LearnNow Weekly
Practical findings to improve how we raise & educate young people
This week, our experts explore why it matters where our kids play, what happens when they refuse to go to school, and just what's going on inside the heads of our teenagers.
Meanwhile, in Learning at Large, our interesting stories from elsewhere give us insight on the brains of middle schoolers, debunk claims about redshirting, and examine links between language and math, and poverty and child brain development.
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Health Starts Where We Play
By Stuart L. Brown, M.D., Founder and Director, National Institute for Play
In recent years neuroscientists, developmental biologists, psychologists, social scientists and researchers from every point of the scientific compass are coming to an understanding that play is a profound biological process. It has evolved over eons in many animal species. It shapes our brain and makes us smarter and more adaptable. It fosters empathy and makes it possible for us to live in complex social groups. It lies at the core of creativity and innovation. It prompts us to be continually, joyously, physically active, combating obesity and enhancing overall health and well-being. It can interrupt the damage done by chronic stress, and even gives the immune system a bounce. Read the story.
I Ain't Going! What to Do When a Child Refuses to Go to School
By Jack Maypole, M.D., Director, Comprehensive Care Program, Boston Medical Center
School refusal, known interchangeably as school phobia or school avoidance, is a surprisingly common phenomenon. While many children are excited to go to kindergarten or to see their friends again after a summer, about 5 percent of school-age children persistently resist or avoid going to school, to the point where they don't go at all. It can be a really big deal, and lead to a vicious circle. Kids become upset about some aspect of leaving home or going to school, parents keep them home where they feel safe. While some cases are linked clearly to medical issues and procedure, more often, the underlying reasons for school refusal are not obvious. How to recognize it? Read the story.
Teen Reasoning: Not an Oxymoron
By Sandra Bond Chapman, Ph.D., Founder and Chief Director, Center for BrainHealth, University of Texas, Dallas; and Jacque Gamino, Director, BrainHealth Teen Reasoning Initiative, University of Texas, Dallas
Parents and teachers rightly spend a great deal of time and effort stimulating cognitive development in the early years to build strong language, literacy and simple computational skills-this is, after all, the period when the brain forms most of its connections. But what about other critical periods of growth, such as during the preteen and teenage years? Are there things parents can do to help adolescents take advantage of this formative stage of cognitive development? Read the story.
Learning at Large
Youngest Kid, Smartest Kid
By Maria Konnikova, published at the New Yorker's Elements blog
When the Harvard sociologist Hilary Levey Friedman was expecting her first child, one thing worried her: her due date, January 3rd. It was uncomfortably close to January 1st, an often-used age cutoff for enrollment in academics and sports. "I was determined to keep him in until after January 1st," she said. And if the baby came early? "I actively thought about redshirting," she said. Given the choice, she wanted him to be the oldest kid in his class, not the youngest. The data, however, belies this assumption. While earlier studies have argued that redshirted children do better both socially and academically--citing data on school evaluations, leadership positions, and test scores--more recent analyses suggest that the opposite may well be the case: the youngest kids, who barely make the age cutoff but are enrolled anyway, ultimately end up on top-not their older classmates. Read the story.
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe: International Study Documents Importance of Language to Learning Math
By Inga Kiderra, published at the University of California, San Diego, News Center
Talk to your toddler. And use numbers when you talk. Doing so may give a child a better head start in math than teaching her to memorize 1-2-3 counting routines. That's the takeaway of an international study published this week in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Led by David Barner, associate professor of psychology and linguistics in the Division of Social Sciences at the University of California, San Diego, the study examined how well children ages 2 to 4 understand number concepts. Read the story.
Brains, Brains, Brains! How the Mind of a Middle Schooler Works
By Heather Wolpert-Gawron, published at Edutopia
In honor of October's most awesome of holidays, I am going to begin a three-part series about the gentlemen zombie's choice of cuisine: the 'tween brain. However, I need to be frank. I'm not going to be able to teach you deeply about the 'tween brain here. I'm not a neurologist. What I am going to do is make an argument, hopefully a darn good one, as to why you should educate yourself further about it. Read the story.
Poverty, Parenting Linked to Child Brain Development By Andrew M. Seaman, published at Reuters
Children who grow up in poor families may have smaller brains than their more well-off peers, says a new study. But good parenting may help overcome that disadvantage. Researchers found that kids who grew up poor tended to have smaller hippocampus and amygdala volumes. Those areas of the brain are partly responsible for regulating memory and emotions. "Generally speaking, larger brains within a certain range of normal are healthier brains," Dr. Joan Luby, the study's lead author, said. Read the story.
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