I'll say it again: Top SAT scores begin in the sandbox!

I've written about this topic before here:  Top SAT scores begin in the Sandbox.  However, it bears repeating:  When I work with high school students who are studying for their college entrance exams, I sometimes see evidence of what I have come to refer to as a Sandbox Deficit.  Children who don't spend enough time in unstructured play fail to develop the foundation for basic math, reading and science.  To compensate, they memorize steps, algorithms and strategies, but that only takes them so far.

Unfortunately, academics are getting pushed to earlier and earlier ages.  The good news is that more people are waking up to the problem.  Spread the news!  Share the studies!  And make time for children to play!

The most recent article I have run across regarding this subject can be found here:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/06/a-really-scary-headline-about-kindergarteners/

And here is what Matt Walsh had to say about the same headline referred to in the above article:
http://themattwalshblog.com/2014/02/10/your-5-year-old-failed-a-standardized-test-therefore-he-is-stupid-insane-and-doomed-to-a-life-of-failure/

"Young people today can't make change" just took on a whole new meaning

About 20 years ago, I was standing in the checkout line at a cafeteria-style restaurant.  Everyone in line was over the age of 30 because that style restaurant mainly appealed to the older generation.  The checkout clerk, who was probably in her early twenties, rang up the man in front of me, and he handed her a 20 dollar bill.  She punched in the 20.00 and hit return.  Just at that instant, the electricity flickered.  The cash register momentarily went dead and then came back on, but the transaction was lost.  The clerk didn't know what to do.  At first the people in line thought she wasn't sure if the transaction had been recorded or if she needed to repeat it, but that wasn't the problem.  She didn't know how much change to give him.  She remembered the price of his meal.  She knew he had handed her $20.  She couldn't tell what the change should be unless the cash register told her.  Everyone in line knew exactly what the change should be, but she couldn't risk taking our word for it.  A succession of managers was called to the scene until they found someone old enough to know how to make change for a twenty without electronic aid.  Until yesterday that was my "young people don't know how to make change" story.

Yesterday, I was at the cash register paying for an item that cost $7.42.  I reached into my purse, grabbed a ten-dollar bill and then poked around in my change pocket.  I pulled out a quarter, a nickel, a dime and two pennies.  I dropped the change into the palm of the checkout girl and then handed over the bill.  She set the bill aside, spread the coins across her palm and stared at them for 20 seconds or so.  She stared for so long, I began to worry:  Had I grabbed a third penny instead of the dime I was aiming for?  Is she trying to find a tactful way to tell me I've given her the wrong amount?  Finally she looked up, held out the coins and asked, "Is this 42 cents?"

My first thought was:  what in the world would have happened if she had needed to give ME 42 cents in change?  If she can't count out 42 cents, what would she have done?  Grabbed random coins, and if I complained add more random coins?  Call a manager? I wondered how she had been handling this problem up to now, but then I realized:  I may have been the very first customer she has ever had that paid for something in cash.

We are rapidly becoming a cash-less society and as we do, the ability to count change is becoming obsolete. Money-counting lessons will eventually be dropped from the school curriculum, and my question is:  Will this have unintended repercussions?

I frequently have this exchange with my students:

Student:  (staring at 75 ÷ 25)
Me:  How many quarters are in 75 cents?
Student:  Oh. Right.  Duh. (writes 3)

Coinage is an excellent medium for practicing all sorts of math skills that have applications in other places, but how many of those applications will continue to be relevant?  Do we need to be able to do things like divide 75 by 25 in our heads?  Much of the math in the current high school curriculum is unnecessary for the vast majority of adults.  We teach it anyway because we want to leave the door open for our students to choose those careers that need math.  However, there are other things going on when we study math.  What we learn shapes our brains.  For a long time we justified teaching geometry proofs by telling students that proof by deduction teaches us "how to think."  Geometry proofs have largely been dropped from the Common Core curriculum.  (You can read my elegy here.)
Will we see changes for the worse in students' overall cognitive functioning?  Will becoming a cash-less society have an adverse effect on our brains?

Another critical period in early childhood development: Movement

Each Monday I will review a different study guide or study tool. On Tuesdays and Thursdays check in for test-taking advice, tips and reminders. On Wednesdays you may find a post about standardized testing or education in general, and on Fridays articles geared to the parents of children age 0 to 13. Experience has taught me that there are many parents of young children who are already worried about SAT scores and college admissions. Some of you may find you way to this blog. This post is for you. I’m sorry it is late.

In my last Friday post I wrote about the critical period for language development in children.  Another window of opportunity that is open in early childhood is associated with movement.  Young children were designed to move!  They are wiggly for a reason. Neural pathways associated with large muscle movement are being developed from the prenatal period to about age 5. During this time you want to give your child the opportunity to move in as many different ways as possible. Crawl, climb, hop, skip, dance, balance on things, roll a ball, stretch. A toddler tumbling class might be fun, but none of this needs to be formal.

When pediatricians call for less “screen time” for preschool children, we sometimes stop to ask if sitting in front of the TV is harmful.  What if the child is watching something educational? You should consider that the problem might not be what your child is doing as he sits in front of the TV; it might be what he’s not doing.

You can read more about this here.

Don't miss this window of opportunity!

Experience has taught me that there are many parents of young children who are already worried about SAT scores and college admissions. Some of you may find you way to this blog. This post is for you.

 

Scientists theorize that our brains are wired to learn certain things most efficiently at certain times.  For example, you may have heard that foreign languages are best learned before adolescence.  This is often used as an argument to expand foreign language instruction in elementary and middle schools. There are possibly other critical periods for learning as well.

Some of these learning “windows of opportunity” are open quite early. For example, in order to be able to hear certain language sounds, infants should be exposed to them by age six months.  One of the challenges in learning a foreign language as an adult is the inability to distinguish between similar sounds used by native speakers of the language. Chinese adults learning English struggle with the “r” sounds because they cannot distinguish them from the “l” sounds.  Some companies are trying to capitalize on this by selling CD’s of lullabies sung in a variety of languages so that babies can be exposed to a variety of foreign language sounds.

Whether or not you choose to expose your infant to the sounds of another language, you should talk to your baby early and often! Language acquisition is one of the most important tasks of early childhood.  When children enter Kindergarten there is a huge gap between the children with the largest vocabularies and those with the smallest, and that gap is very difficult to close.   Read more about that here.

You can read more about critical periods for learning in Endangered Minds by Jane Healey.  Stay tuned next week for another window that is open until your child is about 6 years of age.