American families aren’t accessing the school types they prefer and do not trust the federal government, according to results of an annual report “Schooling America”, produced by EdChoice, a national nonprofit organization that promotes state-based educational choice programs.
The majority polled overwhelmingly support Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), tax credit scholarships, school vouchers and charter schools.
The survey asked public school parents and the general public about their views of the four types of educational systems in America: public schools, charter schools, private schools, and home schooling. It also asked respondents about their views of the federal government’s role in K-12 education.
The majority of parents are involved with public school districts, the report found, with 89 percent having children who attended public school for at least one year. This percentage mirrors the data reported by the U.S. Department of Education, the report notes. Current public school parents are generally satisfied but at least one-third reported “major issues” with their schools’ responsiveness, communication and support outside the classroom.
EdChoice, which argues that families, not bureaucrats, are best equipped to make K-12 schooling decisions for their children, found that the majority of those polled do not trust the federal government when it comes to education.
Researchers point fingers at TV, genetics, overdiagnosis
Getty Images fileSome scientists say watching TV could lead to an increased risk for ADHD, while others argue that genetics and other factors play a bigger role in the development of the disorder.
When most of today’s parents were growing up, the common wisdom about television viewing was not to sit too close to the screen or you’d go blind. There was relatively little in the way of children’s programming: Sesame Street, which turned 35 this year, was in its infancy and there were a few cartoons, as well as Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Rogers and Romper Room.
How times have changed. In the years since then, children’s programming has exploded. Now whole networks are devoted to young viewers.
And, interestingly enough, something else has exploded: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, a behavior condition that now affects from 4 percent to 12 percent of U.S. children. ADHD is characterized by the inability to focus, listen, and complete tasks and schoolwork. Many children are medicated to control the condition.
When it comes to TV, says Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatric researcher at Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, concerns over eyesight should be the least of parents’ concerns. Instead, he contends that ADHD and the onslaught of children’s programming, along with DVD players and portable TVs that make viewing possible anywhere anytime, may very well be linked.
Study finds increased risk from TV Christakis is the lead author of a study published in the journal Pediatrics in April that suggests TV viewing in very young children contributes to attention problems later in life. “The study revealed that each hour of television watched per day at ages 1 through 3 increases the risk of attention problems by almost 10 percent at age 7,” says Christakis.
The study attempted to control for attributes of the home environment, such as cognitive stimulation and emotional support, but a key factor was left out: the content of the programs children watched. Christakis says this aspect should be studied in more detail at some point, but he maintains that it’s not the message of the program that’s likely the culprit — it’s the visual tactics used.
Christakis and others in the field, such as Jane Healy, an education psychologist in Vail, Colo., and author of “Your Child’s Growing Mind: Brain Development and Learning from Birth to Adolescence,” believe common programming tactics designed to capture a child’s attention can have a deleterious affect on brain chemistry.Advertise
Healy says overstimulation from rapid scene changes and other programming tactics may throw off the balance of the body’s catecholamine system, which is responsible for carrying communications between nerves.
“It has to do with neurotransmitters in the catecholamine system — dopamine and norepinephrine,” she adds.
Real life becomes slow and boring Children’s programmers use a technique called the “orienting reflex,” known as OR, to capture and keep a child’s attention. OR works in this way: If we see or hear something the brain doesn’t recognize as the correct sequence or a typical life event — such as a dancing alphabet or quick zooms and pans, we focus on it until the brain recognizes that it doesn’t pose a threat. The problem with watching too many programs that rely on OR is that real life becomes slow and boring by comparison.
“We think that with continued exposure to high intensity, unrealistic action, you’re conditioning the mind to expect that level of input,” Christakis explains. When the child doesn’t get the fast-paced input that television provides, he or she becomes bored and inattentive.Don’t miss these Health stories
“It used to be that as educators we talked about the ‘two-minute mind,'” says Healy. “Now it’s the 30-second mind.” Of course, having an extremely short attention span makes listening, problem solving and learning to read difficult.
It’s no secret that we love books in our family. Homeschooling has introduced a great variety of reading material into our studies. The concept of living books has enabled us to learn in a way that is engaging, unlike the way I learned dry boring facts in public school.
Living books are commonly associated with the Charlotte Mason method of homeschooling. They can be a great alternative for those homeschoolers who want to learn about history topics, but do not thrive academically when presented with traditional textbooks.
WHAT ARE LIVING BOOKS?
Charlotte Mason was a firm believer in introducing children to great literature. She didn’t believe in books that were dumbed down or that kept expectations of a child’s reading potential low. She felt that the value of good literature was that it could inspire as well as inform. However, she didn’t think that textbooks (in the traditional sense) encapsulate all that literature could bring to the table. Like many others, she found textbooks to be dry and not very engaging. The biggest drawback, though, was that they didn’t really provoke thought. Instead, they told you what to think and believe. They don’t encourage imagination, creativity, or exploration – they simply present information.
Living books are a way to not only educate, but to inspire new ideas and individual thoughts.They are typically written by someone who has firsthand experience with the subject or who is truly passionate about it. For example, if you wanted to study the Holocaust, you could read a textbook about World War II or you could read books such as The Diary of Anne Frank or Night by Elie Wiesel, which give firsthand accounts of life in the midst of the Holocaust.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF LIVING BOOKS?
As you could imagine, reading a textbook would give you facts, but reading the autobiographies would provide you with depth, spark emotions and thoughts, and generally be more engaging.
They provide more opportunities for curiosity. They bring not only the subject to life – but the people, issues, things, and times that the subject covers. Living books put you in the shoes of people. They encourage you to see, think, and feel as though you were in that world. In short, you LIVE the books that you read.
I was my son’s age when I started school, which at four and a half years old, made me one of the youngest kids in my class.
Luckily, I was a child of the ‘80’s when kindergarten wasn’t the new first grade and the academic pressures on kids were dwarfed by modern standards.
But, times have changed. We’ve moved on and become more sophisticated. Modern kids, it seems, are more advanced. They can read and write and add and subtract at younger ages than ever before, with one friend telling me recently that second graders are mastering computer coding. Seriously?
It seems as though we are so preoccupied with whether we can teach (or train) a child, we’re not stopping to ask if we should.
With kindergarten on our family’s horizon, it is assumed by friends, family and strangers that our son will be starting his academic career in September. But, if motherhood has taught me anything it is to question everything, to remain open-minded and make informed and proactive choices.
Because, government policy doesn’t necessarily reflect the psychological and developmental needs of children and rather than moving at my son’s cheetah speed, they tend to be slow to react when scientific findings run counter to cultural expectations or popular opinion.
A 2015 study titled, The Gift of Time? Starting School Age and Mental Health found strong evidence that delaying kindergarten by one year provides mental health benefits to children, allowing them to better self-regulate their attention and hyperactivity levels when they do start school. The effect was long-lasting, virtually eliminating the probability that an average eleven-year-old child would have an ‘abnormal’, or higher-than-normal rating for inattentive-hyperactive behavioral measures.
This is powerful information, yet public education policies in western nations fail to evolve.
