This post will begin a series that will look at the content needed for children in the age range posted. Each post will look at different areas of learning within each domain of learning. I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Development Standards (TN-ELDS). However, each post will look at how to accomplish each goal and what will not accomplish each goal. I chose this age range as a beginning because in most instances this is about the point I start all children that come through my door regardless of age. I hope you understand that many 3 and 4 year olds will not be able to do many of these performance indicators. These standards were written to reflect a child's progress that has had good learning experiences from birth. Many, many children will not have the foundation necessary for many of the performance indicators. I will cover what needs to be in place in order to accomplish each performance indicator.
Obviously, many of you that read this do not live in the state of Tennessee. Therefore, explanations as to terminology and set-up are necessary. For this particular series I will only cover the cognitive and language development domains. Each domain will be divided in areas of learning. The areas of learning will be subdivided into components. The components are divided into learning expectations. For these learning expectations examples of performance indicators will be given. The domain and areas of learning will be in the title of each post. The discussion will start with a component and its learning expectations and performance indicators. I chose these standards because Tennessee prides itself on having some of the most comprehensive early learning standards in the nation. In this series I am not arguing for or against the use of these standards. I am simply giving you a good format for developing a sound curriculum for preschool children. Of course, I will throw in as much of my own expertise as an early childhood educator and former homeschooler as I can. What will make this series unique is the homeschooling element, and I will be blunt about what can and cannot be taught through play.
Our first component we will discuss is Story Reading Behaviors with the learning expectation - begins to recite from memory familiar books. The examples given for this one are (1) asks to read books to the adult and may be able to recite several books fairly accurately, especially if they are simple and predictable (2) reads familiar books aloud, rendering the text very accurately, particularly when a book is predictable.
I will tell you that 2 1/2 and 3 year olds that meet this standard are usually considered quite smart. Many, many children do not have the experience with books required to be able to quote a book accurately at this age. Children must have heard a book around 10 times to be able to quote sections of it. Unless that child has the same book read to him/her on a regular basis, this particular performance indicator will not be met. I have had 4 year olds that took some time to pick up on even very repetitive text because they had so little experience with books. Experience with books will always be the starting place with every child to develop cognitive and language development skills. READ! READ! READ!! to the children. Children will not pick up this skill by simply sitting in a library area and looking at books. Even though this should be obvious, I will take nothing for granted in this series because I have seen some wacky ideas in my day.
The last component we will discuss in this post is Early Writing Behaviors and Skills with the learning expectation - scribbles and draws with intentionality. The examples given for this one are (1) draws a circle and (2) imitates a horizontal crayon stroke.
This just happens to be one of those areas where I have heard some wacky things in my day. Some early childhood experts would have you believe that simply providing a child with crayons and paper on a regular basis will make early writing behaviors happen magically. I am afraid it is not that simple. I have seen 4 year olds that have had ample opportunity with paper and crayons and still really did not draw circles. This is one of those areas where direct instruction becomes necessary. Some children will experiment with trying to draw what they have seen others do, but they are the minority. Most children that I have seen in the last decade do not begin to really develop writing behaviors until they were directly instructed. This may be a new phenomenon that has developed in the last 5-10 years, but a great majority of the children I have had have gone from scribbling to actual deliberate writing and drawing only after I broke out the tracing pages. I know that "pages" of any sort has been completely vilified as the most horrible thing a preschool teacher can do to children. However, tracing exercises for almost all children will be necessary in order for true writing and drawing behaviors to begin to emerge. For 2 1/2 to 3 year olds, simple instruction with making circles and sticks will be all that is necessary. For 4 year olds that are still scribbling, tracing pages will be all that helps bring those children up to speed. Remember, I treat all children that walk through my door as being at this level of development until I see that they are either ahead or behind. I do not use age as an indicator anymore because I have seen way too many 4 year olds walk through my door that could not draw a circle or a stick if their life depended on it. As a homeschooler I have seen how "pages" can be extremely beneficial when coupled with one-on-one instruction. It is the one-on-one instruction that brings the benefit. Just handing a child a page has the same effect as simply handing a child paper and crayons. The instruction makes the page beneficial. You have to show children how to use crayons and pencils correctly. It does not appear out of thin air.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!!
Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Dealing with Picky Eaters - Parent Participation
This post will look at the problem of picky eating and how parents help and hinder the process of getting children to eat better. Unfortunately in most cases of picky eating, the parents are a large part of the problem. Therefore, any attempt to improve the child's eating habits needs to be coupled with a very large amount of parent trainings, parent handouts, and any other method to improve the entire situation.
Is picky eating genetic?
Maybe, but it is definitely a learned behavior. Many times the parents of picky eaters are almost just as picky themselves. This is especially true of parents that are millennials. The peers of my biological children have terrible eating habits for the most part. Generation Xers do not eat much better unless they have learned it in adulthood. My peers growing up were the first really picky generation, and it has escalated exponentially since then with every subsequent generation being pickier than the one before it. We are going in the wrong direction on this one in a big way. Therefore, to break the cycle you must deal with the adults and children in this situation.
Where do you even begin? Cooking Skills
Actually the best place to start with parents are trainings that teach cooking skills. Many of my biological children's peers can barely boil water. It is sad. If something does not have microwave directions, it is probably beyond a great deal of millennials' cooking ability. That means they eat almost 100% processed food, and if they are parents, their children get nearly 100% processed food. Do I need to remind you that processed food makes for hyper children? Many millennials do not even know how to use a knife well enough to peel an apple. Therefore, anything that requires peeling is beyond their ability. One of the greatest gifts you could give many very young parents are cooking lessons. Teach them the proper way to use a knife. Teach them the basics of making simple foods like eggs and browning hamburger meat. Give them the skills necessary to be able to actually prepare nutritious meals for their family. Without these skills all the nutrition training in the world is wasted. I actually think one of the greatest ways to fight obesity in our country today is to require at least one full year of home economics in high school that includes learning to cook and plan nutritious meals. We are sending our children into adulthood these days completely unprepared for domestic duties, and we really need to rectify that.
Bad Habit - Grazing
Once you have established that your parents are capable of preparing nutritious meals, then you can start on the nutrition training. However, before you dive into full-fledged classes on portion sizes and meal planning, there are several very bad habits American parents have that really need to be dealt with first. The first of these bad habits involve letting your children graze all day long. These parents stock mostly junk food in the house in which their children have access, and the children basically snack all day long. They never eat a real meal. Even if the snacks are somewhat healthy, a child will never fulfill all of his/her nutritional needs through this type of snacking. I know that several years ago some pediatricians actually promoted this to get children to eat something. However, now studies have shown this to be a contributing factor to obesity in children. Encourage, coax, plead with parents to have actual meals and cut out the grazing.
Bad Habit - Fixing Separate Meals
The second very bad habit many parents have is fixing a separate meal for every member of the family. Instead of listening to their children complain about meals, many parents simply fix a different meal for each member of the house. Many times this will involve just getting fast food or popping a frozen dinner in the microwave. However, 99% of the time these meals are far from nutritious or well-balanced. This also sets an extremely bad precedent for the children. I am sorry, but children should not be allowed to eat macaroni and cheese or a bowl of cereal every day for supper just because you do not want to deal with a hissy fit. This practice has also been shown to contribute to obesity in children. Study after study has shown the value of families having sit down meals for reasons ranging from learning better eating habits to strengthening communication in a family. Children will eat better if they are expected to sit down at meals and have the exact same thing as everyone else. Will it come with monumental hissy fits? Absolutely, but eventually the hissy fits will subside and something wonderful will develop that is worth every bit of the blood, sweat, and tears it will take to get there.
Bad Habit - Juice in Sippee Cups
The third bad habit I want to deal with here is the practice of giving toddlers and preschoolers sippee cups with juice in it to sip on all day long. There are so many things wrong with this practice it is hard to know where to begin. Number one, a child should only have one small cup of juice a day not sip on juice all day long. Juice is packed with sugar even 100% juice. Study after study is now showing that overconsumption of juice is another contributing factor to obesity in children. Fresh fruit is much, much better for children than juice. Number two, if a child is allowed to consume a great deal of calories from liquids, they will not eat as well. They simply will not be hungry at meal times. Now, you may be thinking what if I substitute milk for juice? Even though milk is better than juice, a child should not sip on anything all day long. It is horrible for their teeth to constantly have something in their mouth. Number three, sippee cups should go away before a child's second birthday. I have already written a post on the problems with sippee cups. To sum up that post, overusage of sippee cups leads to speech problems. A child really needs to drink from a regular cup most of the time after their second birthday if not before. Their mouths will not develop properly without this experience. If you feel your child needs something to sip on throughout the day, have a water dispenser with small cups available.
Bad Habit - Flavored Milk
The last bad habit on my list involves flavored milk. If you really understood how much sugar is in flavored milk, you would never opt to give that to a child except on very rare occasions. This is another one of those seemingly innocent ideas from the 1990s that pediatricians somewhat pushed to get children to drink milk. Their reasoning was that it was better than not drinking milk at all and the parenting style of avoiding hissy fits at all costs was all the rage. Now they understand this is also another one of the contributing factors for childhood obesity. Children need milk but not flavored milk. They will drink white milk eventually after they protest for months. Never ever let a child use a hissy fit to get out of something they need to do. It is an ugly precedent to allow.
If the parents of the children in your care will simply learn not to have these bad habits in their homes, it will be 1000 times easier to get children to eat good food on a regular basis. Actually getting parents to remove these bad habits might take a miracle, but keep after it. When parents are a large part of the problem, the parents will have to be the starting place for correcting our epidemic of picky eaters.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Is picky eating genetic?
Maybe, but it is definitely a learned behavior. Many times the parents of picky eaters are almost just as picky themselves. This is especially true of parents that are millennials. The peers of my biological children have terrible eating habits for the most part. Generation Xers do not eat much better unless they have learned it in adulthood. My peers growing up were the first really picky generation, and it has escalated exponentially since then with every subsequent generation being pickier than the one before it. We are going in the wrong direction on this one in a big way. Therefore, to break the cycle you must deal with the adults and children in this situation.
Where do you even begin? Cooking Skills
Actually the best place to start with parents are trainings that teach cooking skills. Many of my biological children's peers can barely boil water. It is sad. If something does not have microwave directions, it is probably beyond a great deal of millennials' cooking ability. That means they eat almost 100% processed food, and if they are parents, their children get nearly 100% processed food. Do I need to remind you that processed food makes for hyper children? Many millennials do not even know how to use a knife well enough to peel an apple. Therefore, anything that requires peeling is beyond their ability. One of the greatest gifts you could give many very young parents are cooking lessons. Teach them the proper way to use a knife. Teach them the basics of making simple foods like eggs and browning hamburger meat. Give them the skills necessary to be able to actually prepare nutritious meals for their family. Without these skills all the nutrition training in the world is wasted. I actually think one of the greatest ways to fight obesity in our country today is to require at least one full year of home economics in high school that includes learning to cook and plan nutritious meals. We are sending our children into adulthood these days completely unprepared for domestic duties, and we really need to rectify that.
Bad Habit - Grazing
Once you have established that your parents are capable of preparing nutritious meals, then you can start on the nutrition training. However, before you dive into full-fledged classes on portion sizes and meal planning, there are several very bad habits American parents have that really need to be dealt with first. The first of these bad habits involve letting your children graze all day long. These parents stock mostly junk food in the house in which their children have access, and the children basically snack all day long. They never eat a real meal. Even if the snacks are somewhat healthy, a child will never fulfill all of his/her nutritional needs through this type of snacking. I know that several years ago some pediatricians actually promoted this to get children to eat something. However, now studies have shown this to be a contributing factor to obesity in children. Encourage, coax, plead with parents to have actual meals and cut out the grazing.
Bad Habit - Fixing Separate Meals
The second very bad habit many parents have is fixing a separate meal for every member of the family. Instead of listening to their children complain about meals, many parents simply fix a different meal for each member of the house. Many times this will involve just getting fast food or popping a frozen dinner in the microwave. However, 99% of the time these meals are far from nutritious or well-balanced. This also sets an extremely bad precedent for the children. I am sorry, but children should not be allowed to eat macaroni and cheese or a bowl of cereal every day for supper just because you do not want to deal with a hissy fit. This practice has also been shown to contribute to obesity in children. Study after study has shown the value of families having sit down meals for reasons ranging from learning better eating habits to strengthening communication in a family. Children will eat better if they are expected to sit down at meals and have the exact same thing as everyone else. Will it come with monumental hissy fits? Absolutely, but eventually the hissy fits will subside and something wonderful will develop that is worth every bit of the blood, sweat, and tears it will take to get there.
Bad Habit - Juice in Sippee Cups
The third bad habit I want to deal with here is the practice of giving toddlers and preschoolers sippee cups with juice in it to sip on all day long. There are so many things wrong with this practice it is hard to know where to begin. Number one, a child should only have one small cup of juice a day not sip on juice all day long. Juice is packed with sugar even 100% juice. Study after study is now showing that overconsumption of juice is another contributing factor to obesity in children. Fresh fruit is much, much better for children than juice. Number two, if a child is allowed to consume a great deal of calories from liquids, they will not eat as well. They simply will not be hungry at meal times. Now, you may be thinking what if I substitute milk for juice? Even though milk is better than juice, a child should not sip on anything all day long. It is horrible for their teeth to constantly have something in their mouth. Number three, sippee cups should go away before a child's second birthday. I have already written a post on the problems with sippee cups. To sum up that post, overusage of sippee cups leads to speech problems. A child really needs to drink from a regular cup most of the time after their second birthday if not before. Their mouths will not develop properly without this experience. If you feel your child needs something to sip on throughout the day, have a water dispenser with small cups available.
Bad Habit - Flavored Milk
The last bad habit on my list involves flavored milk. If you really understood how much sugar is in flavored milk, you would never opt to give that to a child except on very rare occasions. This is another one of those seemingly innocent ideas from the 1990s that pediatricians somewhat pushed to get children to drink milk. Their reasoning was that it was better than not drinking milk at all and the parenting style of avoiding hissy fits at all costs was all the rage. Now they understand this is also another one of the contributing factors for childhood obesity. Children need milk but not flavored milk. They will drink white milk eventually after they protest for months. Never ever let a child use a hissy fit to get out of something they need to do. It is an ugly precedent to allow.
If the parents of the children in your care will simply learn not to have these bad habits in their homes, it will be 1000 times easier to get children to eat good food on a regular basis. Actually getting parents to remove these bad habits might take a miracle, but keep after it. When parents are a large part of the problem, the parents will have to be the starting place for correcting our epidemic of picky eaters.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Saturday, May 24, 2014
The Social Learning Style
This post will conclude my series on learning styles. This particular learning style has been all the rage for quite a while. Learning by collaboration makes up a great deal of the learning experiences for especially high school and college level work. Group projects have come to be the norm and are seen as providing a rich learning experience for all involved.
I Hate Group Projects
Like every other learning style I have covered in this series, it remains that some people learn well using this learning style and some do not. Mention a group project in my presence, and you will probably get a very nasty look. I HATE group projects with a passion. I had to do at least one if not many more group projects every semester while getting my technical certificate in early childhood, my bachelor's degree and quite a few semesters of my master's degree. I would personally rather write a 10 page paper than have to do a group project. However, I survived many of them, but how I survived speaks a great deal to how effective this particular learning style actually is for many people.
A Level Playing Field
The effectiveness of group learning situations depends greatly on the levelness of the playing field. What I mean by this is how equally yoked are the members of the group. When a group has a fairly even level of skill, that group will be a higher functioning group than when the level of skill is varied. This is true of learning groups as well as business groups. The group project idea actually originated in the business world and has trickled down into the educational world. The business world is beginning to realize that all groups are not created equal. It used to be thought that groups will produce better results than individuals working by themselves. However, many studies have shown that does not necessarily play out in reality. The old adage that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link very much applies to groups. Only when each member is equally strong in his/her area of expertise will a group produce a result greater than what each individual could produce on his/her own. In the business world, this is called a high-functioning group. When the members of the group are unequally yoked, what results is compensation rather than collaboration. The stronger members of the group have to compensate for the lack of skills present in the weaker members, and therefore, the end result becomes the product of the overworked stronger members of the group. Overworked members rarely produce their best results. This is why I hate group projects. In all the group projects I have ever been assigned only a very few were in groups where I was not either the strongest academic member or one of a few strong academic members. In the few where I was equally yoked, those projects were impressive. We were actually able to pool the talents of all members to produce a greater result than any one of us could have produced alone. In all the others they might as well have been my projects because I either did all the work or reworked all the work to bring it up to the caliber that I knew was required, and none of those could fall into the category of my best work.
Results vs. Process
Not everyone feels the same about group projects as I do. However, that is also for various and assorted reasons. Some people like group projects because they know there will be a me in the group to do all the work, and therefore, they will get an easy "A." Some people enjoy the social aspects of working together and are not as concerned about the end results. For those people it is more about the process than the results. However, let just one member be a results person and everyone is miserable. I guess I am the results person, and prove my point about being equally yoked. All members of the group need to be either results oriented or process oriented. Mixing the two makes everyone miserable.
The Process People
People do exist that seem to thrive in the group setting. They learn and grow more from each other than they would when working alone. Process of learning typically falls higher in their priorities than results. For them the experience embodies the learning process rather than the acquisition of knowledge. I am not one of those people, but if you have read many books on early childhood learning, you will recognize that many of those writers are those type of people. However, not all children learn the same just like not all adults learn the same. Some children thrive in a process environment and some children get aggravated in a process learning environment. I would have been one of the aggravated. Give me substance, please.
Being Unequally Yoked
How does all of this translate into the early childhood world? Many curriculums and books on early childhood learning are based on social learning. It is very important to understand that not all children learn this way. Teaching young children sometimes is like a crap shoot. You have to try different methods until you find the one that works for the group of children in your care. If the children in your care are very unequally yoked, you may have to scrap a lot of social learning or only use it occasionally. I do have that situation in my very small childcare. I use a wide variety of activities to meet the needs of the widely ranging skill level of the children in my care. Group learning situations at my childcare often end up in a war of some sort. I have had to learn to individualize the group activities in order to get the same level of participation from all the children. Otherwise, one or two children participates and the others act up. I know that represents a great deal of what goes on in childcares all over the country. Many providers do not understand the unequally yoked factor of group activities and group settings. The business world has finally realized the importance of high functioning groups. Maybe the educational world will get there sometime in the next century.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
I Hate Group Projects
Like every other learning style I have covered in this series, it remains that some people learn well using this learning style and some do not. Mention a group project in my presence, and you will probably get a very nasty look. I HATE group projects with a passion. I had to do at least one if not many more group projects every semester while getting my technical certificate in early childhood, my bachelor's degree and quite a few semesters of my master's degree. I would personally rather write a 10 page paper than have to do a group project. However, I survived many of them, but how I survived speaks a great deal to how effective this particular learning style actually is for many people.
A Level Playing Field
The effectiveness of group learning situations depends greatly on the levelness of the playing field. What I mean by this is how equally yoked are the members of the group. When a group has a fairly even level of skill, that group will be a higher functioning group than when the level of skill is varied. This is true of learning groups as well as business groups. The group project idea actually originated in the business world and has trickled down into the educational world. The business world is beginning to realize that all groups are not created equal. It used to be thought that groups will produce better results than individuals working by themselves. However, many studies have shown that does not necessarily play out in reality. The old adage that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link very much applies to groups. Only when each member is equally strong in his/her area of expertise will a group produce a result greater than what each individual could produce on his/her own. In the business world, this is called a high-functioning group. When the members of the group are unequally yoked, what results is compensation rather than collaboration. The stronger members of the group have to compensate for the lack of skills present in the weaker members, and therefore, the end result becomes the product of the overworked stronger members of the group. Overworked members rarely produce their best results. This is why I hate group projects. In all the group projects I have ever been assigned only a very few were in groups where I was not either the strongest academic member or one of a few strong academic members. In the few where I was equally yoked, those projects were impressive. We were actually able to pool the talents of all members to produce a greater result than any one of us could have produced alone. In all the others they might as well have been my projects because I either did all the work or reworked all the work to bring it up to the caliber that I knew was required, and none of those could fall into the category of my best work.
Results vs. Process
Not everyone feels the same about group projects as I do. However, that is also for various and assorted reasons. Some people like group projects because they know there will be a me in the group to do all the work, and therefore, they will get an easy "A." Some people enjoy the social aspects of working together and are not as concerned about the end results. For those people it is more about the process than the results. However, let just one member be a results person and everyone is miserable. I guess I am the results person, and prove my point about being equally yoked. All members of the group need to be either results oriented or process oriented. Mixing the two makes everyone miserable.
The Process People
People do exist that seem to thrive in the group setting. They learn and grow more from each other than they would when working alone. Process of learning typically falls higher in their priorities than results. For them the experience embodies the learning process rather than the acquisition of knowledge. I am not one of those people, but if you have read many books on early childhood learning, you will recognize that many of those writers are those type of people. However, not all children learn the same just like not all adults learn the same. Some children thrive in a process environment and some children get aggravated in a process learning environment. I would have been one of the aggravated. Give me substance, please.
Being Unequally Yoked
How does all of this translate into the early childhood world? Many curriculums and books on early childhood learning are based on social learning. It is very important to understand that not all children learn this way. Teaching young children sometimes is like a crap shoot. You have to try different methods until you find the one that works for the group of children in your care. If the children in your care are very unequally yoked, you may have to scrap a lot of social learning or only use it occasionally. I do have that situation in my very small childcare. I use a wide variety of activities to meet the needs of the widely ranging skill level of the children in my care. Group learning situations at my childcare often end up in a war of some sort. I have had to learn to individualize the group activities in order to get the same level of participation from all the children. Otherwise, one or two children participates and the others act up. I know that represents a great deal of what goes on in childcares all over the country. Many providers do not understand the unequally yoked factor of group activities and group settings. The business world has finally realized the importance of high functioning groups. Maybe the educational world will get there sometime in the next century.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Dealing with Picky Eaters - Nutrition 101
This post will continue my discussion on picky eating. Specifically, this post will look at some nutrition basics that have somehow been lost in the shuffle. In case you are wondering, I have a master's degree in family and consumer science. Therefore, I just might know a hair bit more about nutrition than the average bear. Actually, some of my knowledge comes from two years of home economics in high school in the 1980s. A great portion of my knowledge on nutrition comes from teaching my own children health using the A Beka Book curriculum. That curriculum was actually almost as comprehensive as my graduate school work in the caliber of the information provided.
It's All About Politics
Even though a good percentage of childcare providers participate in the USDA food program, many of them do not really understand nutrition. Yearly training is required to participate in the food program, but if you really look at the menus that qualify for "nutritious," you might think something fishy is going on here. My home economics teacher would have taken the food program to absolute task over those menus. Why would a program that boasts building nutritious meals actually allow very non-nutritious meals? The answer to that is the same as why a tomato is legally a vegetable but scientifically a fruit - politics. Money and politics make the world go round and affect everything our government touches. To not understand that is to be duped into believing a whole lot of untruths.
Portion Control
Before I tear into the menus provided by the USDA, let me say that the food training does one thing very, very right. Every year at these trainings, the trainers break out the measuring tools and drill on portion sizes. In America, this is one of the best lessons we can teach the children. When children consistently see appropriate portion sizes, it makes a difference in their expectations of what they need. This will have impact as they grow older. Therefore, I say to the food trainers, "Keep breaking out those measuring tools!"
What Is a True Vegetable?
Now, let us get to the menu planning. Rule number one: Potatoes and Corn are carbohydrates not true vegetables. My high school home economics teacher drilled this into our heads. When we menu planned for her class, potatoes did not count as a vegetable and only yellow corn would count but only if we used it once per week. If we had tried to pass off french fries and tater tots as a vegetable, she would have laughed at us like we were crazy. Now, look at a USDA menu for the food program and see how many times potatoes are listed as a vegetable (with that mostly being french fries and tater tots) and whether corn is included more than once per week. While we are on the subject of nonvegetables, beans and peas are not vegetables either. They are protein and count like a meat. Baked beans and pork and beans are not vegetables even though I have seen them listed that way many times. When you remove all the nonvegetables from the USDA menu, you will not find very many true vegetables at all. Now I understand that vegetables are a very touchy subject with children, but do not claim to be nutritious in my presence with a menu that looks like that.
Protein for Breakfast
Rule number two: Children need protein for breakfast. I do not understand why the USDA does not require a protein component for breakfast when the research behind a child's need for protein in the morning has been documented for decades. The only reasoning I can see is that the compensation rate for breakfast is less than lunch, and therefore needs less components. However, children need protein in the morning to be able to maintain until lunch. It helps them think better. It stabilizes their mood all morning. Any childcare provider with any nutritional training understands that providing protein in the morning whether you are compensated for it or not gives a return that is well worth the extra expense. This can be accomplished with scrambled eggs, which is not terribly expensive. By the way, eggs just might be the world's most perfect food especially for children. Eggs contain more vitamins and minerals per serving than just about anything else.
The Need for Whole Foods
Rule number three: Whole foods over processed foods. This is where I really have issues with the USDA menus. If I had tried to pull off bologna as a nutritious component of a meal in home economics in high school, she would have flunked me. Do not even get me started about pop tarts. Really people. The more processed the food the less nutritional value it has. This is a simple nutritional fact that has been around since we started processing more and more of our food. Processed foods make for hyper children. If no one has ever told you that, then let me be the first. If you want to calm down your children, then serve foods that are as close to their natural form as possible. Fresh over all else. Frozen when you cannot do fresh. Canned only when you cannot find it any other way and only sparingly. Now I understand that fresh and even frozen is more expensive than cans. However, think of it as an investment in your own sanity. Better foods do equal better behaved children overall.
The Vitamin A Rule
Rule number four: Children need a source of vitamin A at two different meals each day. This particular rule is not widely known. However, vitamin A plays an important part in a child's overall wellbeing. Synthetic forms of vitamin A found in vitamin pills and vitamin drinks are not as easily absorbed by the body as natural forms. (This is true of all vitamins and minerals.) Therefore, having a source of vitamin A at two different meals will help children have healthy skin and hair among other benefits. Remember when I talked about the television program that showed simulations of what children would look like as adults when you factored in their nutrition habits? One of the biggest shocks for those parents was the hair loss. Guess what caused that hair loss - vitamin A deficiency. What are sources of vitamin A? The best sources of vitamin A are dark green leafy vegetables and deep yellow and orange vegetables. Before you get excited, lettuce unless it is the dark green leafy kind does not have vitamin A. Yellow corn and green beans have a little but will need to be coupled with another source for them to count. Apricots are a good source but peaches only have a little and must be coupled with another source. Egg yolks, red meat, and real butter are other sources of vitamin A. Margarine does not have it. In this society you can almost count it as a given that children will not get a source of vitamin A at home. Therefore, when you menu plan, you will need to make sure you are serving 2 good servings of vitamin A per day. This is where the USDA food program menus really do not measure up. Fruits are good for children but only a few contain vitamin A. Substituting fruits for vegetables at meals because children like fruit better will still cause them to be vitamin A deficient.
Bright Colors
Rule number five: It's all about bright colors. Foods that have deep color naturally are better for you than foods that do not. One of the best ways to determine if you are serving nutritious meals is to look at the vibrancy of the color of your plate. If most of the food is brown and white, your menu planning needs a lot of work. Do you serve food that is deep red like beets or dark cherries? Do you serve food that is blue or purple like blueberries or eggplant? Do you serve food that is orange like carrots and sweet potatoes? A well planned plate will have a variety of vibrant colors. The only brown you should see is from whole wheat breads and cereals. Of course, artificial colors absolutely do not count.
In this post I have only covered the nutrition basics. Getting children to eat this type of food is an entirely different matter, and will be the subject of the next several posts.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
It's All About Politics
Even though a good percentage of childcare providers participate in the USDA food program, many of them do not really understand nutrition. Yearly training is required to participate in the food program, but if you really look at the menus that qualify for "nutritious," you might think something fishy is going on here. My home economics teacher would have taken the food program to absolute task over those menus. Why would a program that boasts building nutritious meals actually allow very non-nutritious meals? The answer to that is the same as why a tomato is legally a vegetable but scientifically a fruit - politics. Money and politics make the world go round and affect everything our government touches. To not understand that is to be duped into believing a whole lot of untruths.
Portion Control
Before I tear into the menus provided by the USDA, let me say that the food training does one thing very, very right. Every year at these trainings, the trainers break out the measuring tools and drill on portion sizes. In America, this is one of the best lessons we can teach the children. When children consistently see appropriate portion sizes, it makes a difference in their expectations of what they need. This will have impact as they grow older. Therefore, I say to the food trainers, "Keep breaking out those measuring tools!"
What Is a True Vegetable?
Now, let us get to the menu planning. Rule number one: Potatoes and Corn are carbohydrates not true vegetables. My high school home economics teacher drilled this into our heads. When we menu planned for her class, potatoes did not count as a vegetable and only yellow corn would count but only if we used it once per week. If we had tried to pass off french fries and tater tots as a vegetable, she would have laughed at us like we were crazy. Now, look at a USDA menu for the food program and see how many times potatoes are listed as a vegetable (with that mostly being french fries and tater tots) and whether corn is included more than once per week. While we are on the subject of nonvegetables, beans and peas are not vegetables either. They are protein and count like a meat. Baked beans and pork and beans are not vegetables even though I have seen them listed that way many times. When you remove all the nonvegetables from the USDA menu, you will not find very many true vegetables at all. Now I understand that vegetables are a very touchy subject with children, but do not claim to be nutritious in my presence with a menu that looks like that.
Protein for Breakfast
Rule number two: Children need protein for breakfast. I do not understand why the USDA does not require a protein component for breakfast when the research behind a child's need for protein in the morning has been documented for decades. The only reasoning I can see is that the compensation rate for breakfast is less than lunch, and therefore needs less components. However, children need protein in the morning to be able to maintain until lunch. It helps them think better. It stabilizes their mood all morning. Any childcare provider with any nutritional training understands that providing protein in the morning whether you are compensated for it or not gives a return that is well worth the extra expense. This can be accomplished with scrambled eggs, which is not terribly expensive. By the way, eggs just might be the world's most perfect food especially for children. Eggs contain more vitamins and minerals per serving than just about anything else.
The Need for Whole Foods
Rule number three: Whole foods over processed foods. This is where I really have issues with the USDA menus. If I had tried to pull off bologna as a nutritious component of a meal in home economics in high school, she would have flunked me. Do not even get me started about pop tarts. Really people. The more processed the food the less nutritional value it has. This is a simple nutritional fact that has been around since we started processing more and more of our food. Processed foods make for hyper children. If no one has ever told you that, then let me be the first. If you want to calm down your children, then serve foods that are as close to their natural form as possible. Fresh over all else. Frozen when you cannot do fresh. Canned only when you cannot find it any other way and only sparingly. Now I understand that fresh and even frozen is more expensive than cans. However, think of it as an investment in your own sanity. Better foods do equal better behaved children overall.
The Vitamin A Rule
Rule number four: Children need a source of vitamin A at two different meals each day. This particular rule is not widely known. However, vitamin A plays an important part in a child's overall wellbeing. Synthetic forms of vitamin A found in vitamin pills and vitamin drinks are not as easily absorbed by the body as natural forms. (This is true of all vitamins and minerals.) Therefore, having a source of vitamin A at two different meals will help children have healthy skin and hair among other benefits. Remember when I talked about the television program that showed simulations of what children would look like as adults when you factored in their nutrition habits? One of the biggest shocks for those parents was the hair loss. Guess what caused that hair loss - vitamin A deficiency. What are sources of vitamin A? The best sources of vitamin A are dark green leafy vegetables and deep yellow and orange vegetables. Before you get excited, lettuce unless it is the dark green leafy kind does not have vitamin A. Yellow corn and green beans have a little but will need to be coupled with another source for them to count. Apricots are a good source but peaches only have a little and must be coupled with another source. Egg yolks, red meat, and real butter are other sources of vitamin A. Margarine does not have it. In this society you can almost count it as a given that children will not get a source of vitamin A at home. Therefore, when you menu plan, you will need to make sure you are serving 2 good servings of vitamin A per day. This is where the USDA food program menus really do not measure up. Fruits are good for children but only a few contain vitamin A. Substituting fruits for vegetables at meals because children like fruit better will still cause them to be vitamin A deficient.
Bright Colors
Rule number five: It's all about bright colors. Foods that have deep color naturally are better for you than foods that do not. One of the best ways to determine if you are serving nutritious meals is to look at the vibrancy of the color of your plate. If most of the food is brown and white, your menu planning needs a lot of work. Do you serve food that is deep red like beets or dark cherries? Do you serve food that is blue or purple like blueberries or eggplant? Do you serve food that is orange like carrots and sweet potatoes? A well planned plate will have a variety of vibrant colors. The only brown you should see is from whole wheat breads and cereals. Of course, artificial colors absolutely do not count.
In this post I have only covered the nutrition basics. Getting children to eat this type of food is an entirely different matter, and will be the subject of the next several posts.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Saturday, May 17, 2014
The Solitary Learning Style
This post will look at those children that thrive in one-on-one learning situations and self-study situations. I actually think this may be the next big thing in education outside of the established educational world. People already go to college online and study on their own to earn everything from bachelors degrees to doctorates. I do believe this will filter down into the high school, middle school, and elementary years very soon. To some degree, this trend is already here. Many online schools now exist for even elementary students to study from home.
My Forte - Solitary Learning
This particular learning style represents my forte as both a student and a teacher. I homeschooled my own children for 13 years. My childcare is set up for one-one-one instruction for every child every day. I also graduated with my masters degree having completed the entire degree through online courses. To be honest, if online education had existed when I was growing up, I would have thrived on such a proposition. My peers in public school were so far behind me that I basically taught myself and them throughout my entire school career, and that includes my secondary education as well. If I had been allowed to progress at my own pace, I might have gone a great deal further than I actually did. That represents a large percentage of my reasoning for homeschooling my own children. I wanted to give them the opportunity to go as far as they could without having to be held back by their peers. Did it work? I believe it truly did for my middle child. She hit high school able to go the honor courses route and was able to be surrounded by peers that were her equal. My son, however, went into public school in middle school in the 7th grade so he could play football. That was nearly disastrous. When he hit high school, he had to make up massive ground in order to follow his sister in the honor course route. Those two years that his sister received at home made a huge difference for her, and he will readily admit that. I credit his solid foundation before he hit public school for being able to pull up and hang with the honor course route, but he had to work for it. In case you do not know this, a great divide exists in the public school between general courses and honor courses. This reality holds true for most of the country. Unless your child can hang with the honor courses in public school, the quality of the education that your child receives will not be anywhere near the caliber of the education of those that do. If the school your child attends does not have honor courses, most of the time it falls into the general course reality.
The Ugly Trend in Education
I am about to really dive into the ugly reality of education in America today. When I homeschooled in the 1990s, we were the fringe of society. The homeschool movement was in its infancy. Now, the homeschool movement has grown considerably thanks to the internet. One of the fastest growing sectors of the educational world is online academies. Many, many parents choose the path of homeschooling now to pull their children out of failing schools. This also explains the exponential rise of charter schools. I did not realize how much this particular trend has grown until recently. I have been going into schools to read my book, Lily's Feather Kite. I recently went into a town that when I was going to school was a really nice school system. I was shocked at what I found. I visited every kindergarten class in the public school system that served this particular town and found that 80-90% of the children were minorities. I could not help but ask myself where all the white children had gone. This particular town did not have a population that was 80-90% minorities. After asking some people with relatives in this town, I found out that everyone that can sends their children to private schools in a nearby larger town. Those that cannot afford private schools, homeschool. Only the poorest white children attend the public school. Affluent minority families do the same as the affluent white families. Only the poor attend public school. Turns out, this a growing trend in metropolitan areas all over the country.
Is Solitary Learning Superior?
Since solitary learning situations are very much on the rise, are they better for children than our present educational systems? The answer to that question is mostly yes especially in the early grades. I have been preaching for post after post about the importance of children being able to proceed down their education path at their own pace and ability. Only in the solitary learning situations can this reality be fully met. When children receive their instruction in a one-one-one setting whether it involves face to face teachers or internet courses, they have the freedom to work on their weaknesses until they are conquered and delve into their strengths with a passion. Public school education may never be able to really go here. Charter schools thrive because they have smaller class sizes and some have the freedom to group children according to ability rather than age. This gives the teachers more time to devote to individual instruction, which will always produce greater results. We are individuals. Education should be an individual endeavor.
Some Problems with Solitary Learning
What are some problems that arise in the solitary learning situation? Not every child can handle self-study situations. Many children can learn from an online venue. However, children with slight to severe developmental delays really need a human teacher in which to interact. The subtleties of teaching this population requires the intuition of a human teacher. A machine just cannot do the same. Some children actually do better in a social setting because they are pushed by their peers. If these children are left to go at their own pace, the pace will be way too slow. It does not take a large class to motivate these types of children, but they do need some peers to give them the extra push they need. In order to handle a self-study situation, a child or adult needs to be self-motivated. However, I have not seen a child that did not benefit from a teacher/student one-on-one relationship unless the teacher was incompetent. There are some parents that have no business homeschooling. It takes consistency and discipline that some parents do not possess. When a competent teacher enters into a one-on-one situation with a child, that child flourishes whether that child is advanced or severely developmentally delayed. I am speaking purely from an academic standpoint. Learning social/relationship lessons does require peers. In past centuries, the affluent understood that academic lessons and social lessons did not have to come from the same source. Parents provided tutors for academics and other means for gaining social competencies. This is how homeschool parents function. They understand that the two types of learning do not have to be married. One day the rest of the educational world will figure this out.
Solitary Learning in the Preschool World
What does this learning style look like in a preschool setting? I will tell you that it does require smaller class sizes. Providers that care for less than 10 children will be in a better position to use this style of teaching. Basically, it involves having individual lesson plans for each child. At some point in the day, each child will receive a one-on-one session that covers those lesson plans. These lessons do not have to exceed five minutes for two year olds or 20 minutes for children nearly at the kindergarten level. However, the consistent building of concepts one upon another that this style accomplishes cannot be equaled. Those five minute sessions with two year olds will produce three year olds that know their colors, shapes, and maybe even numbers and some letters depending on the individual child. I have seen this system produce results that completely baffle those unfamiliar with it. For the rest of the day, the children play and interact in a couple of group times. This is what a true academic preschool looks like from a homeschooling mom's perspective. When I speak of an academic preschool, this is what I mean.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
My Forte - Solitary Learning
This particular learning style represents my forte as both a student and a teacher. I homeschooled my own children for 13 years. My childcare is set up for one-one-one instruction for every child every day. I also graduated with my masters degree having completed the entire degree through online courses. To be honest, if online education had existed when I was growing up, I would have thrived on such a proposition. My peers in public school were so far behind me that I basically taught myself and them throughout my entire school career, and that includes my secondary education as well. If I had been allowed to progress at my own pace, I might have gone a great deal further than I actually did. That represents a large percentage of my reasoning for homeschooling my own children. I wanted to give them the opportunity to go as far as they could without having to be held back by their peers. Did it work? I believe it truly did for my middle child. She hit high school able to go the honor courses route and was able to be surrounded by peers that were her equal. My son, however, went into public school in middle school in the 7th grade so he could play football. That was nearly disastrous. When he hit high school, he had to make up massive ground in order to follow his sister in the honor course route. Those two years that his sister received at home made a huge difference for her, and he will readily admit that. I credit his solid foundation before he hit public school for being able to pull up and hang with the honor course route, but he had to work for it. In case you do not know this, a great divide exists in the public school between general courses and honor courses. This reality holds true for most of the country. Unless your child can hang with the honor courses in public school, the quality of the education that your child receives will not be anywhere near the caliber of the education of those that do. If the school your child attends does not have honor courses, most of the time it falls into the general course reality.
The Ugly Trend in Education
I am about to really dive into the ugly reality of education in America today. When I homeschooled in the 1990s, we were the fringe of society. The homeschool movement was in its infancy. Now, the homeschool movement has grown considerably thanks to the internet. One of the fastest growing sectors of the educational world is online academies. Many, many parents choose the path of homeschooling now to pull their children out of failing schools. This also explains the exponential rise of charter schools. I did not realize how much this particular trend has grown until recently. I have been going into schools to read my book, Lily's Feather Kite. I recently went into a town that when I was going to school was a really nice school system. I was shocked at what I found. I visited every kindergarten class in the public school system that served this particular town and found that 80-90% of the children were minorities. I could not help but ask myself where all the white children had gone. This particular town did not have a population that was 80-90% minorities. After asking some people with relatives in this town, I found out that everyone that can sends their children to private schools in a nearby larger town. Those that cannot afford private schools, homeschool. Only the poorest white children attend the public school. Affluent minority families do the same as the affluent white families. Only the poor attend public school. Turns out, this a growing trend in metropolitan areas all over the country.
Is Solitary Learning Superior?
Since solitary learning situations are very much on the rise, are they better for children than our present educational systems? The answer to that question is mostly yes especially in the early grades. I have been preaching for post after post about the importance of children being able to proceed down their education path at their own pace and ability. Only in the solitary learning situations can this reality be fully met. When children receive their instruction in a one-one-one setting whether it involves face to face teachers or internet courses, they have the freedom to work on their weaknesses until they are conquered and delve into their strengths with a passion. Public school education may never be able to really go here. Charter schools thrive because they have smaller class sizes and some have the freedom to group children according to ability rather than age. This gives the teachers more time to devote to individual instruction, which will always produce greater results. We are individuals. Education should be an individual endeavor.
Some Problems with Solitary Learning
What are some problems that arise in the solitary learning situation? Not every child can handle self-study situations. Many children can learn from an online venue. However, children with slight to severe developmental delays really need a human teacher in which to interact. The subtleties of teaching this population requires the intuition of a human teacher. A machine just cannot do the same. Some children actually do better in a social setting because they are pushed by their peers. If these children are left to go at their own pace, the pace will be way too slow. It does not take a large class to motivate these types of children, but they do need some peers to give them the extra push they need. In order to handle a self-study situation, a child or adult needs to be self-motivated. However, I have not seen a child that did not benefit from a teacher/student one-on-one relationship unless the teacher was incompetent. There are some parents that have no business homeschooling. It takes consistency and discipline that some parents do not possess. When a competent teacher enters into a one-on-one situation with a child, that child flourishes whether that child is advanced or severely developmentally delayed. I am speaking purely from an academic standpoint. Learning social/relationship lessons does require peers. In past centuries, the affluent understood that academic lessons and social lessons did not have to come from the same source. Parents provided tutors for academics and other means for gaining social competencies. This is how homeschool parents function. They understand that the two types of learning do not have to be married. One day the rest of the educational world will figure this out.
Solitary Learning in the Preschool World
What does this learning style look like in a preschool setting? I will tell you that it does require smaller class sizes. Providers that care for less than 10 children will be in a better position to use this style of teaching. Basically, it involves having individual lesson plans for each child. At some point in the day, each child will receive a one-on-one session that covers those lesson plans. These lessons do not have to exceed five minutes for two year olds or 20 minutes for children nearly at the kindergarten level. However, the consistent building of concepts one upon another that this style accomplishes cannot be equaled. Those five minute sessions with two year olds will produce three year olds that know their colors, shapes, and maybe even numbers and some letters depending on the individual child. I have seen this system produce results that completely baffle those unfamiliar with it. For the rest of the day, the children play and interact in a couple of group times. This is what a true academic preschool looks like from a homeschooling mom's perspective. When I speak of an academic preschool, this is what I mean.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Dealing with Picky Eaters - What is the Big Deal?
This post will look at the problem of picky eating in children and what the short and long term consequences can be for having poor eating habits. In today's society when obesity makes the headlines almost every day, this subject should be making the headlines every day as well. However, there seems to be a big disconnect between the obesity epidemic and picky eating habits. I truly believe that our society suffers from extreme denial about how their eating habits affect their overall health and well-being.
Americans and Their Food
We as Americans do not like to breach the subject of picky eating because we hold our tastes in food to be a very personal thing. We like what we like, and we do not want to have to eat what we do not like no matter how much our body may need the nutrients in that particular food. We would rather take a pill or use any other means possible to get those nutrients without having to eat a food we dislike. On top of that, we will deny to our dying breath that we have bad eating habits, and will get absolutely hostile with anyone that tries to tell us otherwise. This applies to as many adults as it does children. However, the level of the picky eating does seem to be growing exponentially with every passing generation.
Picky Eating over the Generations
When I was a child, we did not necessarily like to eat our vegetables, but it was more required than it is now. When my generation grew up and became parents, we tended to not require the vegetables as much as our parents did. We let our children grow up to be pickier than we were allowed to be. Now our children have grown up, and their children do not even know what a vegetable looks like. In the 9 years that I have been a provider, I have noticed a considerable uptick in picky eating that has gotten to the epidemic stage in the last couple of years. Not only will they not eat vegetables, many of them will not eat fruit, meat that is not breaded and/or fried, bread that is not white, and milk that is not flavored. I have even seen a good proportion of children that will not touch macaroni and cheese when they first arrive on my doorstep. People, this is getting out of hand.
Our Family Pact
Unlike my peers, I was more adamant about my children eating their vegetables than even my parents. When I first married my husband, he was the pickiest eater I had ever met. I had a great deal of nutrition training in high school thanks to a very good home economics teacher, and I knew the consequences of bad eating habits. Therefore, when we had children we made a pact to eat some of everything on the table whether we liked it or not because my husband understood what his eating habits had already done to his health. He also understood that he would have to model better eating habits or his children would end up with the same issues he already had in his 20s. It was tough for him to learn to eat better as an adult. I did not make it very easy for him either. I fixed 3 different vegetables with every meal. He learned to eat even spinach and beets without too much of a fuss as long as I only fixed those occasionally. When we married, his idea of a vegetable was mashed potatoes. He would not even eat yellow corn only white. Basically, he only ate foods that were brown and white. Does that sound familiar?
Today's Picky Eaters
Of course, now I have been exposed to children that make my husband look like the healthiest eater in the world. They will not eat mashed potatoes. They fuss if the chicken nuggets are baked instead of fried. If you hand them white milk, they just might throw it at you. The hostility over the food has also increased exponentially. Many parents have completely given up (or never even tried) on getting their children to eat much beyond chicken nuggets and french fries. I had one kid that would only eat pop tarts and drink apple juice. Many parents complicate this by fixing a separate meal for their children. Every member of the family gets to choose from a variety of frozen meals for supper. Meals are not planned. Many children in today's society are not even exposed to vegetables and sometimes fruits before they arrive on the doorstep of childcares and schools.
What's the Big Deal?
The title of this post is "What is the Big Deal?" Many people ask that very question when the subject of picky eating comes up. There was a show several years back that answered that question in a very graphic way at times. It was called "Honey We Are Killing Our Kids." In this show the producers would take a computer simulation and factor in a child's present eating habits to show the parents what the long-term effects of the vitamin and mineral deficiencies would do to their children. It also factored in the amount of exercise, but the descriptions of the long-term effects of bad eating habits stunned most parents. Of course, this show was cancelled because American people do not want to hear about the effects of their children's eating habits. However, I wish this was required for all preschool parents. People, it is a big deal. When your children go years without eating anything resembling a vegetable or a fruit, it has consequences. It affects the tone, color, and clearness of their skin. It affects the luster of their hair. One of the most shocking parts of the simulation for parents was the hair loss that ensued because of vitamin deficiencies even for girls. Of course, it affects their weight. Any nutritionist worth anything will tell you that a weight loss plan that does not include a lot of vegetables will not result in long-term weight loss. Period. The past generations had a reason for making their children eat their vegetables. They understood that a person cannot be truly healthy without them. We as a society will have to very soon come to terms with this reality or be crushed by medical expenses and other bad consequences.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Americans and Their Food
We as Americans do not like to breach the subject of picky eating because we hold our tastes in food to be a very personal thing. We like what we like, and we do not want to have to eat what we do not like no matter how much our body may need the nutrients in that particular food. We would rather take a pill or use any other means possible to get those nutrients without having to eat a food we dislike. On top of that, we will deny to our dying breath that we have bad eating habits, and will get absolutely hostile with anyone that tries to tell us otherwise. This applies to as many adults as it does children. However, the level of the picky eating does seem to be growing exponentially with every passing generation.
Picky Eating over the Generations
When I was a child, we did not necessarily like to eat our vegetables, but it was more required than it is now. When my generation grew up and became parents, we tended to not require the vegetables as much as our parents did. We let our children grow up to be pickier than we were allowed to be. Now our children have grown up, and their children do not even know what a vegetable looks like. In the 9 years that I have been a provider, I have noticed a considerable uptick in picky eating that has gotten to the epidemic stage in the last couple of years. Not only will they not eat vegetables, many of them will not eat fruit, meat that is not breaded and/or fried, bread that is not white, and milk that is not flavored. I have even seen a good proportion of children that will not touch macaroni and cheese when they first arrive on my doorstep. People, this is getting out of hand.
Our Family Pact
Unlike my peers, I was more adamant about my children eating their vegetables than even my parents. When I first married my husband, he was the pickiest eater I had ever met. I had a great deal of nutrition training in high school thanks to a very good home economics teacher, and I knew the consequences of bad eating habits. Therefore, when we had children we made a pact to eat some of everything on the table whether we liked it or not because my husband understood what his eating habits had already done to his health. He also understood that he would have to model better eating habits or his children would end up with the same issues he already had in his 20s. It was tough for him to learn to eat better as an adult. I did not make it very easy for him either. I fixed 3 different vegetables with every meal. He learned to eat even spinach and beets without too much of a fuss as long as I only fixed those occasionally. When we married, his idea of a vegetable was mashed potatoes. He would not even eat yellow corn only white. Basically, he only ate foods that were brown and white. Does that sound familiar?
Today's Picky Eaters
Of course, now I have been exposed to children that make my husband look like the healthiest eater in the world. They will not eat mashed potatoes. They fuss if the chicken nuggets are baked instead of fried. If you hand them white milk, they just might throw it at you. The hostility over the food has also increased exponentially. Many parents have completely given up (or never even tried) on getting their children to eat much beyond chicken nuggets and french fries. I had one kid that would only eat pop tarts and drink apple juice. Many parents complicate this by fixing a separate meal for their children. Every member of the family gets to choose from a variety of frozen meals for supper. Meals are not planned. Many children in today's society are not even exposed to vegetables and sometimes fruits before they arrive on the doorstep of childcares and schools.
What's the Big Deal?
The title of this post is "What is the Big Deal?" Many people ask that very question when the subject of picky eating comes up. There was a show several years back that answered that question in a very graphic way at times. It was called "Honey We Are Killing Our Kids." In this show the producers would take a computer simulation and factor in a child's present eating habits to show the parents what the long-term effects of the vitamin and mineral deficiencies would do to their children. It also factored in the amount of exercise, but the descriptions of the long-term effects of bad eating habits stunned most parents. Of course, this show was cancelled because American people do not want to hear about the effects of their children's eating habits. However, I wish this was required for all preschool parents. People, it is a big deal. When your children go years without eating anything resembling a vegetable or a fruit, it has consequences. It affects the tone, color, and clearness of their skin. It affects the luster of their hair. One of the most shocking parts of the simulation for parents was the hair loss that ensued because of vitamin deficiencies even for girls. Of course, it affects their weight. Any nutritionist worth anything will tell you that a weight loss plan that does not include a lot of vegetables will not result in long-term weight loss. Period. The past generations had a reason for making their children eat their vegetables. They understood that a person cannot be truly healthy without them. We as a society will have to very soon come to terms with this reality or be crushed by medical expenses and other bad consequences.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Saturday, May 10, 2014
The Unstructured Learning Style
This post will look at the unstructured learning style as opposed to the structured learning style. I have to admit that this is one of the learning styles that is least in my own personal repertoire, but I completely understand one of the most important aspects of this style - teachable moments. Of course, as with all of these learning styles, you should never rely on one style exclusively. I hope I can give you some positive information to glean from this learning style that will be helpful in your learning environment.
What is Unstructured Learning?
This style basically encompasses the philosophy of many early childhood experts. It involves what is often referred to as "child-centered instruction." Instead of being teacher-directed, this style gives children the lead. Adults just simply follow the cues given by the children. In this style children are given free rein to structure their day. In its purest form, children even eat and sleep on their own schedule. Children drift through activities prepared by an adult beforehand, but the adult acts more as facilitator than teacher. As the children move through the various activities, the adults look for teachable moments to expand on the concepts in which a child already has an interest.
The Purest Form of This Style
To say that I have issue with this style in its purest form would be the understatement of the century. As a former homeschooling mom, I have seen this style implemented in its purest form within the homeschooling community with absolutely disastrous results. There is a reason children are put under the protection and authority of adults. Children will not always (seldom ever) choose what they need. It is the adult's job to make sure a child learns all the necessary information required to function in the adult world. That should be a given. However, in our current society so ruled by relativism it is shameful, to make children learn a set core of knowledge nearly constitutes child abuse. This is ludicrous. Many might ask what is wrong with being child centered? In return, I ask them. If left to their own devices will children take regular naps? eat their vegetables? stick with a difficult concept until they conquer it? do anything they find unpleasant no matter how important that something might be? The answer to most of those questions is a resounding NO!! In truth even the early childhood experts understand this concept. That is why they have a totally different tone for care requirements than they have for instruction requirements. They expect you to somehow teach the children to wash their hands a million times a day, eat right, understand that they need rest, get along with their peers, and put away all their toys in the right place, but do it in such a way that they feel like they have chosen these things on their own. Academic concepts will magically develop from a child's free play as they explore their world on their own terms. Nothing such be coerced or forced. Children should float along in their happy little world and never feel stress of any kind. I hope that sounds as ridiculous as I meant it to sound. However, I have read those books, and for those that truly adhere to the theory of relativism, this represents their philosophy entirely.
Underlying Philosophies
One of my great frustrations involves how little people in today's society think about the underlying philosophies of what is considered "best practice" these days. In truth, when presented with philosophies such as relativism in their unadulterated form, most people would not agree with those philosophies. Yet, when those same philosophies are presented under the guise of the latest research, people accept them hook, line, and sinker. I guess many people do not understand the difference between scientific research and research done in the humanities. Scientific research usually (but not always) involves concepts and ideas that can be represented in the real world. In other words, the results can be observed and measured. In the humanities, which is basically everything that deals with human relationships and existence, research involves theories and hypothesis that cannot necessarily be observed and measured. In the humanities all research flows from the underlying philosophy of the ones doing the research. This bias cannot be completely removed no matter how careful the researchers try to be. Therefore, all research in the humanities must be judged by its underlying philosophy.
The Philosophy of Relativism
Just in case, you have no real idea what the philosophy of relativism involves, let me enlighten you. People that adhere to this philosophy do not believe in a set right and wrong. All things are different shades of gray. There is no God and no absolute standard for any moral dictates. Laws flow from the will of the people and can and should be changed as the will of the people changes as long as those people adhere to the relativistic philosophy. People that do believe in a set right and wrong represent threats to a stable society because they impose standards not necessarily accepted by some people. If you follow this train of thought out to its logical conclusion, this philosophy basically says that all people should be able to do what is right in their own eyes. For that I ask the question. Should child molesters be able to do what is right in their eyes? How about thieves? Or gang members? I hope you understand that the philosophy of relativism only applies when it suits the people that hold that philosophy. If you fall outside what they consider normal, you are wrong, and they are right. Therefore, there really is a right and wrong. They just get to decide what that is, not God.
Teachable Moments
Even though I have serious problems with this style of instruction in its purest form, some points raised by those that claim this as the way to teach children can be very useful. One of those involves teachable moments. Using teachable moments when a child's interest is peaked, can be a very useful tool. Many turning point moments for children do involve these teachable moments. However, all the other moments of just plain ordinary instruction are just as important and useful. The plain ordinary day-to-day instruction does not have the flair of the teachable moments, but that does not make it unnecessary. Many times the plain and boring can be more necessary to bring a child to the point of being able to use the teachable moment. That "aha" moment had lots of foundational instruction behind it, or it would not have happened. The degree to which teachers use these teachable moments varies from individual to individual. Some people can be very intuitive about these teachable moments and others only catch the big ones. This has everything to do with a person's personal teaching repertoire and does not necessarily make one teacher better than another teacher. It just makes them different. Remember children exist that need all types of teachers. We need to be about the business of matching children with teachers that fit their personal learning repertoire not trying to make everyone fit into a one-size-fits-all system. That includes the unstructured style as well as all the other styles. I really wish we could eliminate all the QRS systems that are solely based on the unstructured style as well as the other side that is solely based on the structured style. Both are wrong.
Free-Play
Another good point brought out by the child-centered camp involves free play for children. Even though I do not agree that this is the only way children learn, free play represents a huge portion of how children process information. How children initially acquire information varies widely from child to child. However, children use free play to process that information. They practice what they learn and expand on it through play. They discover subtleties and variations of what they have learned. They experiment and sometimes outright discover new things through play. All of this represents the benefits of free play. We must fight to restore free play for children in today's society. It is on the verge of becoming extinct for various and assorted reasons.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
What is Unstructured Learning?
This style basically encompasses the philosophy of many early childhood experts. It involves what is often referred to as "child-centered instruction." Instead of being teacher-directed, this style gives children the lead. Adults just simply follow the cues given by the children. In this style children are given free rein to structure their day. In its purest form, children even eat and sleep on their own schedule. Children drift through activities prepared by an adult beforehand, but the adult acts more as facilitator than teacher. As the children move through the various activities, the adults look for teachable moments to expand on the concepts in which a child already has an interest.
The Purest Form of This Style
To say that I have issue with this style in its purest form would be the understatement of the century. As a former homeschooling mom, I have seen this style implemented in its purest form within the homeschooling community with absolutely disastrous results. There is a reason children are put under the protection and authority of adults. Children will not always (seldom ever) choose what they need. It is the adult's job to make sure a child learns all the necessary information required to function in the adult world. That should be a given. However, in our current society so ruled by relativism it is shameful, to make children learn a set core of knowledge nearly constitutes child abuse. This is ludicrous. Many might ask what is wrong with being child centered? In return, I ask them. If left to their own devices will children take regular naps? eat their vegetables? stick with a difficult concept until they conquer it? do anything they find unpleasant no matter how important that something might be? The answer to most of those questions is a resounding NO!! In truth even the early childhood experts understand this concept. That is why they have a totally different tone for care requirements than they have for instruction requirements. They expect you to somehow teach the children to wash their hands a million times a day, eat right, understand that they need rest, get along with their peers, and put away all their toys in the right place, but do it in such a way that they feel like they have chosen these things on their own. Academic concepts will magically develop from a child's free play as they explore their world on their own terms. Nothing such be coerced or forced. Children should float along in their happy little world and never feel stress of any kind. I hope that sounds as ridiculous as I meant it to sound. However, I have read those books, and for those that truly adhere to the theory of relativism, this represents their philosophy entirely.
Underlying Philosophies
One of my great frustrations involves how little people in today's society think about the underlying philosophies of what is considered "best practice" these days. In truth, when presented with philosophies such as relativism in their unadulterated form, most people would not agree with those philosophies. Yet, when those same philosophies are presented under the guise of the latest research, people accept them hook, line, and sinker. I guess many people do not understand the difference between scientific research and research done in the humanities. Scientific research usually (but not always) involves concepts and ideas that can be represented in the real world. In other words, the results can be observed and measured. In the humanities, which is basically everything that deals with human relationships and existence, research involves theories and hypothesis that cannot necessarily be observed and measured. In the humanities all research flows from the underlying philosophy of the ones doing the research. This bias cannot be completely removed no matter how careful the researchers try to be. Therefore, all research in the humanities must be judged by its underlying philosophy.
The Philosophy of Relativism
Just in case, you have no real idea what the philosophy of relativism involves, let me enlighten you. People that adhere to this philosophy do not believe in a set right and wrong. All things are different shades of gray. There is no God and no absolute standard for any moral dictates. Laws flow from the will of the people and can and should be changed as the will of the people changes as long as those people adhere to the relativistic philosophy. People that do believe in a set right and wrong represent threats to a stable society because they impose standards not necessarily accepted by some people. If you follow this train of thought out to its logical conclusion, this philosophy basically says that all people should be able to do what is right in their own eyes. For that I ask the question. Should child molesters be able to do what is right in their eyes? How about thieves? Or gang members? I hope you understand that the philosophy of relativism only applies when it suits the people that hold that philosophy. If you fall outside what they consider normal, you are wrong, and they are right. Therefore, there really is a right and wrong. They just get to decide what that is, not God.
Teachable Moments
Even though I have serious problems with this style of instruction in its purest form, some points raised by those that claim this as the way to teach children can be very useful. One of those involves teachable moments. Using teachable moments when a child's interest is peaked, can be a very useful tool. Many turning point moments for children do involve these teachable moments. However, all the other moments of just plain ordinary instruction are just as important and useful. The plain ordinary day-to-day instruction does not have the flair of the teachable moments, but that does not make it unnecessary. Many times the plain and boring can be more necessary to bring a child to the point of being able to use the teachable moment. That "aha" moment had lots of foundational instruction behind it, or it would not have happened. The degree to which teachers use these teachable moments varies from individual to individual. Some people can be very intuitive about these teachable moments and others only catch the big ones. This has everything to do with a person's personal teaching repertoire and does not necessarily make one teacher better than another teacher. It just makes them different. Remember children exist that need all types of teachers. We need to be about the business of matching children with teachers that fit their personal learning repertoire not trying to make everyone fit into a one-size-fits-all system. That includes the unstructured style as well as all the other styles. I really wish we could eliminate all the QRS systems that are solely based on the unstructured style as well as the other side that is solely based on the structured style. Both are wrong.
Free-Play
Another good point brought out by the child-centered camp involves free play for children. Even though I do not agree that this is the only way children learn, free play represents a huge portion of how children process information. How children initially acquire information varies widely from child to child. However, children use free play to process that information. They practice what they learn and expand on it through play. They discover subtleties and variations of what they have learned. They experiment and sometimes outright discover new things through play. All of this represents the benefits of free play. We must fight to restore free play for children in today's society. It is on the verge of becoming extinct for various and assorted reasons.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Dealing with Overstimulated Children
This post will look at the very real problem of children that have become overstimulated. In our fast-paced world this happens much more than I think we even realize. We have become so accustomed to overstimulated children that we think this is normal. However, overstimulation has physical, emotional, and developmental consequences. I will look at the root causes of overstimulation and steps that can be taken to avoid this state of being for our children.
What is Overstimulation
Overstimulation can be defined as a continued state of adrenaline rush. Children are hyper and wild. We often refer to this as "bouncing off the walls." Many would have us believe that this is normal for toddlers and preschoolers. However, research is beginning to bare out that this constant state of adrenaline can be detrimental to a child's health. We as human beings were not designed to live in a constant state of adrenaline rush. This can have close to the same effect on a child as toxic stress, which has been shown to have devastating effects on a child's long-term health, physically, emotionally, and developmentally. In the early childhood world, we have become obsessed with making sure a child does not experience toxic stress, and yet we do absolutely nothing about overstimulation except call it developmentally appropriate. This is absurd.
What Causes Overstimulation?
Some overstimulation is caused by a chemical imbalance in a child's brain that hinders a child from shifting into a lower gear. However, this is not very common and some children that are labeled ADD and ADHD do not have this chemical imbalance. Most overstimulation is caused by two different factors either singularly or together in some combination. Those two factors are poor sleeping habits and poor eating habits. In most of today's children, both factors come into play.
Before I tackle sleeping and eating habits, let me say that the children that do have the true chemical imbalance will benefit from the steps needed to reduce normal overstimulation. These children will just need extra steps to help them deal with too much stimuli. Therefore, reducing the factors that cause normal overstimulation may help parents and caregivers determine if a child truly shows signs of ADD and ADHD. Medicating a child that simply has normal overstimulation should not happen, but it does. Unfortunately, dealing with the two main causes of overstimulation represents a great deal of what our society does not have the will or desire to conquer.
Poor Sleeping Habits
The first and probably the biggest cause of overstimulation involves poor sleeping habits. I laugh out loud at people and parents that say their children under the age of five do not need naps. Almost in the same breath, these same parents will complain about how hyper and out of control their children can be. They will also complain about bedtime and wondering whether or not their preschool child will ever really sleep through the night. Upon further investigation, it becomes plain that what is really going on is that naps and regular bedtimes represents a fight the parents have completely lost and/or have convinced themselves is not really necessary. I understand. Regular naps and bedtimes require an adult to be consistent. My generation and all the generations behind us were not raised to be consistent. If we acquire consistency, it is usually in adulthood out of complete necessity during a very hard time of life. However, many early childhood experts complicate this scenario with an overemphasis on keeping a child's life stress-free. They tell parents that the stress of the battle over naps is worse for them than the lack of rest. This makes me angry because it is so wrong it is shameful. A certain amount of stress has been shown to be good for children. Otherwise, they never learn to deal with difficult circumstances. If you needed to pick a situation in which to apply good stress, the battle over naps and bedtimes would be an excellent place to start.
Let me be completely clear. Children need rest. Naps are absolutely necessary for a child's well-being and proper growth on all fronts. Unless you have experienced the enormous difference between the same child properly rested and not rested, it may be difficult to understand just how important this is for the child. Most American children do not get the proper rest, and therefore, American parents have no point of reference. That is, until they arrive on my doorstep. At my childcare, nap has never been optional. If a parent presses that point, I will tell them my childcare is not a good fit for their family and show them the door. By some miracle as a young parent, I received good information on the importance of sleep for a child. In my household, nap was never an option and bedtimes were mostly consistent. When they were not, my children climbed the walls. It did not take a rocket scientist to figure out what made my children climb the walls. Did my peers give me a hard time about being so adamant about naps and bedtimes? Absolutely, but I was a stay-at-home mom. I had to live with my children 24/7. I was not interested in living with overstimulated children unless I had no choice in the matter. I brought that knowledge with me when I started a childcare. Over and over and over I have proven to parents the difference regular naps make in their children. It even helps them sleep better at night. After children have been here for over 6 months, my parents will start commenting on how much calmer their child has become. Even then some parents still do not connect the dots and will not enforce a regular bedtime and naps. That makes for very unpleasant Mondays after children have been overstimulated all weekend.
Terrible Eaing Habits
The second underlying cause for overstimulation involves the very bane of our society - terrible eating habits. Here is yet one more reason that children should eat their fruits and vegetables. Tackling this problem will actually be the subject of the next several midweek posts. However, let me say that if parents and caregivers truly understood what bad eating habits do to children in the short term and the long term, we would not have an obesity epidemic. Unfortunately, food tends to be a very personal and hotly passionate subject. We like what we like, and we do not want to be told otherwise. The stress-free philosophy also comes into play in this one as well. I hope after the next several posts you will realize that the battle over the fruits and vegetables just might be the most important battle in which a parent and/or caregiver chooses to engage. It really does make that big a difference.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
What is Overstimulation
Overstimulation can be defined as a continued state of adrenaline rush. Children are hyper and wild. We often refer to this as "bouncing off the walls." Many would have us believe that this is normal for toddlers and preschoolers. However, research is beginning to bare out that this constant state of adrenaline can be detrimental to a child's health. We as human beings were not designed to live in a constant state of adrenaline rush. This can have close to the same effect on a child as toxic stress, which has been shown to have devastating effects on a child's long-term health, physically, emotionally, and developmentally. In the early childhood world, we have become obsessed with making sure a child does not experience toxic stress, and yet we do absolutely nothing about overstimulation except call it developmentally appropriate. This is absurd.
What Causes Overstimulation?
Some overstimulation is caused by a chemical imbalance in a child's brain that hinders a child from shifting into a lower gear. However, this is not very common and some children that are labeled ADD and ADHD do not have this chemical imbalance. Most overstimulation is caused by two different factors either singularly or together in some combination. Those two factors are poor sleeping habits and poor eating habits. In most of today's children, both factors come into play.
Before I tackle sleeping and eating habits, let me say that the children that do have the true chemical imbalance will benefit from the steps needed to reduce normal overstimulation. These children will just need extra steps to help them deal with too much stimuli. Therefore, reducing the factors that cause normal overstimulation may help parents and caregivers determine if a child truly shows signs of ADD and ADHD. Medicating a child that simply has normal overstimulation should not happen, but it does. Unfortunately, dealing with the two main causes of overstimulation represents a great deal of what our society does not have the will or desire to conquer.
Poor Sleeping Habits
The first and probably the biggest cause of overstimulation involves poor sleeping habits. I laugh out loud at people and parents that say their children under the age of five do not need naps. Almost in the same breath, these same parents will complain about how hyper and out of control their children can be. They will also complain about bedtime and wondering whether or not their preschool child will ever really sleep through the night. Upon further investigation, it becomes plain that what is really going on is that naps and regular bedtimes represents a fight the parents have completely lost and/or have convinced themselves is not really necessary. I understand. Regular naps and bedtimes require an adult to be consistent. My generation and all the generations behind us were not raised to be consistent. If we acquire consistency, it is usually in adulthood out of complete necessity during a very hard time of life. However, many early childhood experts complicate this scenario with an overemphasis on keeping a child's life stress-free. They tell parents that the stress of the battle over naps is worse for them than the lack of rest. This makes me angry because it is so wrong it is shameful. A certain amount of stress has been shown to be good for children. Otherwise, they never learn to deal with difficult circumstances. If you needed to pick a situation in which to apply good stress, the battle over naps and bedtimes would be an excellent place to start.
Let me be completely clear. Children need rest. Naps are absolutely necessary for a child's well-being and proper growth on all fronts. Unless you have experienced the enormous difference between the same child properly rested and not rested, it may be difficult to understand just how important this is for the child. Most American children do not get the proper rest, and therefore, American parents have no point of reference. That is, until they arrive on my doorstep. At my childcare, nap has never been optional. If a parent presses that point, I will tell them my childcare is not a good fit for their family and show them the door. By some miracle as a young parent, I received good information on the importance of sleep for a child. In my household, nap was never an option and bedtimes were mostly consistent. When they were not, my children climbed the walls. It did not take a rocket scientist to figure out what made my children climb the walls. Did my peers give me a hard time about being so adamant about naps and bedtimes? Absolutely, but I was a stay-at-home mom. I had to live with my children 24/7. I was not interested in living with overstimulated children unless I had no choice in the matter. I brought that knowledge with me when I started a childcare. Over and over and over I have proven to parents the difference regular naps make in their children. It even helps them sleep better at night. After children have been here for over 6 months, my parents will start commenting on how much calmer their child has become. Even then some parents still do not connect the dots and will not enforce a regular bedtime and naps. That makes for very unpleasant Mondays after children have been overstimulated all weekend.
Terrible Eaing Habits
The second underlying cause for overstimulation involves the very bane of our society - terrible eating habits. Here is yet one more reason that children should eat their fruits and vegetables. Tackling this problem will actually be the subject of the next several midweek posts. However, let me say that if parents and caregivers truly understood what bad eating habits do to children in the short term and the long term, we would not have an obesity epidemic. Unfortunately, food tends to be a very personal and hotly passionate subject. We like what we like, and we do not want to be told otherwise. The stress-free philosophy also comes into play in this one as well. I hope after the next several posts you will realize that the battle over the fruits and vegetables just might be the most important battle in which a parent and/or caregiver chooses to engage. It really does make that big a difference.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Sunday, May 4, 2014
The Passive Learning Style
This post will deal with a learning style that among some circles is considered obsolete. Many early childhood experts and educational experts believe that today's children will not learn in a passive environment with early childhood experts being the most adamant. Learning to sit still and pay attention has become developmentally inappropriate expectations for preschoolers. While I agree that expecting preschoolers to sit still for long periods of time is developmentally inappropriate, learning to sit still and pay attention for short periods of time is essential for that child's long-term academic success.
What Is the Passive Learning Style?
First, let us discuss what constitutes the passive learning style. This style represents the way most of us learned in school for the past 6 centuries. Children are expected to be able to pay attention and listen to an adult present information. Then those children apply that information in graduated exercises designed to build competency over time. This approach also relies heavily on drill and practice exercises. As opposed to the active learning style, children must sit still, listen, and work on their own. For all of recorded history up until the last 50 years or so, this approach represented the way academic subjects were presented. Trades and other skills, which relied on the master/apprentice relationship, used the active learning style rather than the passive learning style. I do believe our ancestors had a grasp on how to present information that has been lost in the last century. However, the division of the styles hits on politically charged areas. Long ago, not all people were required to learn academic subjects. Some children were apprenticed to a master to learn a trade rather than expected to sit still and learn academic content. This did lead to a system of haves and have nots. Therefore, today everyone is required to learn academic content. Yet, we run into children that have an extremely hard time grasping this content. I do not think we will ever return to the two-tier system of centuries ago, but I do believe we are going to have to relent to the notion that it takes all kinds of people to run a society. Some people will be happier doing physical labor that does not require a great deal of academic thought, but can still be greatly skilled workers in their area of expertise. We need to have more options and paths at the high school level that will prepare those children that have a bent toward skilled labor to be able to do work that will be satisfying.
Both Types of Smart
At this point, you may be asking yourself if I am saying that academic content requires a passive learning style and skilled content requires an active learning style? As politically incorrect as that notion is today, that is exactly what I am saying. The fact remains that children that have the ability to sit still and pay attention will always exceed those that cannot on academic content. I am not saying those children are not smart. They just may not be book smart. We need people in a society that can do jobs that require great levels of skill but not necessarily be able to diagram a sentence. We also need people that can handle technical details but could not change a spark plug on a car if their life depended on it. Both types of smart are necessary. One type of smart does not negate the need for the other type of smart. Will one type of smart always make more money? Probably, but there is a huge difference between rich in money and rich in life sometimes. Many people think the other side has it better until they experience the level of stress that comes with the other side. I believe God creates us all with a purpose and a plan, and He equips us to handle the type of stress that comes with His plan for our life. We may not be able to handle the type of stress that comes from a lifestyle outside of His will. I could not be a car mechanic if my life depended on it. However, many mechanics would have a nervous breakdown trying to deal with the technical issues involved in writing for a living. We need to help all children find their path and do everything in our power to prepare them to fulfill that path.
Should Every Child Learn to Be Passive?
How does all of this relate to the early childhood world? Should we be actively trying to prepare children for the passive learning style? The answer to that question is yes and no. By the time children are three and four years old, they are already showing us very strong clues as to what their learning repertoire will be. For those children that can sit still and pay attention we need to prepare them for the rigors of the academic world. For those children that can somewhat sit still and pay attention, we need to help them develop that and begin to look for the strengths these children will already be showing. We might not be able to change the way the school systems function, but we can plant seeds in the hearts and minds of both the children and the parents as to the path this particular child might take. That little seed can truly change the course of that child's life. For those children that absolutely cannot sit still and pay attention, we will need to switch to more active learning activities. I will say that covering academic content for wigglers is much easier in a one-on-one setting than it is in a group setting. Over the years I have been able to help children reach academic goals thanks to my one-on-one structure that would not have been possible in a typically structured classroom. They had issues sitting still in preschool in group settings, but still managed to excel the average in acquiring academic concepts. These children really need schools with very small classrooms or a homeschooling situation. However, they might still have a bent toward a more skilled career than an academic one. They may be farmers instead of doctors or contractors and mechanics instead of lawyers.
Basic Academics
However, in our society a certain level of academic skill is required to function. Teaching academic concepts especially the more technical aspects in an active learning way in reality constitutes the long way around the mountain. There is no way around this and explains a great deal of the frustration of American teachers when trying to reach certain academic goals for all children on a certain timetable. It simply takes longer to teach certain children technical academic content that truly requires the passive learning style. This includes reading and a great deal of math. These children can reach these goals, but they need a different timetable and may not reach the same level of fluency that the passive learners can acquire. We do both types of learners a great disservice by not realizing this difference. We hold back the passive learners to give the active learners the extra time they need to become fluent. We end up pushing the active learners to frustration because we end up having to employ many passive learning techniques to truly reach the level of competency we expect of all children. This is especially true the higher the grade level and the more technical the information. Until we begin to more individualize education, we will always have this issue. This is why homeschoolers on average excel when compared to their public school counterparts. The passive learners can proceed at the pace they were designed to handle and reach higher levels of competency than their public school peers. (Ever wonder why so many homeschoolers win the spelling bees? This is why.) The active learners are free to pursue the path they were designed to follow and arrive at adulthood ready to go. Can you say that about their public school counterparts? Not really. Until we take the political correctness out of the debate, our public school systems will always flounder. We will never be a one-size-fits-all society. We are just too diverse. We need to embrace that instead of fighting it, and proceed accordingly.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
What Is the Passive Learning Style?
First, let us discuss what constitutes the passive learning style. This style represents the way most of us learned in school for the past 6 centuries. Children are expected to be able to pay attention and listen to an adult present information. Then those children apply that information in graduated exercises designed to build competency over time. This approach also relies heavily on drill and practice exercises. As opposed to the active learning style, children must sit still, listen, and work on their own. For all of recorded history up until the last 50 years or so, this approach represented the way academic subjects were presented. Trades and other skills, which relied on the master/apprentice relationship, used the active learning style rather than the passive learning style. I do believe our ancestors had a grasp on how to present information that has been lost in the last century. However, the division of the styles hits on politically charged areas. Long ago, not all people were required to learn academic subjects. Some children were apprenticed to a master to learn a trade rather than expected to sit still and learn academic content. This did lead to a system of haves and have nots. Therefore, today everyone is required to learn academic content. Yet, we run into children that have an extremely hard time grasping this content. I do not think we will ever return to the two-tier system of centuries ago, but I do believe we are going to have to relent to the notion that it takes all kinds of people to run a society. Some people will be happier doing physical labor that does not require a great deal of academic thought, but can still be greatly skilled workers in their area of expertise. We need to have more options and paths at the high school level that will prepare those children that have a bent toward skilled labor to be able to do work that will be satisfying.
Both Types of Smart
At this point, you may be asking yourself if I am saying that academic content requires a passive learning style and skilled content requires an active learning style? As politically incorrect as that notion is today, that is exactly what I am saying. The fact remains that children that have the ability to sit still and pay attention will always exceed those that cannot on academic content. I am not saying those children are not smart. They just may not be book smart. We need people in a society that can do jobs that require great levels of skill but not necessarily be able to diagram a sentence. We also need people that can handle technical details but could not change a spark plug on a car if their life depended on it. Both types of smart are necessary. One type of smart does not negate the need for the other type of smart. Will one type of smart always make more money? Probably, but there is a huge difference between rich in money and rich in life sometimes. Many people think the other side has it better until they experience the level of stress that comes with the other side. I believe God creates us all with a purpose and a plan, and He equips us to handle the type of stress that comes with His plan for our life. We may not be able to handle the type of stress that comes from a lifestyle outside of His will. I could not be a car mechanic if my life depended on it. However, many mechanics would have a nervous breakdown trying to deal with the technical issues involved in writing for a living. We need to help all children find their path and do everything in our power to prepare them to fulfill that path.
Should Every Child Learn to Be Passive?
How does all of this relate to the early childhood world? Should we be actively trying to prepare children for the passive learning style? The answer to that question is yes and no. By the time children are three and four years old, they are already showing us very strong clues as to what their learning repertoire will be. For those children that can sit still and pay attention we need to prepare them for the rigors of the academic world. For those children that can somewhat sit still and pay attention, we need to help them develop that and begin to look for the strengths these children will already be showing. We might not be able to change the way the school systems function, but we can plant seeds in the hearts and minds of both the children and the parents as to the path this particular child might take. That little seed can truly change the course of that child's life. For those children that absolutely cannot sit still and pay attention, we will need to switch to more active learning activities. I will say that covering academic content for wigglers is much easier in a one-on-one setting than it is in a group setting. Over the years I have been able to help children reach academic goals thanks to my one-on-one structure that would not have been possible in a typically structured classroom. They had issues sitting still in preschool in group settings, but still managed to excel the average in acquiring academic concepts. These children really need schools with very small classrooms or a homeschooling situation. However, they might still have a bent toward a more skilled career than an academic one. They may be farmers instead of doctors or contractors and mechanics instead of lawyers.
Basic Academics
However, in our society a certain level of academic skill is required to function. Teaching academic concepts especially the more technical aspects in an active learning way in reality constitutes the long way around the mountain. There is no way around this and explains a great deal of the frustration of American teachers when trying to reach certain academic goals for all children on a certain timetable. It simply takes longer to teach certain children technical academic content that truly requires the passive learning style. This includes reading and a great deal of math. These children can reach these goals, but they need a different timetable and may not reach the same level of fluency that the passive learners can acquire. We do both types of learners a great disservice by not realizing this difference. We hold back the passive learners to give the active learners the extra time they need to become fluent. We end up pushing the active learners to frustration because we end up having to employ many passive learning techniques to truly reach the level of competency we expect of all children. This is especially true the higher the grade level and the more technical the information. Until we begin to more individualize education, we will always have this issue. This is why homeschoolers on average excel when compared to their public school counterparts. The passive learners can proceed at the pace they were designed to handle and reach higher levels of competency than their public school peers. (Ever wonder why so many homeschoolers win the spelling bees? This is why.) The active learners are free to pursue the path they were designed to follow and arrive at adulthood ready to go. Can you say that about their public school counterparts? Not really. Until we take the political correctness out of the debate, our public school systems will always flounder. We will never be a one-size-fits-all society. We are just too diverse. We need to embrace that instead of fighting it, and proceed accordingly.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
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