Dear 16 Year Old Me

Making A Difference

Camp Canaan

Have you heard of Camp Canaan? A lot of folks around Rock Hill have not. It's a facility on Sand Island just below the Lake Wylie Dam. They run camps for children and have just opened a new zipline course which crosses the Catawba river several times - often at the tree tops. If you are looking for something for your children to do, or a business/church/school retreat, give them a call. They are also interested in developing nature camps for your school classes and are interested in talking to you about it.

By the way, ziplines are not just for kids. I took my first trip this past Friday with some friends.

Parent to Parent

Melissa Cherry - mcherry@heraldonline.com - - Windy Tuck has volunteered in her children's schools for 17 years. Parenting magazine picked her to represent South Carolina at the magazine's 2nd annual Mom Congress on Education this month.

Read more: http://www.heraldonline.com/2011/04/04/2959728/scs-mom-gresswoman.html#ixzz1IY5BX68g

"If you want to ensure that children will be successful in school, you have got to be involved in their education. At the end of the year when awards are given out, the children that you see on the honor rolls are the children of those parents that you see at the PTO meetings and volunteering. It is because they are often the parents that are making sure that homework gets done, that their children are reading every day, and that their children are exposed to educational experiences outside of the classroom. It doesn't matter what school that they're at, they're going to succeed because they have that parent support.

The main thing is not volunteering at school, but placing that value on education and making sure your kids know how important it is. Teachers can't force your child to learn. Parents have got to make their children value an education."

Windy Tuck

Read more by clicking here.  An article by Shawn Cetrone in  Monday's Rock Hill Herald.

Using facebook? You Need To Read This

The Cool Cat Teacher Blog has a post about the concerns with using facebook. If you use facebook, you need to read this by clicking here.

What Makes A Great Teacher?

From the So You Want To Teach blog:

One piece of wisdom emerging from our ongoing discussions about education is that teachers matter most. They matter more than any other single factor in determining the quality of an education. Studies show it, and students realize it.

But what makes great teachers great? I was wondering that myself a few years ago, and I decided to take a direct, old-fashioned approach. I would set out to find some of the greatest teachers in America and talk to them about teaching.

I scoured America and found some inspiringly great teachers in the public and private schools, in universities, but also on the athletic field, in the culinary school, in the ballet studio, at the speedway, and in the operating room. They taught circus arts, horseshoeing, brain surgery, and even alligator wrestling.

And while their styles of teaching varied greatly, I found five qualities they have in common.

1. PassionThey are so passionate about teaching that it is more a calling than a job. Minnesota first-grade teacher Lynette Wayne says simply, “Teaching chose me.” When the retired teachers I spoke with kept falling back into present tense, I felt that it was because the found teaching inseparable from their very identities.
2. CareGreat teachers care. For them, care is more than a feeling; it is a lived commitment to do whatever it takes to bring to students knowledge, skills, and wisdom. Teachers want with all their hearts for their students to succeed. Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington teaches his players by the saying, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
3. SensitiveThe great teachers are sensitive to their students. They have a keen intuition for what they are thinking, how they are feeling, what will move them forward. But sensitivity does not mean soft. These teachers are taskmasters, and at the Actor’s Studio West, Martin Landau coaches his students to confront their most difficult areas. Farriery instructor Doug Butler has them make one hundred horseshoes to get one right.
4. CommunicatorsGreat teachers are natural communicators. They seem to have a gift—carefully honed through experience—of transmitting what they understand to another human being. Whether through asking the right questions, giving clear explanations, assigning the right activities, or using magically effective metaphors, these teachers know how to transmit their own expertise to the students.
5. ExpertsAnd they are experts. Their teaching greatness is more an outgrowth of their expertise in their subject area than a separate skill, as if the highest level of understanding math, physics, or ballet dancing is to understand how to teach it. Vince Dunn fought fires in New York City for decades before he developed a new level of awareness and began to study fires, then to write about them, and ultimately to teach others how to fight them.

The great teachers have these qualities in common, but not much else. They certainly do not share a method. Some lecture, some talk little. But they have passion, care, sensitivity, the ability to communicate, and high levels of expertise.

Great teachers will always be rare, and good ones will never be as plentiful as we wish. There are also things we can do to increase the numbers of the great and the good, such as pay them well, respect them, encourage them to teach in their own style, and empower them to make the educational decisions best left to them. And we can remember, when we have waded through the fads, the politicking and the buzzwords, that they are the key ingredient. Anyone who wants to see these inspiring interviews can read them in Conversations with Great Teachers by Bill Smoot, Indiana University Press.

Amen to That

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I will lead them to become lawyers, doctors, teachers, presidents,  and good citizens. To help them follow their dreams"  - The Public School Teacher.


How fitting for Public School 22 to close out the Oscars.

A Message For Parents About Sexting

This shouldn't be necessary, but it is.

Getting Kids To Follow Rules

Explain Your Rules from Pear Press on Vimeo.

Brain Function and Multitasking

The Need For Arts

This was posted on the Transparent Christina blog and simply titled, "The Need For Arts In Our Schools". It also carries a bigger message.

Math and Money For Middle Schoolers

From Scholastic. Click here to get free materials.

Can Google Voice Help This Season?

From the Google Voice Blog:

Santa’s calling (from his Google Voice number)

Wednesday, December 8, 2010 | 1:53 PM

Growing up, December was always a favorite month of mine. School would let out for two weeks, snowflakes would start falling and I’d write my letter to Santa to remind him that I’d been especially good that year (and ask if he’d mind bringing me a few Ninja Turtles). He never answered those letters—he’s a busy guy, after all—but what if he could pick up the phone and call me instead? What if Santa had Google Voice and could easily call all the kids on his list?

Well, this year he can—with your help. If you know a kid (of any age) who’d like to hear from Santa, create and send a personalized phone call from the jolly man in the red suit himself at sendacallfromsanta.com.

There are hundreds of options to choose from, so you can send unique, customized phone calls to anyone you know, from your nieces and nephews to old college friends, over the phone (to U.S. numbers only) or via email, Facebook or Twitter.

If you or your kids have a special request or message for Santa, you can leave him a message at his Google Voice number: 855-34-SANTA. Although he’s too busy to return messages himself, you can always create one on his behalf at the Send a Call From Santa site.

Ready to spread some holiday cheer? Listen to a sample message, and visitsendacallfromsanta.com to send a message of your own.

And don’t forget—if you want to keep up with Santa as he travels around the globe delivering presents on Christmas Eve, you can track his journey on Google Maps, on Google Earth with the plug-in and on your mobile phone, too.

Becoming A Better Parent

From Brain rules blog site:

The #1 mistake parents make with praise 

Does your child give up easily? It could be because of a common parenting mistake. 

Ethan's parents constantly told him how brainy he was. The wiry son of a highly educated professor in Seattle, Ethan was indeed smart. Every time he sailed through a test, his parents would say, "You're so smart! You can do anything, Ethan. We are so proud of you." Sounds nice. Sounds encouraging, right?

Wrong. Little Ethan quickly learned that any academic achievement that required no effort was the behavior that defined his gift. His parents, with the best of intentions, consistently tethered Ethan's accomplishments to some vague, innate characteristic. Researchers call this "appealing to fixed mindsets."

When Ethan hit junior high school, he ran into subjects that did require effort. He could no longer sail through; for the first time, he started making mistakes. Ethan had no idea what to do when he failed, except to conclude that he must not be smart anymore. He got discouraged, then depressed. Quite simply, Ethan quit trying, and his grades collapsed. Research shows that Ethan's unfortunate story is typical of kids regularly praised for some fixed characteristic.

Research shows a simple solution. Certainly, scientists don't know everything about the brain. But what we do know gives parents their best chance at raising smart, happy children. What should Ethan's parents have done?

Rather than praising him for being smart, they should have praised him for working hard. On the successful completion of a test, they should not have said, "I'm so proud of you. You're so smart." They should have said, "I'm so proud of you. You must have really studied hard." Big difference. This appeals to your child's controllable effort rather than to mysterious, unchangeable talent. It's called "growth mindset" praise.

More than 30 years of study show that children raised in growth-mindset homes consistently outscore their fixed-mindset peers in academic achievement. There's more detail about why in my new book, "Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five."

Children with a growth mindset tend to:
• Have a refreshing attitude toward failure. They do not ruminate over their mistakes.
• Perceive errors simply as problems to be solved. "I love a challenge," is one delightfully common statement.
• Spend more time on problems--and solve those problems more often, too. Kids regularly praised for effort solve 50% to 60% more hard math problems than kids praised for intelligence.

Because they believe mistakes occur from of lack of effort, not from a lack of ability, the kids know exactly how to remedy mistakes: simply apply more effort. 

Being a Better Parent

I posted earlier that you should make everything a learning opportunity during the years of most brain development (birth to 8), including teaching a foreign language. This sets the foundation to making learning easier for the rest of your child's life because the brain forms in a fashion suitable for learning. Now,  help make your child more financially responsible.

As soon as your child can perform simple math, it's time for a checking account and an allowance. Find a bank which will give free checking, open an account for your child, and then set up a draft (monthly allowance) from your account to theirs. Show them how to balance the account and set up a budget (donations, college fund, school lunches, movies ect.). Once you have this system in place, show some restraint and stop giving them money when they ask for it. Make sure they realize they must manage their money. If they want something, they should save for it. You will need to make sure there is more money in their allowance than their basic needs.

This only works if you have the discipline - if you do - than you will help develop discipline in your child. College is not the time for you child to learn this - there is way too much going on at that time. It is a lot better for them to become financially disciplined when you are there to guide and help.

Becoming A Better Parent

So much of being a "good" parent involves luck. If you are like me, you didn't take  parenting classes and relied on what you remember from growing up. You hope that blending your experiences and your spouse's experiences, will make for a better education for your children. The Rock Hill Schools has a ParentSmart group to help you become a better educated parent. Their newsletters give great tips for helping your preschool children be ready for school. Rock Hill also has Early Childhood Instructional Coaches to help with this.

The reason Early Childhood (birth to 6 years of age) experiences are important is that recent brain scanning tests show that children who are stimulated to learn during this period of rapid brain development have a brain which is designed for learning. Children who are bi-lingual by 5, will be able to pick up foreign languages as adults and, most of the time, without an accent - all because their brain will have been "wired" for it. What a great 21st century tool to have!

This is why kindergarten teachers can identify students who will struggle to be successful. Those children will have a difficult time learning and retaining what is taught because their brains were not stimulated during the developmental years. They are, essentially, handicapped for life. We've always know how difficult it is for children to catch up - now science has shown, through brain scans - there is a reason for it.

You should make every contact with a preschooler a learning experience to help prepare them for life.

Brain Rules For Baby

Tips For Parent Teacher Conferences

You may want to ask the teacher:

Does my child participate in classroom activities?

Does he/she show self-control in school?

How does my child get along with others?

Can my child handle the learning materials of the grade?

Does she/he seem to enjoy reading in her/his spare time?

Is his/her reading comprehension suitable to his/her grade level?

How does my child read orally?

Does she/he know the number facts?

Can my child express thoughts and ideas clearly?

How is his/her written communication?

Does my child seem happy in school?

Is she/he accepted by other children?

You may want to tell the teacher: 

What your child’s strengths and weaknesses are.

Which school activities your child talks about at home.

What types of books your child reads at home.

What responsibilities your child handles at home.

If anything has happened lately at home which might affect your child’s performance at school.

Which classmates your child sees at home.

What are some of your child’s favorite activities outside of school.

How you discipline your child at home.

Remember, sharing information about your child with his or her teacher will help provide a learning program that will best meet the needs of your child.

Good Web Site for Parent Information on Schools

http://www.greatschools.net/content/schoolChoiceCenter.page

Dolly Parton and Early Learning Partnership of York County to Team Up

We need your help. The Early Learning Partnership of York County is collecting funds to establish the Dolly Parton Imagination Library (DPIL) in York County. Any child under 5 in York County will be eligible to register for the DPIL free of charge. The program is NOT limited to families who fall below a certain income threshold.

The Rock Hill Coca-Cola Bottling Company has contributed $15,000 this year; the United Way has awarded $15,000 to support the program; and the four school districts (York, Clover, Rock Hill, & Fort Mill) have committed $10,000. Contributions or commitments have also been received from the Wesley Class of St. John's UMC and the Lake Wylie Lioness Club. At an enrollment expense of $25 per child, we can enroll about 1,800 children, but there are 5,200 children in the Rock Hill Area alone. Please consider making a contribution. Send tax deductible donations to:

The Early Learning

Partnership of York County

Attn: Donna Wooldridge

120 Withers Building

Winthrop University

Rock Hill , SC 29733

Please note the Dolly Parton Imagination Library on your correspondence.

· 35% of children arrive at kindergarten not prepared to learn

· Evidence suggests that children who are not fluent readers and writers by the end of third grade are less likely to catch up with their peers

· One of the factors taken into consideration for building new prisons is based in part on the number of second graders not reading at second grade level.

· Low literacy is the socioeconomic factor prison inmates have most in common

· Studies show that children entering Kindergarten may have as much of a vocabulary gap as eight years. That is because a child who has not been read aloud to may have limited vocabulary of a 2 year old, while a child who has been read aloud to every day may have the vocabulary of a 10 year old.

· The average middle income child has 100 hours of being read aloud to compared to 25 hours for low income children

· 40% of America's 4th graders read below the basic level on national reading assessments

· Academic failure in late elementary school results in increased risk for substance abuse, delinquency, teen pregnancy, school dropout and violence

"Dear Friends and Neighbors...

Growing up in the Smoky Mountains was a real blessing. There were some tough times, but most of our life was full of the kind of riches money can never buy. One of my most precious memories is sitting in my mother's lap and listening to her read me stories from the Bible. It felt so warm and cozy. My imagination soared to places far beyond our little cabin. Those wonderful moments with my mother inspired me to create my Imagination Library.

Thanks to The Early Learning Partnership of York County, all of the preschoolers in your community can now have their own Imagination Library. Just think, a book mailed to your child each month until their 5th birthday! I hope these books inspire you to read to your child. There is nothing quite like the sparkle in a child's eye when animals come alive and clowns dance on the page.

I hope you'll encourage your children to keep dreaming and to dream big. If my Imagination Library helps turn the dreams of a child into the promise of a bright future, then one of my biggest dreams will come true."

Dolly Parton

Math Wars

http://mathnotations.blogspot.com/2008/06/math-wars-advice-for-parents.html

The MathNotations web blog has some interesting information. Read the advice for parents and visit the web site for additional information.

 

Jim

 

MATH WARS - Advice for Parents

A few weeks ago I received a request for an interview from Jan Wilson, education columnist for The Parent Paper, a local publication here in northern NJ:

Hello Mr. Marain --

I am the education columnist for the Parent Paper and I am writing an article about math instruction, specifically about moving beyond the rhetoric of the math wars to discover which ways of instruction work best for K-5 students. It's going to be a fairly general article, designed for the parent who hasn't thought a lot about math before but becomes concerned because her child hasn't master times tables in 3rd grade, or isn't doing long division in 4th, for example.

To see the full article, look here.

[Note: You will need to go to pp. 42 and 43 for the actual article entitled, "MATH WARS."]

The following is the reply I sent Jan from which she excerpted a few of my comments:

I am speaking both as a parent and a mathematics specialist with over 35 years in mathematics education at all levels. I have also been publishing a blog for math educators for the past year and a half. It was recognized by the Washington Post as one of the Top 10 Educational Blogs for 2007. Despite all the rhetoric, there are no bad programs out there in my opinion. The reform programs like Everyday Math and TERC do a fine job of developing children's number and spatial sense and address problem-solving as well. However, the district has to be committed to the expectation that children will practice their basic facts on a daily basis. Some children will master their times tables by the end of 3rd or 4th, some later on. However, they should all be expected to learn it by the end of 4th, even if some youngsters will take longer. Parents should not hesitate to ask the teacher and/or the principal if these expectations are in place. Further, they should ask if children are given some form of practice both in class and at home on a regular basis. Some children will learn from flash cards, others need to write each fact 5-10 times, others can benefit from games or software. Excellent online games like Timez Attack from Big Brainz can be played both in school and at home. The free version is quite good, but it will not work for every child. The only constant is that the expectation of learning these basics is stated in the currlculum and that this philosophy is actually implemented. If children's learning of basic facts is assessed regularly in class, then one can reasonably assume there is follow-through. Sometimes the only way to be sure of this is to talk to parents of children who have been through the program. Just remember: Playing games and problem-solving do not replace the need for children to memorize their facts. There is no way to get around this. If the district math program does not incorporate sufficient practice, then parents will need to supplement fact practice at home, even if it's only 10-15 minutes a day. Each child learns his/her own way, but each child must do something every day, using a reward system if needed to motivate them. In addition to skills practice supplementing existing programs as needed, parents should ask what kinds of problem-solving materials are used. Is the source of these problems restricted to what is provided by the publisher or are other resources utilized? For example, are teachers provided with the problem books from Singapore Math, which generally contains more difficult challenges than are normally found in our texts. Another question parents can ask if there is a new program is, "How have or will teachers be trained?" Is there a full-time Staff Developer working with teachers? Is there a math specialist for K-5 or 5-8? Short-term staff development is not nearly as effective as ongoing training, both for experienced and new teachers. It is important for parents to be aware that NJ Ask and other state testing will be undergoing significant changes in response to the recommendations of the National Math Panel, NCTM and organizations such as Achieve. All of these groups are calling for a reduction each year in the number of topics covered so that there will be more time for children to work toward mastery of important skills AND to develop greater depth of understanding. Teachers will be able to devote more time to provide both enrichment and reinforcement. This is an exciting opportunity. The Math Wars have been fueled by extremists on both sides. In the end, our children need a more balanced math education which will incorporate the best of the traditional and reformed.

Remember, I was writing this primarily for parents. These comments represent the same positions I have taken for the past 20 years and for which I have been challenged (a euphemism for attacked) by both "sides" for the same 20 years! Hey, I may be wrong but at least I am consistent!