensured that our students have unlimited access to information. While this is exciting, it is also frightening. Our students must be able to sort through all this information and separate the credible from the unreliable. Your school librarian can help you co-plan and co-teach lessons that focus on the evaluation of sources and information, providing your students with the discernible eye they’ll need to survive in college and the workplace. 

  • Students must be able to collaborate. Technology and today’s global economy have made it necessary for our students to master collaborative skills. Being a part of a community in which they must share ideas, work and goals is important to students’ personal and academic growth. Your librarian can help you generate collaborative projects for your students that incorporate both information literacy and the Common Core Standards. And, working with your librarian helps you refine your collaborative skills, as well.

  • Students must master technology. Regardless of the career paths they choose, all your students must be able to use technology to locate and create information. You’d be hard-pressed to find a business that doesn’t rely on computer software for day-to-day operations. Your school librarian can help you develop lessons for your students that focus on both content objectives and technology objectives. Blogs, digital stories, website creation – there are endless possibilities for transforming your current assessments into something more meaningful (and — GASP — more enjoyable) for your students. 

  • Students must be readers. Reading skills are always said to be the gateway skills to all subject areas. If a student can’t read, he or she is not going to flourish in any subject area. And the best way to get our students reading is to help them find the right book. When students find a book that gets them excited, they are more likely to pick up another book. And when they continue to pick up more books, their reading fluency and their vocabulary are going to improve. Your school librarian can help match your students’ interests with the right books, and he or she can help you incorporate more books into your curriculum to help support student learning. Plus, reading for enjoyment has its advantages, as well. Nothing beats a good book, and our students will benefit personally from becoming readers, too.     http://www.kentuckyteacher.org/kentucky-teacher-of-the-year/2012/07/why-you-need-your-school-librarian/

Chancellor Kaya Henderson of D.C. Public Schools is reaching the same conclusions as Ms. Shearer.

Emma Brown reports in the Washington Post article, DCPS should guarantee librarians in every school, task force recommends:

All D.C. public schools should be guaranteed money to hire a librarian, according to a task force convened by Chancellor Kaya Henderson to make recommendations regarding school libraries.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-schools-insider

Research supports a strong library component in K-12 schools.

The December 2012 District of Columbia Public Schools School Library Task Force:

Recommendations for School Library Media Programs reported about prior studies:

The results from studies on the impact of school library media programs on student achievement have been consistent. For example:

MICHIGAN IN MIDDLE SCHOOLS, SEVENTH GRADE READING SCORES USUALLY RISE AS SCHOOL LIBRARIES REPORT:

higher numbers and weekly hours of librarian and total library staff;

offering more weekly hours for flexible access/scheduling;

librarians spending more time planning and teaching cooperatively with classroom teachers, and providing in-service training to teachers;

larger collections of print volumes and video materials;

access to more library and school computers that connect to Access Michigan, library catalogs and licensed databases, and the Internet and the World Wide Web;

more frequent individual and group visits to the library; and

spending more on library operations.

(Rodney, Lance, Hamilton-Pennell, 2003)

NEW MEXICO ACHIEVEMENT TEST SCORES TEND TO RISE WITH INCREASES IN:

school librarian and total library staff hours per 100 students;

print volumes per student;

periodical subscriptions, video materials, and software packages per 100 students; and

school library expenditures per student.

(Lance, Rodney, and Hamilton-Pennell, 2003, VII)

PENNSYLVANIA READING TEST SCORES INCREASE WITH INCREASES IN:

school librarian staff hours; and

support staff hours.

TEST SCORES INCREASE AS SCHOOL LIBRARIANS:

teach cooperatively with teachers;

integrate information literacy skills standards and curriculum;

provide in-service training to teachers;

serve on standards committee;

serve on curriculum committee; and

manage information technology.

(Lance, Rodney, and Hamilton-Pennell, 2000 and 2011)

http://dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/Files/downloads/ABOUT%20DCPS/Press/Final_Report_Lib_Task_Force_121012.pdf

The American Library Association (ALA) has a position statement about library resources.

Here is the ALA Position Statement on Appropriate Staffing for School Libraries:

The success of any school library program, no matter how well designed, depends ultimately on the quality and number of the personnel responsible for the program. A well-educated and highly motivated professional staff, adequately supported by technical and clerical staff, is critical to the endeavor.

Although staffing patterns are developed to meet local needs, certain basic staffing requirements can be identified. Staffing patterns must reflect the following principles:

  1. All students, teachers, and administrators in each school building at all grade levels must have access to a library program provided by one or more certificated school librarian working full-time in the schools library.
  2. Both professional personnel and support staff are necessary for all library programs at all grade levels. Each school must employ at least one full-time technical assistant or clerk for each school librarian. Some programs, facilities, and levels of service will require more than one support staff member for each professional.
  3. More than one library professional is required in many schools. The specific number of additional professional staff is determined by the schools size, number of students and of teachers, facilities, specific library program. A reasonable ratio of professional staff to teacher and student populations is required in order to provide for the levels of service and library program development described in Empowering Learners: Guidelines for School Library Programs.

All school systems must employ a district library director to provide leadership and direction to the overall library program. The district director is a member of the administrative staff and serves on committees that determine the criteria and policies for the districts curriculum and instructional programs. The director communicates the goals and needs of both the school and district library programs to the superintendent, board of education, other district-level personnel, and the community. In this advocacy role, the district library director advances the concept of the school librarian as a partner with teachers and promotes a staffing level that allows the partnership to flourish.

Revised 09/01/2010 http://www.ala.org/aasl/aaslissues/positionstatements/appropriatestaffing

School libraries are evolving with technology.

Moi wrote in The changing role of school libraries:

Laura Devaney wrote the article, School libraries changing with move to digital resources, which was posted at eSchool News.

As schools across the nation move from printed textbooks to digital materials and digital learning environments, school libraries are adapting to keep pace—and new advancements are changing the very definition of school libraries and library media specialists.

Many of today’s students do not know what a card catalog is, and challenges lie not in locating information about various topics, but in narrowing it down and determining whether resources are trustworthy or not…

“I see librarians as media specialists,” McConnell said. “We still have literacy, whether it’s reading or research…the librarian is the perfect partner for the classroom. The role of the librarian has shifted” for the digital age, he said.

McConnell said thinking about physical learning space is critical even as school districts and higher education migrate to digital resources and virtual workspaces…

“We think about different ways of doing business, and it’s not all about economics—it’s also about quality,” Suddreth said. “There are quality resources, and there are not-so-quality resources, and going with the cheapest model is not always the best. Tech directors are the perfect people to make it really clear to people that purchasing the least expensive model is not always going to support teaching and learning.”

Other challenges include:

Content expertise—Nearly every subject area has people who are proponents of that subject area being taught in a particular way, and other people who are against a particular method.
Hardware—Not every school has computers or tablets for every single student, even though 90 percent of all homes have a computer at home and 70 percent of the population has internet access. “Having hardware in the schools is something we see as our responsibility for students who don’t have it at home, but it’s also a challenge,” Suddreth said.
Security—Often of great concern to parents is what student access. Also, issues arise regarding protecting student information. Online assessments lead to security concerns.
Parent reactions—While student are very excited about working with the technology, where they can really be immersed in learning games or web research, parents are not always familiar with that and have concerns over what their students might be able to access. Parents sometimes have a fear of letting go of a more traditional way of learning.
Accessibility—This includes non-native English speakers and students with disabilities, as well as students’ ability to access the internet at home. “In Utah, because we have large families, when a family has five or six children and one computer, this does pose a problem after school,” Suddreth said.

McConnell said that as technology changes learning, libraries are evolving and will partner with students and faculty to help everyone understand how to research topics and filter information.

http://www.eschoolnews.com
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/10/30/school-libraries-changing-with-move-to-digital-resources/

For many children a library is where the are introduced to reading and learning.

Resources:

Are School Librarians Expendable?                    http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/06/26/are-school-librarians-expendable

The True Value of the Work We Do http://www.schoollibrarymonthly.com/articles/Tilley2011-v27n8p45.html

Related:

Reading is a key component of learning                     https://drwilda.com/2012/01/18/reading-is-a-key-component-of-learning/

Helping at-risk children start a home library                   https://drwilda.com/2012/06/13/helping-at-risk-children-start-a-home-library/

More research about the importance of reading              https://drwilda.com/2012/06/05/more-research-about-the-importance-of-reading/

Where information leads to Hope. ©                  Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                         http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                                http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                     https://drwilda.com/

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Final report of ‘Head Start’ study: Early gains may not last

25 Dec

In Embracing parents as education leaders, moi said:

Moi wrote about the importance of parental involvement in Missouri program: Parent home visits:

One of the mantras of this blog is that education is a partnership between the student, parent(s) or guardian(s), teacher(s), and the school. All parts of the partnership must be involved.  Many educators have long recognized that the impact of social class affects both education achievement and life chances after completion of education. There are two impacts from diversity, one is to broaden the life experience of the privileged and to raise the expectations of the disadvantaged. Social class matters in not only other societies, but this one as well. A few years back, the New York Times did a series about social class in America. That series is still relevant. Janny Scott and David Leonhardt’s overview, Shadowy Lines That Still Divide describes the challenges faced by schools trying to overcome the disparity in education. The complete series can be found at Class Matters

Teachers and administrators as well as many politicians if they are honest know that children arrive at school at various points on the ready to learn continuum. Teachers have to teach children at whatever point on the continuum the children are. Jay Matthews reports in the Washington Post article, Try parent visits, not parent takeovers of schools. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/try-parent-visits-not-parent-takeovers-of-schools/2012/05/30/gJQAlDDz2U_story.html

The key ingredient is parental involvement. The Wisconsin Council on Children and Families (Council) has a great policy brief on parental involvement.http://www.wccf.org/pdf/parentsaspartners_ece-series.pd

https://drwilda.com/2012/05/30/missouri-program-parent-home-visits/

Julia Lawrence of Education News reports in the article, Kentucky Venture Aims to Train Parents to Become Ed Leaders:

When the Governor’s Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership opens its doors in Kentucky, it will do so with the goal of getting parents more involved in their children’s academic lives. The Institute’s mission will be to empower parents to take a more active role in determining the future direction of their local education system, which includes greater participation in parent-teacher groups, local school boards and school councils.

Kentucky residents who wish to get involved will have an opportunity to enroll in a 24-month mentoring program offered by the Institute, which will introduce them to the ins and outs of the state’s academic system. Institute leaders say that parents will graduate from the course having learned “the business of education,” leaving them more able to understand the problems confronting state schools today.

Their attempts at involvement will no longer be thwarted by unfamiliar jargon and impenetrable quantitative reports. The goal at graduation will be to have parents not only fully cognizant of the current issues facing K-12 education in the state but also ready to provide solutions for those issues as well….

The CIPL will be building on top of the work done by the existing Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership, which has been working for more than 15 years on ways to keep parents in the loop on education. Over 1,600 Kentucky parents have gone through the programs offered by the CIPL, with many going on to take leadership positions in their schools, districts and even at state level. According to KYForward.com, CIPL boasts recruiting two people who have served on the Kentucky Board of Education.

Furthermore, as CIPL expanded its reach, it created a self-perpetuating network among the state’s parents. Those who go through CIPL later go on to recruit and mentor up to 20 other parents each – all in service of giving parents a greater voice in their children’s education…..

In the end, the aim of the Institute is to convince parents that with the right preparation they can have a real, positive impact on student achievement statewide.  http://www.educationnews.org/parenting/kys-new-venture-aims-to-train-parents-to-become-ed-leaders/

https://drwilda.com/2012/11/28/embracing-parents-as-education-leaders/

Parental support is a key ingredient in learning.

Lesli A. Maxwell reports in the Education Week article, Head Start Advantages Mostly Gone by 3rd Grade, Study Finds:

In the first phase of the evaluation, a group of children who entered Head Start at age 4 saw benefits from spending one year in the program, including learning vocabulary, letter-word recognition, spelling, color identification, and letter-naming, compared with children of the same age in a control group who didn’t attend Head Start. For children who entered Head Start at age 3, the gains were even greater, demonstrated by their language and literacy skills, as well their skills in learning math, prewriting, and perceptual motor skills.

The second phase of the study showed that those gains had faded considerably by the end of 1st grade, with Head Start children showing an edge only in learning vocabulary over their peers in the control group who had not participated in Head Start.

And now, in this final phase of the study, “there was little evidence of systematic differences in children’s elementary school experiences through 3rd grade, between children provided access to Head Start and their counterparts in the control group,” the researchers wrote in an executive summary…

Specifically, by the end of 3rd grade, 4-year-old Head Start participants showed only a single advantage in the areas of literacy, numeracy, and school performance over their peers in the control group. Only their performance on one reading assessment showed that they still retained some benefit over their control group counterparts. But, according to the study, their participation in Head Start showed no significant positive impacts on math skills, prewriting, promotion, or teachers’ reports of children’s school accomplishments. About 40 percent of the children in the control group did not receive formal preschool services; the rest did, just not through Head Start.

In the 3-year-old cohort, researchers found a learning disadvantage for those who had been in Head Start. Parents of the Head Start children reported lower rates of grade promotion than parents of the students who were not in the Head Start group….

When researchers examined the impacts on children’s social-emotional development, their findings were significantly different for the two age groups. For 4-year-olds, parents of Head Start participants reported less aggressive behavior at the end of 3rd grade than did the parents of the control group children. In contrast, teachers reported higher incidences of emotional problems in Head Start students, and less positive relationships with them. For the 3-year-old group, parents of Head Start participants reported better social skills in their children, compared to the control group parents.

In examining impacts on health, the researchers similarly found no remaining advantages of Head Start participation at the end of 3rd grade. Parenting practices however, still showed some positive benefits of Head Start participation in both age groups. For 4-year-olds in the Head Start group, parents reported spending more time with their children than did the control group parents, and in the 3-year-old group, researchers found that parents in the Head Start group were more likely to use a parenting style characterized by high warmth and high control.

Yasmina Vinci, the executive director of the National Head Start Association, called the vanishing impacts of Head Start in the early grades “troubling,” but noted that Head Start does its core job well by preparing disadvantaged children for kindergarten. “Our work with students ends when children graduate from Head Start, but it is clear that for many, their circumstances continue to hinder their success; circumstances including, but not limited to, the quality of their primary and secondary education,” she said in a prepared statement.

Ms. Guernsey said to sustain the positive impacts of any early-learning experience into the first years of elementary school requires more emphasis on improvements in kindergarten, first, and second grades.

“The idea that one or two years of preschool is a silver bullet really needs to be stripped from our minds,” she said. “The impact study from two years ago and this one now reminds us that the quality of the learning experience in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade really matters too.” http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/early_years/2012/12/head_start_advantages_mostly_gone_by_third_grade_study_finds.html

Here are some key points from the executive summary:

Key Findings

Looking across the full study period, from the beginning of Head Start through 3rd grade, the evidence is clear that access to Head Start improved children’s preschool outcomes across developmental domains, but had few impacts on children in kindergarten through 3rd grade. Providing access to Head Start was found to have a positive impact on the types and quality of preschool programs that children attended, with the study finding statistically significant differences between the Head Start group and the control group on every measure of children’s preschool experiences in the first year of the study. In contrast, there was little evidence of systematic differences in children’s elementary school experiences through 3rd grade, between children provided access to Head Start and their counterparts in the control group.

In terms of children’s well-being, there is also clear evidence that access to Head Start had an impact on children’s language and literacy development while children were in Head Start. These effects, albeit modest in magnitude, were found for both age cohorts during their first year of admission to the Head Start program. However, these early effects rapidly dissipated in elementary school, with only a single impact remaining at the end of 3rd grade for children in each age cohort.

With regard to children’s social-emotional development, the results differed by age cohort and by the person describing the child’s behavior. For children in the 4-year-old cohort, there were no observed impacts through the end of kindergarten but favorable impacts reported by parents and unfavorable impacts reported by teachers emerged at the end of 1st and 3rd grades. One unfavorable impact on the children’s self-report emerged at the end of 3rd grade. In contrast to the 4-year-old cohort, for the 3-year-old cohort there were favorable impacts on parent-reported social emotional outcomes in the early years of the study that continued into early elementary school. However, there were no impacts on teacher-reported measures of social-emotional development for the 3-year-old cohort at any data collection point or on the children’s self-reports in 3rd grade.

In the health domain, early favorable impacts were noted for both age cohorts, but by the end of 3rd grade, there were no remaining impacts for either age cohort. Finally, with regard to parenting practices, the impacts were concentrated in the younger cohort. For the 4-year-old cohort, there was one favorable impact across the years while there were several favorable impacts on parenting approaches and parent-child activities and interactions (all reported by parents) across the years for the 3-year-old cohort.

In summary, there were initial positive impacts from having access to Head Start, but by the end of 3rd grade there were very few impacts found for either cohort in any of the four domains of cognitive, social-emotional, health and parenting practices. The few impacts that were found did not show a clear pattern of favorable or unfavorable impacts for children.

In addition to looking at Head Start’s average impact across the diverse set of children and families who participated in the program, the study also examined how impacts varied among different types of participants. There is evidence that for some outcomes, Head Start had a differential impact for some subgroups of children over others. At the end of 3rd grade for the 3-year-old cohort, the most striking sustained subgroup findings were found in the cognitive domain for children from high risk households as well as for children of parents who reported no depressive symptoms. Among the 4-year-olds, sustained benefits were experienced by children of parents who reported mild depressive symptoms, severe depressive symptoms, and Black children. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/opre/head_start_executive_summary.pdf

In addition to parent support affecting education outcome, another major factor is the impact of poverty.

In Study: Poverty affects education attainment, moi said:

In 3rd world America: Money changes everything, moi wrote:

The increased rate of poverty has profound implications if this society believes that ALL children have the right to a good basic education. Moi blogs about education issues so the reader could be perplexed sometimes because moi often writes about other things like nutrition, families, and personal responsibility issues. Why? The reader might ask? Because children will have the most success in school if they are ready to learn. Ready to learn includes proper nutrition for a healthy body and the optimum situation for children is a healthy family. Many of societies’ problems would be lessened if the goal was a healthy child in a healthy family. There is a lot of economic stress in the country now because of unemployment and underemployment. Children feel the stress of their parents and they worry about how stable their family and living situation is.

Sabrina Tavernise wrote an excellent New York Times article, Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say:

It is a well-known fact that children from affluent families tend to do better in school. Yet the income divide has received far less attention from policy makers and government officials than gaps in student accomplishment by race.

Now, in analyses of long-term data published in recent months, researchers are finding that while the achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly over the past few decades, the gap between rich and poor students has grown substantially during the same period….http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/education/education-gap-grows-between-rich-and-poor-studies-show.html?emc=eta1

Teachers and schools have been made TOTALLY responsible for the education outcome of the children, many of whom come to school not ready to learn and who reside in families that for a variety of reasons cannot support their education. All children are capable of learning, but a one-size-fits-all approach does not serve all children well. Different populations of children will require different strategies and some children will require remedial help, early intervention, and family support to achieve their education goals.

Richard D. Kahlenberg, , a senior fellow at The Century Foundation wrote the informative Washington Post article, How to attack the growing educational gap between rich and poor. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/how-to-attack-the-growing-educational-gap-between-rich-and-poor/2012/02/10/gIQArDOg4Q_blog.html

There is no magic bullet or “Holy Grail” in education. There is only what works to produce academic achievement in each population of children. That is why school choice is so important. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/3rd-world-america-money-changes-everything/

https://drwilda.com/2012/08/29/study-poverty-affects-education-attainment/

Related:

Tips for parent and teacher conferences                                    https://drwilda.com/2012/11/07/tips-for-parent-and-teacher-conferences/

Common Sense Media report: Media choices at home affect school performance                                                                      https://drwilda.com/2012/11/01/common-sense-media-report-media-choices-at-home-affect-school-performance/

Making time for family dinner                                                       https://drwilda.com/2012/09/10/making-time-for-family-dinner/ 

Policy brief: The fiscal and educational benefits of universal universal preschool https://drwilda.com/2012/11/25/policy-brief-the-fiscal-and-educational-benefits-of-universal-universal-preschool/

Studies: Lack of support and early parenthood cause kids to dropout                                                                                https://drwilda.com/2012/11/19/studies-lack-of-support-and-early-parenthood-cause-kids-to-dropout/

Where information leads to Hope. ©                 Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                         http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                              http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                      https://drwilda.com/

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University of Missouri study: Sibling rivalry can lead to emotional problems

24 Dec

Scientists have studied birth order in families for many years. Birth order likely affects individual personality traits. The Child Development Institute reports in the article, Birth Order:

The following characteristics will not apply to all children in every family. Typical characteristics, however, can be identified:

Only

  • Child Pampered and spoiled.
  • Feels incompetent because adults are more capable.
  • Is center of attention; often enjoys position. May feel special.
  • Self-centered.
  • Relies on service from others rather than own efforts
  • Feels unfairly treated when doesn’t get own way.
    May refuse to cooperate.
  • Plays “divide and conquer” to get own way.

First Child

  • Is only child for period of time; used to being center
    of attention.
  • Believes must gain and hold superiority over other children.
  • Being right, controlling often important.
  • May respond to birth of second child by feeling unloved and neglected.
  • Strives to keep or regain parents’ attention through conformity. If this failed, chooses to misbehave.
  • May develop competent, responsible behavior or become very discouraged.
  • Sometime strives to protect and help others.
  • Strives to please.

Second Child

  • Never has parents’ undivided attention.
  • Always has sibling ahead who’s more advanced.
  • Acts as if in race, trying to catch up or overtake first child.
  • If first child is “good,” second may become “bad.” Develops abilities first child doesn’t exhibit. If first child successful, may feel uncertain of self and abilities.
  • May be rebel.
  • Often doesn’t like position.
    Feels “squeezed” if third child is born.
  • May push down other siblings.

Middle Child of Three

  • Has neither rights of oldest nor privileges of youngest.
  • Feels life is unfair.
  • Feels unloved, left out, “squeezed.”
  • Feels doesn’t have place in family.
  • Becomes discouraged and “problem child” or elevates self by pushing down other siblings.
  • Is adaptable.
  • Learns to deal with both oldest and youngest sibling.

Youngest Child

  • Behaves like only child.
  • Feels every one bigger and more capable.
  • Expects others to do things, make decisions, take responsibility.
  • Feels smallest and weakest. May not be taken seriously.
  • Becomes boss of family in getting service and own way.
  • Develops feelings of inferiority or becomes “speeder” and  overtakes older siblings.
  • Remains “The Baby.” Places others in service.
  • If youngest of three, often allies with oldest child against middle child.

NOTES: 1. The middle child of three is usually different from the middle child of a large family. The middle children of large families are often less competitive as parents don’t have as much time to give each child and so the children learn to cooperate to get what they want. 2. Only children usually want to be adults, and so don’t relate to peers very well. When they become adults, they often believe they’ve finally “made it” and can now relate better to adults as peers. 3. During their formative years, only children live primarily in the world of adults. They must learn how to operate in the big people’s world as well as how to entertain themselves. Thus they often become very creative in their endeavors.

(Adapted from Don Dinkmeyer, Gary D. McKay, and Don Dinkmeyer, Jr., Parent Education Leader’s Manual Coral Springs, F:; CMTI Press, 1978)

The prevalence of various birth orders in a family can contribute to sibling rivalry.

Laura Blue reports in the Time article, Sibling Rivalry: Squabbling May Lead to Depressive Symptoms, Anxiety, Among Teens:

Anyone with a brother or sister can attest to the inevitability of conflicts during childhood, but frequent clashes may take a toll.

Squabbling over two topics in particular, researchers say, may put adolescents at risk for depressive symptoms and anxiety.

Psychologists at the University of Missouri reached that conclusion after surveying 145 adolescent sibling pairs over the course of a year. The researchers quizzed the kids on their sibling relationships, and also asked them to answer questionnaires to measure their self-esteem and symptoms of depression and anxiety. They found that kids with high self-esteem at the beginning of the study typically had fewer conflicts with their siblings one year later. But those who reported sibling conflict at the beginning of the study were much more likely to develop new mood problems over the following year.
http://healthland.time.com/2012/12/21/sibling-rivalry-squabbling-may-lead-to-depressive-symptoms-anxiety-among-teens/#ixzz2Fzd0ZqvT

Here is the University of Missouri press release:

 /  News Releases  /  2012

Sibling Squabbles Can Lead to Depression, Anxiety, Says MU Psychologist

House rules can help parents resolve conflicts and guard children’s mental health

Dec. 20, 2012Home

Story Contact(s):
Timothy Wall, walltj@missouri.edu, 573-882-3346

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Holiday presents will soon be under the tree for millions of adolescents. With those gifts may come sibling squabbles over violations of personal space, such as unwanted borrowing of a fashionable clothing item, or arguments over fairness, such as whose turn it is to play a new video game. Those squabbles represent two specific types of sibling conflict that can have different effects on a youth’s emotional health, according to a multi-year study by a University of Missouri psychologist. With these findings, parents can learn how to bring peace to the home and encourage their children’s healthy psychological development.

“Our results show that conflicts about violations of personal space and property are associated with greater anxiety and lower self-esteem one year later in life,” said Nicole Campione-Barr, MU assistant professor of psychological science in the College of Arts and Science. “Conflicts over issues of equality and fairness are correlated to greater depression one year later.”

Campione-Barr and her colleagues studied 145 pairs of mostly European-American, middle-class siblings for one year. The average ages for the pairs were 15 and 12 years. The teens rated different topics of possible conflict, noting the frequency and intensity of the arguments. The arguments were organized into two categories: violations of personal domain or conflicts over fairness and equality. The study then examined correlations among the arguments and teens’ reports of depressed mood, anxiety and self-esteem after one year.

“Although parents may be inclined to step in as arbiters, previous research has found that parents’ interventions into adolescent sibling conflict can be detrimental,” said Campione-Barr. “In concert with those prior findings, we believe our research suggests that setting household rules such as ‘knock before entering a sibling’s room,’ can be the best means for parents to resolve disputes and avoid appearing to play favorites. A calendar of chores and defined time limits for turns with a video game can help reduce conflicts over fairness. However, if a parent notes that one child consistently gets the short end of the stick, action should be taken to ensure one child isn’t being too subordinate. Also, if most sibling interactions become intense conflicts, a family should seek professional help, especially if violence is involved.”

Campione-Barr noted that one limitation to her study was that it was largely constrained in its demographic scope to white, middle-class Americans. Other cultures and economic classes may have different relationships among privacy, fairness and emotional well-being. Although adolescents in some households may not have their own rooms, they still need some degree of respect for personal space from both parents and siblings. For example, parents and siblings should respect the private nature of children’s diaries.

“The next step in our research will be to examine the positive aspects of relationships among adolescent siblings and parents,” said Campione-Barr. “Strong, healthy family relationships are immensely beneficial later in life. For example, there are things people will tell their siblings that they would never tell their parents, or possibly even friends. We are currently studying disclosure and levels of trust among parents, siblings and peers.”

The study, “Differential associations between domains of sibling conflict and adolescent emotional adjustment,” was published in the journal Child Development.

Of course, every family will reflect their set of values, but families should have house rules.

Ray Fowler.org has 8 Great Family Rules to Help Any Home:

FAMILY RULES LIST

1. Tell the truth.

2. Treat each other with respect.

  • no yelling
  • no hitting
  • no kicking
  • no name-calling
  • no put-downs

3. No arguing with parents.

  • We want and value your input and ideas, but arguing means you have made your points more than once.

4. Respect each other’s property.

  • Ask permission to use something that doesn’t belong to you.

5. Do what Mom and Dad say the first time.

  • without complaining or throwing a fit!

6. Ask permission before you go somewhere.

7. Put things away that you take out.

8. Look for ways to be kind and helpful to each other. http://www.rayfowler.org/2007/06/12/eight-great-family-rules-to-help-any-home/

The best advice is simply teaching and living the “Golden Rule.”

Matthew 7:12 

New Living Translation (©2007)
“Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.

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Fewer children playing: Will technology make us all robots?

23 Dec

Here’s today’s COMMENT FROM AN OLD FART: Natural disasters and hurricanes like “Katrina” and “Sandy” demonstrate how dependent modern society is on a power source and how dependent modern society is on it’s technology. Back in the day, when there were no IPods, or IPads people were forced to do old school things like talk to each other and play cards or board games. Helen Robin and her kids have written the great article, 100 Things To Do With Kids During a Power Outage. Among her suggestions are:

1. Read

2. Make up stories

3. Mad Libs

4. Write a book

5. Play dolls

6. Play school

7. Paint our toenails

8. Paint our brother’s toenails ;)

9. Make puppets

10. Have a “Bear Hunt”

11. Play cards

12. Read books outloud

13. Play hide and seek

14. Play Hucklebucklebeanstalk

15. Have a scavenger hunt

16. Hide something sweet and create a “treasure” map for the kids to solve

17. Learn Morse Code

18. Invent your own code

19. Paint family portraits

20. Build a house of cards

21. Learn the state capitals                                         http://rochester.kidsoutandabout.com/content/100-things-do-kids-during-power-outage

These suggestions are certainly useful in times where the only light comes from candles or flashlights. A study from the United Kingdom suggests that too much technology might not be beneficial for children.

Graeme Patton of the U.K.’s Telegraph writes in the article, Overexposure to technology ‘makes children miserable’:

Young people exposed to modern technology for more than four hours a day are less likely to display high levels of “wellbeing” than those limiting access to less than 60 minutes, it emerged…

Young people’s brains were failing to develop properly after being overexposed to the cyber world at an early age, she claimed.

According to figures quoted by the ONS, almost 85 per cent of children born in 2000/01 have access to a computer and the internet at home. Some 12 per cent have their own computer and the same proportion had a personal mobile phone.

Separate data showed that six per cent of children aged 10-to-15 used online chatrooms or played games consoles for more than four hours on an average school day. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9636862/Overexposure-to-technology-makes-children-miserable.html

Nancy Carlsson-Paige, a professor emerita of education at Lesley University and author of “ Taking Back Childhood” and writes about the value of play in the Washington Post.

In Is technology sapping children’s creativity?

Kids need first-hand engagement — they need to manipulate objects physically, engage all their senses, and move and interact with the 3-dimensional world. This is what maximizes their learning and brain development. A lot of the time children spend with screens takes time away from the activities we know they need for optimal growth. We know that children today are playing less than kids played in the past…

The Importance of Play

Play is a remarkably creative process that fosters emotional health, imagination, original thinking, problem solving, critical thinking, and self-regulation. As children actively invent their own scenarios in play, they work their way through the challenges life presents and gain confidence and a sense of mastery. When they play with materials, children are building a foundation for understanding concepts and skills that form the basis for later academic learning.

And it’s not only concepts that children are learning as they play, they are learning how to learn: to take initiative, to ask questions, to create and solve their own problems. Open-ended materials such as blocks, play dough, art and building materials, sand and water encourage children to play creatively and in depth. Neuroscience tells us that as children play this way, connections and pathways in the brain become activated and then solidify.

Technology, Play, and Learning

What children see or interact with on the screen is only a representation of things in the real world. The screen symbols aren’t able to provide as full an experience for kids as the interactions they can have with real world people and things. And while playing games with apps and computers could be considered more active than TV viewing, it is still limited to what happens between the child and a device — it doesn’t involve the whole child’s body, brain, and senses. In addition, the activity itself and how to do it is already prescribed by a programmer. What the child does is play according to someone else’s rules and design. This is profoundly different from a child having an original idea to make or do something….

How Might Time on Screens Affect Relationships?

Quite a few years ago, I began noticing how easy it was for parents to turn to screens in challenging moments with their children. This first hit me when I saw a little girl who was in tears over saying goodbye to her good friend and her mom offered her a TV program to watch. Now today, there are almost endless opportunities to quiet our kids with entertaining games, apps, and screen time. But when we do that, are they missing out on the chance to feel, to argue, to sit in silence, to listen, to be?

Screens can occupy, distract, and entertain children for sure; the appealing game or show really “works” in the short term. But harmful habits set in early on both sides: for the child, learning to look outside of oneself for happiness or distraction in tough times; for parents, learning to rely on screens instead of our own ingenuity to soothe and occupy kids….

What Guidance Can We Find?

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity recommend keeping children under the age of two as screen-free as possible and limiting screen time for older children. I think this is a standard we should aim for. And as we try to limit screen time, we can do a lot to foster our children’s play as well. Children need uninterrupted playtime every day. The chance to play with materials that are open-ended will encourage the deepest, most creative and expanded play possible….

….The fact that parents today have the option of so much technology can seem like both a gift and a curse. At certain times and in certain situations, when no other choice seems right, we can breathe a sigh of relief that we have a screen activity available to us. But at other times, we can agonize because our kids are begging for screen time and we want to see them engage in more beneficial activities. Trying to follow the AAP Guidelines is often challenging and takes a lot more effort than the “quick tech fix.” But remembering what we know about how kids learn and grow helps to guide us. And our own ingenuity and inventiveness as parents is the best and sometimes most untapped resource of all. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/is-technology-sapping-childrens-creativity/2012/09/12/10c63c7e-fced-11e1-a31e-804fccb658f9_blog.html

For many technology is seen as a possible way to increase their child’s IQ.

Alex Halperin writes in the Salon article, Personal tech upends the toy market:

Children have played with dolls for millenia. It was a good run.

Mattel is the maker of Barbie and Hot Wheels, but this year its top selling toy is a plastic cell phone case, according to the Financial Times (subscription required):

Whether a new Kindle Fire, or a hand-me-down iPad, analysts predict 2012 will be the year children as young as three-years-old will unwrap tablets at trendsetting rates. And that has the traditional toy companies scrambling to stay relevant.

“The top two guys, Mattel and Hasbro, they are terrified,” said Sean McGowan, managing director of equity research at Needham & Company, an investment banking firm. “They should be terrified, but the official party line is they’re not terrified.”Toymakers have long been aware of creeping digitization of playtime and the annoying acronym KGOY (“Kids getting older younger”) But they may have been slow to realize that personal technology might pose an existential threat to more analog toys. They’re trying to adapt:

This Christmas, [Hasbro] has high hopes for the reinvention of its popular 1990s plush toy, Furby. The new interactive version comes with a free mobile app that kids can use to feed Furby, and translate the things it says in “Furbish” to English. The toy is also built with artificial intelligence, so its behaviour changes depending on how it is treated, whether its tail is pulled or it is tickled.But even if this updated “hamster/owl creature” performs well this year it seems unlikely that toymakers will be able to get away with this kind of retread five years from now. “Everyone I know who has a kid under 10 has a tablet in the house,” a toy investor told the FT. “And that tablet is the babysitter.”

In our technology saturated age, children are developing an entirely different relationship to the physical world. This has implications that extend far beyond Christmas toy  sales figures to obesity and maybe even evolution. We don’t understand what will happen, but at least we have this cute viral video of a child frustrated with her maddeningly low-tech iPad (it’s what you’d call a magazine)…. http://www.salon.com/2012/12/23/personal_tech_upends_the_toy_market/

In the rush to produce baby Einsteins and child prodigies, perhaps we are missing the creativity that play activities by preschoolers produces.

Resources:

The Importance of Play in Early Childhood Development                http://msuextension.org/publications/HomeHealthandFamily/MT201003HR.pdf

Why Play Is Important For Child Development?  http://www.mychildhealth.net/why-play-is-important-for-child-development.html

Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills                                     http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19212514

The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds

  1. Kenneth R. Ginsburg, MD, MSEd,

  2. and the Committee on Communications,

  3. and the Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health

Next Section

Abstract

Play is essential to development because it contributes to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth. Play also offers an ideal opportunity for parents to engage fully with their children. Despite the benefits derived from play for both children and parents, time for free play has been markedly reduced for some children. This report addresses a variety of factors that have reduced play, including a hurried lifestyle, changes in family structure, and increased attention to academics and enrichment activities at the expense of recess or free child-centered play. This report offers guidelines on how pediatricians can advocate for children by helping families, school systems, and communities consider how best to ensure that play is protected as they seek the balance in children’s lives to create the optimal developmental milieu. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/119/1/182.full

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The role economic class plays in college success

22 Dec

Moi wrote in Race, class, and education in America:

Many educators have long recognized that the impact of social class affects both education achievement and life chances after completion of education. There are two impacts from diversity, one is to broaden the life experience of the privileged and to raise the expectations of the disadvantaged. Social class matters in not only other societies, but this one as well.

A few years back, the New York Times did a series about social class in America. That series is still relevant. Janny Scott and David Leonhardt’s overview, Shadowy Lines That Still Divide describes the challenges faced by schools trying to overcome the disparity in education. The complete series can be found at Social Class

https://drwilda.com/2011/11/07/race-class-and-education-in-america/

Jason DeParle reports in the New York Times article, For Poor Strivers, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall:

“Everyone wants to think of education as an equalizer — the place where upward mobility gets started,” said Greg J. Duncan, an economist at the University of California, Irvine. “But on virtually every measure we have, the gaps between high- and low-income kids are widening. It’s very disheartening.”

The growing role of class in academic success has taken experts by surprise since it follows decades of equal opportunity efforts and counters racial trends, where differences have narrowed. It adds to fears over recent evidence suggesting that low-income Americans have lower chances of upward mobility than counterparts in Canada and Western Europe.

Thirty years ago, there was a 31 percentage point difference between the share of prosperous and poor Americans who earned bachelor’s degrees, according to Martha J. Bailey and Susan M. Dynarski of the University of Michigan. Now the gap is 45 points.

While both groups improved their odds of finishing college, the affluent improved much more, widening their sizable lead.

Likely reasons include soaring incomes at the top and changes in family structure, which have left fewer low-income students with the support of two-parent homes. Neighborhoods have grown more segregated by class, leaving lower-income students increasingly concentrated in lower-quality schools. And even after accounting for financial aid, the costs of attending a public university have risen 60 percent in the past two decades. Many low-income students, feeling the need to help out at home, are deterred by the thought of years of lost wages and piles of debt….

Income has always shaped academic success, but its importance is growing. Professor Reardon, the Stanford sociologist, examined a dozen reading and math tests dating back 25 years and found that the gap in scores of high- and low-income students has grown by 40 percent, even as the difference between blacks and whites has narrowed.

While race once predicted scores more than class, the opposite now holds. By eighth grade, white students surpass blacks by an average of three grade levels, while upper-income students are four grades ahead of low-income counterparts.

“The racial gaps are quite big, but the income gaps are bigger,” Professor Reardon said.

One explanation is simply that the rich have clearly gotten richer. A generation ago, families at the 90th percentile had five times the income of those at the 10th percentile. Now they have 10 times as much.

But as shop class gave way to computer labs, schools may have also changed in ways that make parental income and education more important. SAT coaches were once rare, even for families that could afford them. Now they are part of a vast college preparation industry. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/education/poor-students-struggle-as-class-plays-a-greater-role-in-success.html?hpw&_r=0

K-12 education must not only prepare students by teaching basic skills, but they must prepare students for training after high school, either college or vocational. There should not only be a solid education foundation established in K-12, but there must be more accurate evaluation of whether individual students are “college ready.”

Related:

Helping community college students to graduate https://drwilda.com/2012/02/08/helping-community-college-students-to-graduate/

The digital divide affects the college application process https://drwilda.com/2012/12/08/the-digital-divide-affects-the-college-application-process/

College readiness: What are ‘soft skills’ https://drwilda.com/2012/11/14/college-readiness-what-are-soft-skills/

Colleges rethinking who may need remedial education https://drwilda.com/2012/10/24/colleges-rethinking-who-may-need-remedial-education/

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