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The Decline of Play and Rise in Children's Mental Disorders

Related:  Grades & Motivation

Making Failure Harder Work Than Passing Chemistry seems to inspire a "D" mentality. A significant number of students just want to pass the class, meet their graduation requirement, and do it with as little effort as possible. Take Evelyn, for example, a junior in my chemistry class last term. Evelyn is a bright young lady, but she didn't see chemistry as relevant to her present or future, so she kept her head low, didn't engage in the material, missed about 20 percent of the class, and seemed to target a grade of 60 percent. That was at the beginning of the class. By the end of the term, Evelyn was sitting in the front row, volunteering to demonstrate how to solve problems, and getting frustrated with herself when her final grade in the class was a "B." Evelyn's grade had gone from a 60 percent to an 85 percent, but the real changes that I saw in her were much more rewarding than an improved grade point average. Many students will avoid working hard in a class that they see as challenging because of the risk involved.

Why are our kids so miserable? Melbourne, Australia He admits it: José Lopez always dreamed of going to America and using his training in information technology to make his fortune. But even if he hadn’t been put off by the rhetoric from across the border about building walls and banning people based on their religion, there were 52 times more applicants for visas to emigrate to the United States from his native Mexico last year than were made available under a complex quota system. And even if a technology company agreed to sponsor him, that route, too, was closed off when the number of workers who applied for those kinds of visas in the first week was three times the annual cap. Which is why Lopez has come to find himself in a classroom in Melbourne boning up on his English and preparing for a new life in Australia, a country that invites skilled, well-educated immigrants like him with comparatively open arms. “I wanted to go to Silicon Valley, but I don’t feel like I’m welcome in the United States,” Lopez said.

Failure Is Essential to Learning One of my favorite things to say when doing strategic planning with teachers is that the plan has a 50 percent chance of success and a 100 percent chance of teaching us how to get "smarter" about delivering on our mission. I love saying this because it conveys an essential truth: Failure is not a bad thing. It is a guaranteed and inevitable part of learning. In any and all endeavors, and especially as a learning organization, we will experience failure, as surely as a toddler will fall while learning to walk. Unfortunately, in education, particularly in this high-stakes accountability era, failure has become the term attached to our persistent challenges. Why Failure Is Important Early educational reformer John Dewey said it best: "Failure is instructive. Instead, we see failure as an opportunity for students to receive feedback on their strengths as well as their areas of improvement -- all for the purpose of getting better. How do you make failure students' friend? One Student's Story

Check out this article from USA TODAY: Raising a… Focus on the Process and Results Will Follow As I explored the correlation between great coaching and great teaching while interviewing highly successful sports coaches for a book about what teachers can learn from them, a common theme surfaced repeatedly. Several coaches stressed the importance of emphasizing the process rather than the results. This approach may seem counterintuitive, especially given the unprecedented emphasis on testing and performance in education today. However, the process-oriented approach to teaching and learning falls in line nicely with classroom instructional goals such as growth mindset and mastery. Because teachers are generally compliant, they will work diligently to produce the scores and performance that states, districts, and school leadership demand. The Problem Athletes at all levels face greater pressure today than ever before to be competitive, to score, to rack up statistics, and to produce wins. A Potential Solution Benefits of Emphasizing the Process

offspring.lifehacker The Making of an Expert Thirty years ago, two Hungarian educators, László and Klara Polgár, decided to challenge the popular assumption that women don’t succeed in areas requiring spatial thinking, such as chess. They wanted to make a point about the power of education. The Polgárs homeschooled their three daughters, and as part of their education the girls started playing chess with their parents at a very young age. It’s not only assumptions about gender differences in expertise that have started to crumble. So what does correlate with success? Consistently and overwhelmingly, the evidence showed that experts are always made, not born. The journey to truly superior performance is neither for the faint of heart nor for the impatient. Let’s begin our story with a little wine. What Is an Expert? In 1976, a fascinating event referred to as the “Judgment of Paris” took place. Two assumptions were challenged that day. How, then, can you tell when you’re dealing with a genuine expert? Practice Deliberately

The screen time debate is pitting parents against each other Before the smartphone backlash, before apps were likened to cigarettes for kids or Facebook co-founder Sean Parker mused that “God knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains” or Tim Cook revealed he doesn’t let his nephew touch social media, and before the demands for studies and regulations and shutting down apps, Riddhi Shah was en route to a weekend trip to unplug from tech-ified San Francisco. It was late 2015, and riding in the car with her husband and another couple, Riddhi, a friend of mine, was many months pregnant, and racked with questions about how she would inhabit her new role as a mom. That makes her the same as every first-time parent in the history of the world. However, the terms of parenthood changed abruptly back in 2007 when Steve Jobs introduced the shiny object that many humans would either spend the next decade staring at or consciously telling themselves not to focus on. Her friend pounced. “That’s bullshit! Riddhi felt stung by her friend’s response.

WOOP to and through college Wish What is your most important academic Wish or concern? Pick a Wish that is challenging for you but that you can fulfill. Note your Wish in 3-6 words! Outcome What would be the best thing, the best Outcome about fulfilling your Wish? Note your best Outcome in 3-6 words! Now take a moment and imagine this best Outcome. Obstacle Sometimes things don‘t work out as we would like. Note your main Obstacle in 3-6 words! Now take a moment and imagine your main Obstacle. Plan What can you do to overcome your Obstacle? Think about it: When and where will the obstacle occur the next time? Make the following Plan: If… (Obstacle), Then I will …(action) If... Then... Copyright © 2014 Gabriele Oettingen.

To Help Children Sleep, Go Dark Melatonin secretion is usually low during the day, and then rises in the evening, causing the body clock to prepare for sleep. The melatonin comes from the pineal gland, located between the two hemispheres of the brain, which is neurologically connected to body clock central, the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the hypothalamus, which in turn is influenced by how much light gets through to the retina. “The lens is a lot clearer in preschool children,” Dr. Dr. “One important takeaway is that parents should avoid having children exposed to very bright light before bedtime,” Dr. The same research group is starting a longer, larger study, looking at different light intensities and how they affect children’s body clocks. And since bedtime resistance and difficulty falling asleep are the primary sleep problems in this age group, she said, it’s worth thinking about how this sensitivity to light may affect children’s behavior, even while further research is being done.

I put this in parenting, primarily to remind myself to let my children make their own choices and have some sort of control over their environment and actions. by ccmc123 Sep 26

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