Can Free Play Prevent Depression and Anxiety In Kids? Over the past 50-60 years, play time in kids’ lives has been drastically cut. School days and years are longer and parents often schedule enrichment activities for their children instead of giving them space to direct their own play. Children are rarely given the freedom to direct their own activities, leading to a persistent rise in children feeling that they have no control over their lives. Check out his TEDx talk for all the details on this fascinating area of research. Related
Can Free Play Prevent Depression and Anxiety In Kids? Over the past 50-60 years, play time in kids’ lives has been drastically cut. School days and years are longer and parents often schedule enrichment activities for their children instead of giving them space to direct their own play. Children are rarely given the freedom to direct their own activities, leading to a persistent rise in children feeling that they have no control over their lives. And, while correlation doesn’t prove causation, Dr. Peter Gray, who has been studying play for years, says there’s strong evidence that in this case, the decline in play is leading to a rise in depression and acute anxiety among young people. Check out his TEDx talk for all the details on this fascinating area of research. Related
One third of adults with dyslexia report they were physically abused during their childhood TORONTO, ON – Adults who have dyslexia are much more likely to report they were physically abused before they turned 18 than their peers without dyslexia, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill. Thirty-five per cent of adults with dyslexia report they were physically abused before they turned 18. In contrast, seven per cent of those without dyslexia reported that they had experienced childhood physical abuse. “Even after accounting for age, race, sex and other early adversities such as parental addictions, childhood physical abuse was still associated with a six-fold increase in the odds of dyslexia” says co-author Esme Fuller-Thomson, professor and Sandra Rotman Endowed Chair at University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. The results were in a study published online this week in Journal of Interpersonal Violence. For more information, contact: Prof. Stephen R.
Why so many kids can’t sit still in school today The Centers for Disease Control tells us that in recent years there has been a jump in the percentage of young people diagnosed with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder, commonly known as ADHD: 7.8 percent in 2003 to 9.5 percent in 2007 and to 11 percent in 2011. The reasons for the rise are multiple, and include changes in diagnostic criteria, medication treatment and more awareness of the condition. In the following post, Angela Hanscom, a pediatric occupational therapist and the founder of TimberNook, a nature-based development program designed to foster creativity and independent play outdoors in New England, suggests yet another reason more children are being diagnosed with ADHD, whether or not they really have it: the amount of time kids are forced to sit while they are in school. State-based Prevalence Data of ADHD Diagnosis (2011-2012): Children CURRENTLY diagnosed with ADHD (Centers for Disease Control) By Angela Hanscom The mother starts crying. More from Answer Sheet:
Are Multiplayer Games the Future of Education? - Melanie Plenda A new classroom approach tries to bring more competition into the classroom. It was just supposed to be a quick trip to Beijing, a touristy group thing to take in the sights. It wasn't supposed to go down like this. There wasn't supposed to be a lost manuscript; the travelers weren't supposed to turn on each other. The only good, if any, to be found in this godforsaken quest, this unholy mission, was that by the end of it, they would all know how to speak Mandarin. This intricate Maltese Falcon-like story will unfold each day, over the course of semester, as a multiplayer game at Renssalear Polytechnic Institute in New York. Sheldon is the founder of gamification, a new movement that essentially takes all the things that make video games engaging and applies them to classroom learning. Sheldon discovered gamification by accident. "I got bored very quickly with myself," he says. Everything started turning around. This is why gaming aficionados can sit playing for hours on end.
Heavily Decorated Classrooms Disrupt Attention and Learning In Young Children, According To New Carnegie Mellon Research-Carnegie Mellon News Tuesday, May 27, 2014 Contact: Shilo Rea / 412-268-6094 / shilo@cmu.edu PITTSBURGH—Maps, number lines, shapes, artwork and other materials tend to cover elementary classroom walls. However, new research from Carnegie Mellon University shows that too much of a good thing may end up disrupting attention and learning in young children. Published in Psychological Science, Carnegie Mellon's Anna V. Fisher, Karrie E. "Young children spend a lot of time — usually the whole day — in the same classroom, and we have shown that a classroom's visual environment can affect how much children learn," said Fisher, lead author and associate professor of psychology in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Should teachers take down their visual displays based on the findings of this study? "We do not suggest by any means that this is the answer to all educational problems. The Institute of Education Sciences, part of the U.S.
5 Simple Office Policies That Make Danish Workers Way More Happy Than Americans You will often see Denmark listed in surveys as the "happiest country on the planet." Interestingly Danes are not only happy at home, they're also happy at work. According to most studies of worker satisfaction among nations, the happiest employees in the world are in Denmark. The U.S.? Not so much. Here's just one data point: a recent Gallup poll found that 18% of American workers are actively disengaged, meaning they are "emotionally disconnected from their workplaces and less likely to be productive." But why are Danish workers so happy compared to their American counterparts? 1: Reasonable working hours I once talked to an American who had gotten a job as a manager at a Danish company. Some non-Danes wonder if Danes ever work. The difference in the U.S. is stark, and many American companies celebrate overwork as a sign of commitment. 2: Low power distance In the U.S., if your boss gives you an order, you pretty much do what you're told. 3: Generous unemployment benefits The upshot
Scientists Say Child's Play Helps Build A Better Brain : NPR Ed Deion Jefferson, 10, and Samuel Jefferson, 7, take turns climbing and jumping off a stack of old tires at the Berkeley Adventure Playground in California. The playground is a half-acre park with a junkyard feel where kids are encouraged to "play wild." David Gilkey/NPR hide caption itoggle captionDavid Gilkey/NPR Deion Jefferson, 10, and Samuel Jefferson, 7, take turns climbing and jumping off a stack of old tires at the Berkeley Adventure Playground in California. The playground is a half-acre park with a junkyard feel where kids are encouraged to "play wild." David Gilkey/NPR This week, NPR Ed is focusing on questions about why people play and how play relates to learning. When it comes to brain development, time in the classroom may be less important than time on the playground. "The experience of play changes the connections of the neurons at the front end of your brain," says Sergio Pellis, a researcher at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada. Learning From Animals
My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me - Karl Taro Greenfeld What happens when a father, alarmed by his 13-year-old daughter's nightly workload, tries to do her homework for a week Charles Gullung Memorization, not rationalization. Esmee is in the eighth grade at the NYC Lab Middle School for Collaborative Studies, a selective public school in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. Some evenings, when we force her to go to bed, she will pretend to go to sleep and then get back up and continue to do homework for another hour. I wonder: What is the exact nature of the work that is turning her into a sleep-deprived teen zombie so many mornings? I decide to do my daughter’s homework for one typical week. Monday By late afternoon, I am tired after filing a magazine article on deadline. So I am relieved when she tells me she doesn’t have much tonight. I am surprised by the amount of reading. But the math is easier than I thought. I then start reading Angela’s Ashes while Esmee studies for Earth Science. So we switch. Total time: 3–5 hours What has changed?