South Carolina gets an “A” for world-class learning standards

When looking at your state’s progression toward student competency with 21st century skills, you need to take into account the level at which your state’s standards require students to perform. Many of the state’s touting their top ten status for student performance and graduation rates, also have the lowest level of curriculum standards for their students. Therefore I have to ponder… is it better in this country to live in a state that has the highest level of academic standards (as my state does) or to live in a state that waters down the standards to a sub-standard level and claims to be in the top ten in education for the United States?

Three states—Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Missouri—have established world-class standards in math and reading as the goal for all students. Every other state has established a lower proficiency standard, and some states (for example, Georgia and Tennessee) declare most students proficient even when their performance is miles short of the NAEP standard.

John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation, recently wrote the following in the Carolina Journal: Scholars Paul Peterson and Frederick Hess are editors of the journal EducationNext. They’ve just released their latest study of state vs. federal proficiency standards. There is only one straight-A performer on the list: South Carolina. Our neighbors to the south haven’t dumbed down their standards one bit in order to make themselves look better. As for North Carolina, we get a D+. We’re among a small minority of states getting Ds or Fs.

Now this makes me proud to be from South Carolina. It makes me proud to have taught in South Carolina. It makes me happy to know that in South Carolina you aren’t just passed on to the next grade but you earn your way through world-class standards! Hooray for high standards and success for all in our new global society. Times have changed and learning has to change!

Parenting and education - your voices will be heard

If you are a frequent reader of this blog or just a parent with burning questions about your child’s development, I would love to know what interests you.  What questions might you have about early childhood education and schools in America.  Send me a comment or a question and I will begin posting about the issues you want to hear about. 

 

Until then, I will continue on my journey to improve education by sharing a roadmap to educational success with parents who have children birth to age five.  I invite you to visit my website at www.wigglegigglelearn.com and remember that Early Education is the Key!

 

Do children know how to “play” in today’s society?

As an early childhood educator and expert in the field of child development, I spend a lot of time watching young children.  In the last couple of years I have noticed a tremendous decrease in natural “play” among those I am observing.  It seems that without the guidance of the parent or teacher the child simply can’t figure out how to manipulate his/her environment to learn.  What a sad state of affairs when our children don’t even know how to play independently.  Is there something wrong with the environment?  You bet ya!

Moms and dads everywhere are saying, “I just wish he would play by himself some!”  And then you look at what they have to play with… toys today that are controlled by batteries that are doing all the work for the child.  Is that fun?  Of course not, children like a challenge and they want to manipulate things in their environment.  They get tired of the toy that has a few buttons to push and it does the same thing every time.  Our children are being taught that toys have specific actions and no other action is possible.  However, think back to your toy box… building blocks (probably made of cardboard), puzzles, dolls, trucks (with no batteries, bells and whistles - you made those noises yourself), Lincoln Logs (where no two houses were ever the same), a simple slide and swing (or better yet, a tree to climb) and paper with crayons. 

What happened to our toy industry?  What happened to common sense parenting? Children learn by doing and not observing someone or something else doing for them. 

A word of warning to the millions of parents out there:  Stop buying the toys that work for your children and they will start learning so much more as they “do” for themselves!  Stop putting them in front of the television that is “doing” everything for them and start allowing them space to “do” on their own! 

When you learned to drive, did you sit in front of a video that taught you how?

When you learned to bake a cake, did you sit in front of video that taught you how?

When you learned to ride a bike, did you fill out a worksheet to make sure you knew the steps first?

When you learned to swim, did you watch a video to learn how?

What are we doing?  Why do we trust television to “teach” our children?  Why do we think worksheets build dendrites in the brain?  When will be get back to a common sense approach to teaching and caring for our children?  Being a child isn’t as much fun as it used to be…

Early education is the key - set up an environment where play flourishs, your child can learn from his senses and manipulate the space with his imagination.

Keys to long term memory of information

Sorting and classifying objects that belong together helps your little one develop a wider vocabulary. Young children organize and order their experiences all the time, along with the words that they learn to describe them. Over her first five years of life, you can prepare a whole range of pictures or objects that can help your little one become an expert at organizing information and naming a tremendous number of objects.

Before she is able to speak, you will tell her which objects belong and which do not. For example, “Here is a spoon and another spoon and even another spoon but this is a block. A block does not belong with the spoons. Let me put the block with the other blocks.” Talking aloud and modeling how you sort objects is powerful for infants and toddlers. If you have an older toddler or preschooler, she will quickly be able to make groups and define the rule of that group for you. For example, “This is a group of cars. They all have four wheels and doors. This alligator doesn’t belong because it doesn’t have four wheels and doors.”

Once your little one reaches upper elementary school and is required to take standardized tests you will see the fruits of this labor pay off, indeed. Good test takers and memorizers are those who have an organized filing system developed in the brain. They are good at using the “process of elimination” to determine right answers. They often know what is not right before they figure out the right answer. Learning to classify is learning to organize information in the brain for long-term retention.

Wiggle Giggle Learn is working diligently to share more secrets like this one with parents of children birth to five. When you know better, you do better. Early education is the key to success in school and life!

ED in ‘08 best education blog - and the winner is…

Holly Zardus wrapped up the ED in ‘08 blogger summit by presenting the 2008 Bloggers’ Choice Award. The first-place recipient is an unconventional blog from a teacher who blogs with his classroom: the South Titan Government Blog, taught by Ray Keller, a high school history teacher.

In the submission for nomination, Keller wrote,

“As a secondary government teacher in a public school, I am trying to find ways to get my students to begin to voice their opinions. Most of my students would rather type or text about an issue, than to speak about it in class. I have had almost 2000 comments posted by high school students in my first year of having the blog. These comments were not required as assignments for the class and many students truly expressed their opinions on many issues ranging from illegal immigration to the campaign ads.”

Congratulations to Mr. Keller and his students.

I’d also like to recognize Tracy Bryant Stuckey, writer of Early Education is the Key who was the runner up for this year’s award.

The statement from the nomination form:

“Tracey offers her readers insightful information that causes them to reflect on the role they can begin taking toward educational change. She offers parents solutions to educational problems and she gives examples of how we got to where we are in the first place. She is definitely a teacher and an advocate for developing 21st century skills in young children.”

THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR YOUR VOTES!!! This is a great way to spread the word about early education reform! You are the best!

Tracey