Da Vinci Innovation Academy  (K-8)

The “No Child Left Behind” act was supposedly conceived of and designed as a fail-safe system by which our country would cultivate masses of academically superior graduates who could then compete on the world stage.  Oddly, though, one of the goals is counter to this strive for excellence: in unveiling the grand plan,  President G. W. Bush proclaimed that “every child should perform at average,” which is clearly a statistical impossibility; not to mention that it is a quick recipe for dumbing us down.

Instead, “NCLB” has inadvertently placed undue emphasis on elements that have nothing to do with academic success.  The entire system has instead created a generation of button-pushers who lack critical thinking skills as well as the emotional and social intelligence to get their needs met independently.  We are not creating people who are following in the footsteps of our forefathers: independent thinkers, inventors, and self-sufficient pioneers who have the skills and tenacity to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps in Horatio Alger fashion.

“It is the great triumph of compulsory governmental monopoly mass schooling that among even the best of my fellow teachers, and among even the best of my student’s parents, only a small number can imagine a different way to do things.  Only a few lifetimes ago…originality and variety were common currency; our freedom from regimentation made us the miracle of the world; social class boundaries  were relatively easy to cross; our citizenry was marvelously confident, inventive, and able to do much for themselves independently, and to think for themselves.” (John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down)

We have to take another critical look at this system before we churn out yet another generation of unmotivated, unskilled, and incapable graduates.

I know that it is hard, as a parent, not to be seduced by the thrill of having our child ‘succeed.’  But what exactly defines ‘success?’  In early childhood, we often judge success on how much a child knows.  This leads many parents to put their children into “academic” programs that focus on abstract knowledge, rather than experiential, play-based programs. Is this drive for children to know lots of things, and to perform their knowledge, for the benefit of the children, or their parents, or the result of a misinformed society creating academic standards that are not developmentally appropriate?

“Except for a handful, who may or may not be good students, children fail to develop more than a tiny part of the tremendous capacity for learning, understanding, and creating with which they were born and of which they made full use during the first two or three years of their lives.  Why do they fail?  They fail because they are afraid, bored, and confused.” (John Holt, How Children Fail)

These government-subsudized, mainstream programs have a child ready (academically) for today’s highly academic kindergartens replete with developmentally inappropriate curriculum, by the time they are 5!  Until 2002, when “No Child Left Behind” act was put into motion, kindergarten was developmentally appropriate: it provided a transitional period bridging the developmental leap between concrete and abstract cognitive abilities.

“A growing number of psychologists believe that these changes in what children do has also changed kids’ cognitive and emotional development.  It turns out that all that time spent playing make-believe actually helped children develop a critical cognitive skill called executive function.”   (Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills, Alix Spiegel)

This cognitive shift typically takes place between 11 and 13 years old, and allows a child to glean productive information from abstract, worksheet work, rather than needing to work solely in an experiential plane.  This developmental leap does not do away completely with the value of experiential educational projects in the educational arena, however.  All the way up to adulthood, people still learn best by doing.

So the bigger quest here is how to get administrators and parents to relax, and understand that development takes time; and that time is dictated only by the clock within their child. And there is no judgment on this. Some kids are ready to read at 4, and some are ready at 8. It doesn’t mean that either is better. They will all read finally, by third grade. Today’s kids are not failing the academic standards – the academic standards are failing our kids! Everyone has their own timetable. If we honor it, then our children can bloom, and their innate gifts will emerge.

“If you read the FAQ page on the common core standards website, don’t bother looking for words like “exploration,” “intrinsic motivation,” “developmentally appropriate,” or democracy.”  Instead, the very first sentence contains the phrase

“success in the global economy,” followed immediately by “America’s competitive edge.”  If these new national standards are more economic than educational in their aspiration, more about winning than learning, devoted more to serving the interests of business than to meet the needs of kids, then we’ve merely painted a 21st century facade on a hoary, dreary model of school as employee training.  Yes, we want excellent teaching and learning for all — although our emphasis should be less on student achievement (read: test scores) than on Student’s achievements.”  (Alfie Kohn, Debunking the Case for National Standards)

I read somewhere that Einstein didn’t speak until he was 5. If he had been born in this decade, he would be facing evaluation by psychiatrists, and probably drug therapy for his potential autism or other neurological problem… and then what would the world lose?

A child is ready to learn when s/he is ready to learn.

“David learns to read at age four; Rachel, at age nine: In normal development, when both are thirteen, you can’t tell which one learned first – the five-year spread means nothing at all.  But in school, I label Rachel “learning disabled” and slow David down a bit, too.  For a paycheck, I teach David to depend on me to tell him when to go and stop.  He won’t outgrow that dependency.  I identify Rachel as discount merchandise, “special education” fodder.  She’ll be locked in her place forever.”  (John Taylor Gatto, Weapons of Mass Instruction)

I read somewhere else that any academic advantage a child has in kindergarten is short-lived, and outgrown by the time they are in fourth grade. This means that, in the words of Bev Bos,

“if you take their 3rd and 4th years, and spend them drilling on alphabet and counting, you have simply wasted their time.” (Bev Bos, Tumbling Over the Edge)

These children might know how to spell apple, but do they know that an apple is crisp, and cool, and sweet, and white in the inside, red on the outside? They might know that  1+1=2 , but do they know that “1″ weighs less than “2″?  Being Fluent in numeracy means understanding the concepts of math implicitly.  It does not mean memorizing symbols and formulas.

This press for our children to learn more facts earlier and earlier reminds me of the new “your baby can read” fad.  Taken out of context and applied, it only serves to steal time from our children.  What is the sense of this? It reminds me of something I did, when I first met my husband. He is a native Farsi speaker, which is written in the Arabic alphabet. I wanted to show him that I could read it, so I memorized the alphabet in one night. Not a big deal, really, since there are only 26 or so symbols to remember. In the morning I demonstrated my new ability to read Farsi by reading the title of the Persian newspaper. My husband said “very good. impressive. Now tell me what it means.”

The same goes for these little guys who are drilled to learn abstract facts and codes. They can definitely do it – that is not even in question. Their minds are supple sponges, ready to soak up anything within reach. But when we give them things to learn that are driven by our agenda, is that to their benefit, or ours? Are we allowing them to develop their gifts? Are we even allowing them to develop naturally? We have fears, as parents, of our child “fitting in.” What happened to the originality and inventive thinking that made us so special as a country in the first place?

“Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred are automata, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not by accident but he result of substantial education which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual.(John Gatto, Weapons of Mass Instruction)

And this pressure we feel to keep our child moving in rhythm with the rest of their society is all governed by “standards.” And those standards for children are not developmentally appropriate. Kindergarten is intended as an arena for social and emotional developmental, and first grade a transitional year as our children move from the concrete to the abstract. The system now has foreshortened this in a disastrous way… in fact, many people now refuse to send their child to kindergarten until the age of 6, to avoid the stressful experience their child may encounter in today’s academic and achievement-oriented kindergartens.

According to many diverse scholars from John Gottman to Diane Ravitch, the number one indicator of academic success is social and emotional intelligence.  So if we want our children to truly “succeed” in school, how to we get them there?  We need to pay more attention to parent education and support programs, and to the quality of childcare preceding kindergarten, so children can develop the social and emotional skills necessary to succeed in our public school systems.

In setting guideline for appropriate standards for young people, most challenges arise because the people in charge lack an understanding of developmental milestones and stages. It is pervasive, throughout our society, and trickles down to the parents’ level. The stigma of having a child who is “slow” is a hard one to bear. And if your child doesn’t measure up according to academic standards, then he the implication is that he is a little inferior than the rest of the “normal” population. Ouch! It’s hard not to take that one personally. This is your crown jewel, your little prince, the apple of your eye. A chip off the old block. And you have just been informed that he is not quite good enough. (And what does that say about you…?) And the funny thing is that there is really no “not measuring up” at all! If we all understood ages and stages, then most of these judgments about our children would not be made at all!

Just because our society has advanced into the computer age does not mean that children do not still need to develop from the ground, up. We need to allow children the opportunity to experience the REAL world before they advance into the abstract. We need to let them pick and eat and hold an apple, before we expect them to recognize that a black line drawing represents one.

But the bigger challenge, as educators and child advocates, is how to express this to parents, caretakers, and other educators in a way that they will embrace. How to express this without being judgmental and therefore turning them off completely to what we have to say (and therefore losing the opportunity to make a positive change in someone’s life, and in the world itself.)

If we would just take a moment to stop and consider our aspirations for our own children, then we could get rid this new yet arcane system that is digging us into a deep hole of intellectual poverty.  By doing so, we could perhaps end up with well-adjusted, productive, self-fulfilled children and citizens.  Isn’t that the goal, anyway?

XO

Linda Shannon

Founder and Director,

Riviera PlaySchool in Redondo Beach, CA

A Mindful program for the ‘Whole Child,’ inspired by the best of Attachment Parenting, Reggio Emilia, Montessori, Waldorf and Non-Violent Communication.

SOURCES:

(articles are available online via google)

Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills, Alix Spiegel (article)

Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?, Paul Tough (article)

Debunking the Case for National Standards, Alfie Kohn (article)

Tumbling Over the Edge, Bev Bos (pp 23)

How Children Fail, John Holt (pp 5 ~ 6)

Weapons of Mass Instruction, John Gatto (pp 13)

Dumbing Us Down, John Gatto (pp 11)

Further Reading:

Learning All the Time, John Holt

The Drama of the Gifted Child, Alice Miller

On Becoming a Person, Carl Rodgers

The Hurried Child, David Elkind

The Aware Baby, Aletha Solter

The Continuum Concept, Jean Liedloff

Have you ever tried to hurry a little boy into his clothing and out the door?  It is usually to no avail — the shirt becomes a pirate’s hat, and then his eye catches a forgotten toy — everything is so richly distracting to children, because they are still engaged so deeply in living life.

This is what is so easy to forget as an adult – how to be passionate and engaged and see the magic in life.

So why do we try to pounce it out of them? “Straighten up!  Hurry Up!  Come on, we’ll be late!”

What is the hurry?!!!! What could be more important than living?  This is a great reminder for me.  Whenever I climb back onto that treadmill of “earning a living,” I tend to forget how to slow down and BE where my son is.  I forget how to take time to meet him there, in the moment.

And ironically, that is the gift he brought to me, by becoming part of my life: he is a lesson in mindfulness, and in living every moment fully.

XOXO

Linda

www.RivieraPlaySchool.com

Riviera PlaySchool in Redondo Beach, CA
TEACHING FROM BALANCE
A humanistic, constructivist, and mindful program for the “whole child,” inspired by the best of Attachment Parenting, Reggio Emilia, Montessori, Waldorf and Compassionate Communication.

PASS IT ON:  We are Now offering a Schedule of Enriching Classes for People ages 5 and Up!
Format: FUN, Constructivist, and Practical classes to satisfy the core standards in a way that nurtures critical thinking pathways in the brain (3 R’s plus plus!!)

Location: Riviera PlaySchool

Days: Tuesdays and Thursdays

Times: 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm (or fraction thereof, depending upon how many 1 hour classes you sign up for)

Cost: about $60 per session of 4 one hour classes.

Ages: 5 and Up

Typical # Students per class: 12

Starting: October 21

Classes Offered:

Money (math)
World Cultures (social studies)
Language (oral story telling, phonics – game format)
Lego Engineering (math, language arts, abstract reasoning, critical thinking)
Sciences
World languages (Spanish, Italian)
Naturalist Classes
and more!!!

First come first served… contact us now to sign up!

XO
Linda

310)408-5616
–
Riviera PlaySchool in Redondo Beach, CA
TEACHING FROM BALANCE
A Mindful program for the ‘Whole Child,’ inspired by the best of Attachment Parenting, Reggio Emilia, Montessori, Waldorf and Compassionate Communication.

cell: (310)408-5616

www.RivieraPlaySchool.com

Wisdom begins in wonder. – Socrates

“Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”

“People are people no matter how small.”
~ Horton

“Kids want to explore.  They look at something and ask ‘How does that work?’  But we stop them from finding out… ”

“We just need to get out of our children’s way!” Neil DeGrasseTyson

DeGrasse explains why choosing an experiential preschool setting for your child, like Montessori, Waldorf, or Reggio Emilia, will best nurture his or her critical thinking skills. 

Hear Time’s 10 questions with Neil DeGrasseTyson on youtube.com

Now, typically (and in Bev Bos tradition) I would simply agree, since there is so much value in honing oral storytelling in the preschool years.  But something told me not to on that day.  So instead of putting pencil to paper, I said “Nandu, I will write it.  But why don’t you?” 

“Linda!”  Nandu puffed out in exasperation “I CAN’T write!  I’m just 4!!”

I looked at her: “Nandu, do you know what writing is?”

“No” she said, eyes wide in wonder. 

“Writing is just some marks that you make to remind yourself of what you wanted to say.  It is kind of a code.” 

“Really?!” Exclaimed Nandu, in delight.

“Yes!” I said “And someday, you will learn to write a set of marks that everyone else can read, as well.  But right now, you can just make your own and that will work.”

“Ok!” she said.  And she excitedly began putting her story down on paper, shielding her paper from my prying eyes as she wrote. 

What a success story!  We don’t want to extinguish their excitement for learning… we want to light their fire for it.  (This is how constructivists teach… and how we facilitate learning at playschool.  At playschool we take the best of Montessori, Reggio Emilia, and Waldorf, and apply construtivist teaching method to hone critical thinking skills and help pathways develop in the brain…..and whoilla!  We end up with an incredibly great learning environment for children~!)

Riviera PlaySchool in Redondo Beach, CA
TEACHING FROM BALANCE
A Mindful program for the ‘Whole Child,’ inspired by the best of Attachment Parenting, Reggio Emilia, Bev Bos, Montessori, Waldorf and Non-Violent Communication.

Many parents don’t realize that the education world has changed drastically since they were in school. Schools and class sizes used to be smaller, dropout rates lower, in-school violence almost unheard of, and teachers weren’t terrified of showing affection to their students, or of discussing moral values. Of course, even then, school was far from perfect, but at least the teachers—and usually the principal—knew every student by name, something that is increasingly rare today.

Because our public school system has deteriorated considerably, many parents, teachers, and individuals have taken it upon themselves to create public and private alternatives to that system; and it is important for parents to know that they now have choices.

So how do you know that it’s time to look for another educational approach for your child? Here are some of the signs:

1. Does your child say he or she hates school?
If so, something is probably wrong with the school. Children are natural learners, and when they’re young, you can hardly stop them from learning. If your child says they hate school, listen to them.

2. Does your child find it difficult to look an adult in the eye, or to interact with older or younger children?
If so, your child may have become “socialized” to interact only with peers within their own age group—a very common practice in most schools—and may be losing the ability to communicate with a broader group of children and adults.

3. Does your child seem fixated on designer labels and trendy clothes for school?
This is a symptom of an approach that emphasizes external rather than internal values, causing children to rely on shallower means of comparison and acceptance, rather than deeper values.

4. Does your child come from school tired and cranky?
While a student can have a hard day in any school, consistent exhaustion and irritability are sure signs that their educational experiences are not energizing, but actually debilitating.

5. Does your child come home complaining about conflicts that they’ve had in school, or unfair situations that they have been exposed to?
This may mean that the school does not have a student-centered approach to conflict resolution and communication. Many schools rely on swift, adult-issued problem solving, depriving children of their ability to emotionally process and thoughtfully discuss the situation at hand.

6. Has your child lost interest in creative expression through art, music, and dance?
Within the traditional system, these creative outlets are often considered secondary to “academic” areas, and are not as widely encouraged. In some cases, courses in these areas are not even offered any more. This neglect often devalues, or extinguishes, these natural talents and abilities in children.

7. Has your child stopped reading or writing—or pursuing a special interest—just for fun? Are they investing the bare minimum in homework?
This is often a sign that spontaneous activities and student independence are not being valued in their school. Children have a natural inclination to direct their own learning; however, an emphasis on meeting standardized test requirements limits the abilities of teachers to nurture and encourage this inclination. The result can be an increasing apathy toward subjects that were once exciting, and a loss of creativity.

8. Does your child procrastinate until the last minute to do homework?
This is a sign that the homework is not really meeting his or her needs—perhaps it’s “busy work” or rote memorization—and may be stifling to their natural curiosity.

9. Does your child come home talking about anything exciting that happened in school that day?
If not, maybe nothing in school is exciting for your child. Why shouldn’t school—and education—be a fun, vibrant, and engaging place?

10. Did the school nurse or guidance counselor suggest that your child may have a disease, like ADHD, and should be given Ritalin or another behavior regulating drug?
Be wary of these diagnoses and keep in mind that much of the traditional school curriculum these days is behavior control. If test requirements limit a teacher’s ability to engage students, if students are discouraged from following their own passions and expected to sit for five or six hours a day with limited personal attention and interaction, I suggest it’s the school that has the disease, EDD—Educational Deficit Disorder—and it might be time to get your child out of that situation!

If your child has exhibited several of these characteristics, it’s time for you to start looking for an alternative. In most parts of this country today, there are many options to choose from—public and private. For example, 40 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have now enacted legislation which allows groups of parents and teachers to create charter schools, which are not stuck with having to fulfill as many of the myriad of state regulations and can create their own individualized approach. There are now more than 4000 of them. There are also 4,500 magnet schools throughout the country, public schools that specialize in an area of expertise, and draw students from a wider geographic area.

Additionally, there are over 4,500 Montessori schools, based on the experiential approach designed by Dr. Maria Montessori, and hundreds of Waldorf schools, which put equal emphasis on traditional academics areas and the arts. There are also hundreds of independent alternative schools, many emphasizing participant control, with parents and students taking responsibility for their own educations.

The latter are often called democratic schools, free schools, or Sudbury schools.
Many public school systems, too, have a variety of alternative programs within their systems. These are divided into two general approaches:

1. Public Choice; programs which are open to any student in the community. Sometimes they are called Schools Within Schools.

2. Public At-Risk; programs for children who have had a variety of problems coping with school. These programs run the spectrum from helpful to dumping grounds. Examine them closely before making a decision to enroll.

Parents of well over a million children in this country have checked off “none of the above” and decided to teach their children at home. It is now legal in every state and does not require teacher certification. Homeschooling has taken a variety of approaches. Some try to create “school at home” with a fairly standard curriculum, the main difference being that parents can teach one-to-one with their children. Some families have signed up with a curriculum designed by an umbrella school; this school will help the parents create their own curriculum or, provide its own basic curriculum, grade homework, and help with any necessary report forms.

A third approach is called “unschooling.” In this case the parent bases their educational approach on the interest of the child and builds on that, rather than a pre-set curriculum. In some cases, curriculum is designed “retroactively,” by keeping records of the activities throughout the year and at the end of the process dividing the experiences into the appropriate subject area.

Remarkably, since most states require some form of testing for homeschoolers, as a group, they average in the 85th percentile, compared to the 50th percentile of the average public school student. There are now so many homeschoolers around the country that virtually all of them are part of some kind of homeschool group. Some of these groups have coalesced into homeschool resource centers and operate as often as four or five days a week. Generally, colleges have discovered that homeschoolers make such good students that they welcome them to apply to their schools.

As more and more parents become aware of, and make, these choices, we hope that the traditional system will evolve into one that meets the needs of an increasing number of students. Meanwhile, don’t wait for that system to change; take responsibility for your child’s education. Find out what your options are and choose what is best for your child.

None of these signs by themselves should be taken as a reason to panic. But if you have noticed several of them, you should certainly explore educational alternatives

–
Riviera PlaySchool in Redondo Beach, CA
TEACHING FROM BALANCE
A Mindful program for the ‘Whole Child,’ inspired by the best of Attachment Parenting, Bev Bos, Montessori, Waldorf and Non-Violent Communication.

cell: (310)408-5616