Welcome To Esperanza Elementary Blog

I want to give you a special welcome to our Esperanza Elementary blog as we take our journey to found the school of our dreams. I invite you to visit us often and offer any ideas, thoughts, suggestions, questions, comments, etc. you might have.

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Perseverance

I listened this morning to the BYU Devotional Speech by Brian Santiago given on June 11, 2013. 



He gave this wise counsel about perseverance: 

Quoting James E. Faust, he said, “Perseverance is demonstrated by those who keep going when the going gets tough, who don’t give up even when others say it can’t be done.
“I believe that to be successful we have to be willing to do what others are unwilling to do. Above the door in my office there is a wooden plaque that my college basketball coach sent to me with the following letters: FAW – NLU. It is my daily reminder to Find a Way, and Never Let Up. Whether it be small, menial tasks, or life’s biggest challenges, there is always a way to overcome, accomplish and persevere,” Santiago said.

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Take Time to Reflect

This painting by Greg Olsen is a great reminder about how important it is to reflect.  We are going to encourage both our Esperanza educators and scholars to keep reflective journals. 

Take time to reflect.

Friday, June 28, 2013

Kids' Books Stay Stubbornly White


At a San Jose, Calif. library, a young reader browses a shelf of books featuring a variety of main characters: ducks, hens, white kids, black kids. Libraries help drive demand for children's books with nonwhite characters, but book publishers say there aren't enough libraries to make those books best-sellers.


At a San Jose, Calif. library, a young reader browses a shelf of books featuring a variety of main characters: ducks, hens, white kids, black kids. Libraries help drive demand for children's books with nonwhite characters, but book publishers say there aren't enough libraries to make those books best-sellers.

When it comes to diversity, children's books are sorely lacking; instead of presenting a representative range of faces, they're overwhelmingly white. How bad is the disconnect? A report by the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that only 3 percent of children's books are by or about Latinos — even though nearly a quarter of all public school children today are Latino.
When kids are presented with bookshelves that unbalanced, parents can have a powerful influence. Take 8-year-old Havana Machado, who likes Dr. Seuss and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. At her mothers' insistence, Havana also has lots of books featuring strong Latinas, like Josefina and Marisol from the American Girl Doll books. She says she likes these characters because, with their long, dark hair and olive skin, they look a lot like her.
Havana's mother, Melinda Machado, grew up in San Antonio, and her family is from Cuba and Mexico. She says she didn't see Latino characters in books when she was a little girl, so she makes sure her daughter does.
"But you do have to look," she explains. "I think children today are told, 'You can be anything.' But if they don't see themselves in the story, I think, as they get older, they're going to question, 'Can I really?' "
Only a small fraction of children's books have main characters that are Latino or Native American or black or Asian. And it's been that way for a very long time. In 1965, The Saturday Review ran an article with the headline "The All-White World of Children's Books" — and the topic is still talked about today, nearly 50 years later.

Bad News For Outlaws tells the true story of Bass Reeves, an African-American U.S. marshal in the Old West — shown here disguised as a farmer. The book won a Coretta Scott King award and became one of Lerner Books' best-selling titles.
Courtesy Lerner Publishing
Bad News For Outlaws tells the true story of Bass Reeves, an African-American U.S. marshal in the Old West — shown here disguised as a farmer. The book won a Coretta Scott King award and became one of Lerner Books' best-selling titles.

Bad News For Outlaws tells the true story of Bass Reeves, an African-American U.S. marshal in the Old West — shown here disguised as a farmer. The book won a Coretta Scott King award and became one of Lerner Books' best-selling titles.
Courtesy Lerner Publishing
Do White-centric Books Sell Better?
So why is diversity in children's books such a persistent issue? One theory is that it's all about money. "I think there is a lot of concern and fear that multicultural literature is not going to sell enough to sustain a company," says Megan Schliesman, a librarian with the Cooperative Children's Book Center.
But Schliesman says that belief is a myth — after all, some companies publish multicultural children's books and are profitable. For instance, Lerner Books published the nonfiction picture book Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal. The book, which told the story of a black lawman in the Old West, won awards, got attention from libraries and independent bookstores and became a best-seller for the company.
"There is an enormous amount of demand for this kind of content from libraries," says Andrew Karre, an editor with Lerner Books. According to Karre, public and school librarians try very hard to put books with a wide range of characters on their shelves.
But while librarians are influential, they can't make a book sell. "There are something like 6,000 public libraries in the country," Karre says, "And even if they buy five copies of the book for their collection ... that's not going to crack those best-seller lists of any kind, really."
Why Diverse Book Options Matter
Vaunda Micheaux Nelson wrote Bad News For Outlaws, as well as several other books about African-Americans. She is also a librarian at the public library in Rio Rancho, N.M. She says that young people need to see themselves represented on the page so that they will continue reading.

 

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Growing up bilingual is so good for you!

Growing up bilingual is so good for you!

 The world we live in continues to diversify and becomes increasingly connected, individuals who are bilingual or who speak multiple languages seem to have an obvious advantage. But while the ability to communicate with people from different cultures is a huge asset, bilingual children and adults experience some significant health benefits as well.
“From the perspective of brain development, [growing up bilingual] is very beneficial,” Azadeh Aalai, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Montgomery College in Maryland, and author of Understanding Aggression: Psychological Origins & Approaches to Aggressive Behavior, told Saludify. “Our brain has structural plasticity, meaning it changes and adapts based on what we are exposed to in the environment, so learning multiple languages actually serves as an enriching experience that optimizes the capacity of the brain.”

Research on bilingual children

Bilingual children
Bilingual children experience many mental health benefits. (Shutterstock)
The American Psychiatric Association indicates children who grow up bilingual have an enhanced ability to process sounds and therefore are more likely to pay attention in a learning situation.
The benefits, outlined in a study from Northwestern University, supported previous findings that demonstrated bilingual children showed reduced levels of anxiety, loneliness, and poor self-esteem, as well as a reduction of negative externalizing behaviors such as arguing, fighting, or acting impulsively. According to the experts, part of the reason for lower levels of social stress among bilingual children had to do with the ability to understand and accept the multiple cultures which came along with learning multiple languages.
This ability to have a multicultural understanding—not just an understanding of multiple languages—is what sets bilingual children apart from someone who has learned a second language just to learn it.
“It is hard to quantify mental reward,” explained Aalai, “as this is a subjective concept which likely varies significantly from person to person; however, certainly the experience of exposure to multiple cultures in addition to multiple languages would likely be more enriching than learning multiple languages without exposure to multiple cultures as well.”
But social skills and the ability to accept others are not the only mental health benefits for bilingual children. In fact, growing up bilingual is beneficial well into an individual’s senior years.
Erlanger Turner, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, explained to Saludify that bilingual people have been found to have enhanced “working memory,” which is a process responsible for manipulating current information so it can be used in active thought.
Bilingual children
Bilingual children are less likely to show anxiety, loneliness or low self-esteem. (Shutterstock)
“Research has consistently shown that bilingual children typically have improved working memory (WM) and executive functioning abilities. These are important cognitive processes involved in learning, comprehension, and planning,” explained Turner. “Declines in WM are typical for many clinical conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia.”
Turner explained that in a recent study in Psychology and Aging by Luo, Craik, and Moreno, they found that bilingual individuals performed better on spatial working memory tasks than monolinguals.
“However, findings were reversed for verbal memory,” he said. “Given this research one might wonder if becoming bilingual might serve as a protective factor against cognitive decline as an older adult.”
Other studies have supported the theory that being bilingual helps prevent cognitive decline. According to a new study published in the January issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, seniors between the ages of 60 and 68 who had spoken two languages for the majority of their lives were faster at switching from one mental task to another compared to monolingual seniors.
“Being bilingual has certain cognitive benefits and boosts the performance of the brain, especially one of the most important areas known as the executive control system,” Ellen Bialystok, a psychologist at York University in Toronto, said at the time of the research.

Brain benefits of being bilingual

“To maintain the relative balance between two languages, the bilingual brain relies on executive functions, a regulatory system of general cognitive abilities that includes processes such as attention and inhibition,” states The DANA Foundation. “Because both of a bilingual person’s language systems are always active and competing, that person uses these control mechanisms every time she or he speaks or listens. This constant practice strengthens the control mechanisms and changes the associated brain regions.”
In addition to providing continual exercise for the brain, being bilingual causes physical changes to the brain, increasing grey matter in the left inferior parietal cortex. White matter, the part of the brain known better known as myelin, also has shown physical changes in bilingual children and adults, suggesting being bilingual not only changes how the brain sends signals but its physical attributes as well.

Health benefits of growing up bilingual

The health benefits of growing up bilingual extend beyond just improved cognitive function into the areas of wellbeing, as bilingual children who experience less social stress are less likely to become involved in dangerous health habits such as alcohol use, drug use, overeating, and risky behavior.
At the root of the benefits, however, is the brain, and the direct cognitive benefits of being bilingual include:
  • Improved attention to detail
  • Ability to focus on important details
  • Early onset of conflict management skills
  • Improved memory
  • Improved executive control
  • Protection against certain illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease
  • Lessening of symptoms associated with cognitive decline
  • Improved social skills
  • Reduced stress
  • Reduced risk for depression
“The cognitive and neurological benefits of bilingualism extend from early childhood to old age as the brain more efficiently processes information and staves off cognitive decline,” explained The DANA Foundation. “What’s more, the attention and aging benefits discussed above aren’t exclusive to people who were raised bilingual; they are also seen in people who learn a second language later in life.”
Aalai told Saludify learning a second language as an adult keeps certain neurons in the brain stimulated, which makes an individual less susceptible to cognitive decline as he or she ages.

Is there a negative side of growing up bilingual?

bilingual children
Bilingual children are less likely to suffer the effects of cognitive decline as they age. (Shutterstock)
“From the perspective of identity, what we find is that individuals who are bilingual are actually navigating multiple identities,” said Aalai. “What I mean by this is you may actually see individuals respond differently to personality measures or other psychological test based on what language the tests are in. Individual responses tend to conform to the values of the larger culture that language endorses.”
Aalai adds the finding is not necessarily considered negative, but it does offer a look at how language affects an individual’s world perception. She points out previous research has linked Americans’ ethnocentrism (the perception their culture is superior to others’) to being monolingual. Based on that finding, the ability to speak multiple languages may actually lessen reliance on stereotypes; another benefit.

Hope Gillette
by Hope Gillette
Hope Gillette is an award winning author and novelist. She has been active in the veterinary industry for over 10 years, and her experience extends from exotic animal care to equine sports massage.

http://saludify.com/bilingual-children-health-benefits/

Monday, June 24, 2013

How To Be A Super Hero!

What a surprise!  I saw the title posted on FB by my former student, Frank Stringham, so decided to take a look at it--one because it was by Frank and two because the title intrigued me.  Then to see my name (maiden--McCauley) touched me.  Guess we never know the impact small actions can make. 

 

How To Be A Super Hero!

June 24, 2013
We are seeing a lot of movies, lately, about super heroes.  Superman started it all and since then we’ve been bombarded with everything from Spiderman and Batman to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Underdog.  I used to watch the Saturday morning television cartoon version of Spiderman when I was a kid…and yes, I was influenced by it.  I always wanted to have a super alter ego where I would put on a mask and my voice would get deeper.
I knew that there weren’t REAL super heroes, but it was a nice little fantasy that I, and most kids, could indulge themselves in…
And then I started realizing that there ARE Super Heroes in real life…
…and you could be one of them.
What are some of the characteristics of a Super Hero?  Super X-Ray Vision, Super Hearing, and Superhuman Strength are just a few of the traits.  It started occurring to me that I knew people who fit in these categories.
Super Me!!
Super Me!!
For example…Coach Scott had X-Ray Vision.
When I played little league baseball, I was the child that the “athletic” kids picked on, not because I was wimpy or puny or un-athletic…no.  They bullied me because I was a “goody-goody.” That’s what they called me, a “goody-goody!” I wouldn’t stray from my moral beliefs…I wouldn’t swear or look at indecent pictures or even hang around if they were telling dirty jokes.  Their incessant teasing got to me. I was a really good baseball player, but the bullies kept telling me that I couldn’t run as fast as them, or hit as well as them, or field the ball as well as them. I started believing what they were saying. Then one day we were playing an important baseball game and it was the classic bottom of the ninth, bases loaded,  two outs and the game was tied.  Coach Scott used his X-Ray vision and looked inside of me.  He knew there was an excellent baseball player within me and he put me up as a pinch hitter at this significant part of the game.  He believed in me…he made me believe in me.
(Side Note: I am NOT a home-run hitter when it comes to baseball, however, I AM a superb base hitter.  I can determine where I’m going to hit the ball…as long as it isn’t over the fence.)  I hit the ball over the pitcher’s head so that it dropped into the shallow center field area.  There was no way that they could get to it in time.  Our runner scored and I was the hero of the game.
But the truth is, I was not really the hero of the game. The real hero, the one with the Super X-Ray Vision was Coach Scott.  He was, and still IS, a Super Hero!!
Do YOU have the Super Power of X-Ray Vision?  Can you look into somebody and see his or her real worth?  If you can, then you are on your way to becoming a Super Hero.
Another Super Hero was Miss McCauley…my fifth grade teacher:  She had Super Hearing.
Again with the kids teasing me…there would be times when I would come in from lunch or recess either nearing tears or already in “sob” mode…(I’m very tender-hearted).  Miss McCauley took me aside one day and had me pour out my soul to her about what was going on.  I didn’t think anything would come of it because I thought she was just letting me vent…I was wrong.  She listened to me with her Super Hearing.  She confronted the kids that were teasing me and she made sure my life was much better after that…she saved me with her Super Powers.
(Side Note: The kids who were picking on me weren’t without their own sets of problems.  One of the things that made her so super is that she listened to ALL of us and she used her Super Hearing to help improve EACH of our lives.  She was the teacher that cared SO much that sent us all birthday cards until our 21st birthdays).  She was, and still IS, a Super Hero.
Now let’s talk about a 5 year old with Super Human Strength…Melissa:
I was 8 years old and I was riding my bike down the sidewalk.  All of a sudden, Melissa was right in front of me…I hadn’t seen her and she hadn’t seen me until it was too late.  I tried to swerve to the right, at the same time she tried to jump to her left…oops, same direction.  I tried to swerve to the left while she tried to jump out of the way to her right…again, the same direction.  I hit her with my bike.  I felt sooooooo bad.  I got off of my bike and helped her up, she was O.K…. just a couple of scrapes and possibly some future bruising.  I told her how sorry I was.  She said it was all right.  She forgave me right then and there.
(Side Note:  I have seen this scenario before with other kids…even adults.  Most of the time, the person who is hit starts crying [I’m sure that would be me] or yelling about retribution.  But in very few instances have I seen someone instantly forgive the person who hit them…whether it was on purpose or not).  Even at 5 years old, Melissa became a Super Hero to me because of her Super Human strength, for, you see, it takes Super Human Strength to forgive.
Isn’t it amazing that I remember that story?  That happened over 40 years ago, but it is still strong in my memory because Melissa was, and still IS, a Super Hero.
So it doesn’t matter how old you are, what gender or race you are…you CAN be a Super Hero.  I know many other Super Heroes with other Super Powers.  I’ll probably write more stories about them in the future.
Until then, I have to go save the world…”Up, up and away…”

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Obama’s BRAIN initiative and dual language education: What’s the link?

Obama’s BRAIN initiative and dual language education: What’s the link?

BRAIN Obama bilingualism

President Barack Obama introduced BRAIN, a new project to map the human brain in hopes of eventually finding cures for diseases like Alzheimer’s. Does it help dual language education too? (AP Photo/Susan Wals
 
President Barack Obama has unveiled a federal BRAIN initiative which he describes as “a bold new research effort to revolutionize our understanding of the human mind and uncover new ways to treat, prevent and cure brain disorders like Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, autism, epilepsy and traumatic brain injury.”
The initiative is a worthy national undertaking that can help us understand and treat brain disorders. It can, as the President argues, serve as a stimulus for economic growth through innovation similar to that produced by the federal “genome project.”
I agree with the President that it “will open new doors to understanding how brain function is linked to human behavior and learning.” I am skeptical, however, that this understanding will improve education or promote the kinds of instruction which research proves to be most beneficial for learning, thinking and doing.
My skepticism is grounded in the inexplicable failure of the Obama Administration under Education Secretary Arne Duncan to present and support “dual language” education as a core K-12 educational program. For more than a decade, neuroscience has documented the cognitive benefits which accrue from it.
These benefits extend far beyond the accepted economic and social advantages associated with bilingualism and are often translated from the complex terminology of neuro-medical research journals into simple news headlines like “Bilingual Brains Are Better.”

Cognitive health and dual language education

Dual language education
Obama’s initiative should lead Education Secretary Duncan to promote dual language education. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete, File)
Hard science, including autopsies and x-rays, has shown that people who are bilingual or multilingual, especially from youth, have increased “grey matter,” the raw material of the human intellect. More recently, psychological research employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) which allows scientists to see the brain at work has shown that bilingualism increases the neurological activity associated with thinking — the brain’s “clock speed,” if you will.
Research has also shown that multilingual people have greater problem-solving ability than their monolingual peers as well as greater “executive function,” multi-tasking capability, higher levels of creativity and critical thinking.
Finally, and this goes directly to President Obama’s interest in treating Alzheimer’s, is that dual or multiple language learning has been proven to delay the onset of age-related dementia. It may actually prevent individuals from falling victim to Alzheimer’s disease.
These “brain-based” research findings should have caused Education Secretary Duncan to promote vigorously dual language and foreign language instructional programs. Just as increased exercise is good for children’s physical health, so also is multiple language learning beneficial to their mental fitness, functioning and well-being.
Secretary Duncan has been a fervent supporter of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign to combat childhood obesity through diet and exercise. Duncan has done nothing, however, to advance the views President Obama expressed during the 2008 campaign on the importance of language education and development.
At a May 28, 2008 town-hall campaign rally in Thornton, Colorado, then-Senator Obama was asked for his views on bilingual education. His answer was powerful and unequivocal.
“Understand,” he said, “that my starting principle is everybody should be bilingual or everybody should be trilingual. We as a society do a really bad job teaching foreign languages, and it is costing us when it comes to being competitive in a global marketplace.”
Despite virtually unlimited possibilities, the Secretary has never translated the President’s powerful sentiments into policy or practice. The $100 billion education component of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) made $10 billion in new funding available for Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Act (ESEA), $12.2 billion of new funding available for the Individuals with Disability Act and almost $5 billion for the administration’s “Race to the Top” initiative. Not a dollar of the ARRA funds, however, was devoted to ESEA Title III programs for the nation’s 5-plus million English Learners and not a dime for federal foreign language education programs.
Nor did Secretary Duncan’s 2011 “Blueprint for ESEA Reauthorization” propose to expand the narrow “English-only acquisition” focus of the ESEA. Title III needs to promote dual language development for English Learners and, in two-way programs, for their monolingual English peers.
Full details are yet to be developed. I will remain suspicious that the initiative will improve education and learning until I see some proof that the Secretary is willing to push brain-research-proven dual language education.
David Rogers is executive director of Dual Language Education of New Mexico. Reach him at david@dtemn.org.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Top 12 Things You Learned In School That Your Students Won’t


Top 12 Things You Learned In School That Your Students Won’t

Annie Condron
For better or worse, some teaching topics and students lessons are falling out of favor in current curriculum.
Here are the top 12 things you learned in school that may not be taught today:

Cursive





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There's a contentious debate among techy teachers who are ready to discard handwriting / cursive and traditional teachers who see the value for reading, writing and fine motor skills that teaching handwriting provides.
Check out how cursive scored in a TeachHUB poll on the subject!

Card Catalog / Dewey Decimal System








With Google at our students' finger tips, they must think we were crazy to spend hours thumbing through note cards in the card catalogs, combing the stacks and reviewing microfilm to find research materials. I'm constantly begging students to go beyond Google and mix it up with the old school books as well.

Pluto as a Planet








Now that Pluto’s been downgraded to a dwarf planet, you’ll have to update the old rhyme:
My (Mercury) Very (Venus) Easy (Earth) Method (Mars) Just (Jupiter) Speeds (Saturn) Up (Uranus) Naming (Neptune) Planets (Pluto).
Share your new-school mnemonic device in the comments section!

Typing







While I spent time in grade school and high school memorizing the home row and trying to up my speed at typing "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," today's kids can text and type at speeds I'd never thought possible.
For kicks, let your students work on a typewriter, breaking out the white out for mistakes and retyping each draft. Be prepared to take video in case someone has to replace the ink ribbon.
[TeachHUB Recommends: Stay on top of 21st Century Skills Instruction with in-service professional development.]

Old School Gym Class Staples






Climbing the rope in gym class seems to be a relic of times passed, along with (I hope) square dancing. Let's just hope that physical education becomes more modern instead of just disappearing entirely.

Paper-Based Reference Materials






Researching with encyclopedias, paper dictionaries, microfilm and other paper-based resources used to be a must. Now, students don't need guidance on choosing their proper encyclopedia volume or skimming a page to find your entry.

Now, students need to taught how to find reliable online resources and choose relevant keywords to find the proper results. Check out Dr. Katie McKnight's guide to connecting literacy skills with 21st century skills.

Food Pyramid






Say goodbye to the bottom layer of carbs that the previous generations knew and loved. The latest in nutritional guides is actually a circle divided into food categories that demonstrates proper portion size.

Diagramming Sentences






When we asked TeachHUB facebook followers about obsolete school lessons, the Language Arts contingent lamented the diagramming sentences no longer being taught in some schools.

Evolution (Exclusively)









While evolution is a core part of science curricula, some states and districts are also allowing supplemental units on creationism or intelligent design. Dr. Barbara Forrest is an advocate against this change in education policy.

Math Drills








In the age of the calculator, math teachers among the TeachHUB fans listed math drills are lacking in current curriculum standards. Students are relying too heavily on calculators for basic math facts. Don't let the machines win!

Clapping erasers






Oh chalk boards, how I don't miss you! Dry erase and SMART boards are welcome replacements... nails on a dry erase board just don't have the same effect.
As a student though, I did enjoy the classroom duty of clapping erasers if it was a nice day outside.

Scales & Balances






Digital scales make the traditional balance scales and their slew of weights unnecessary. If nothing else, this lesson going by the wayside will clear some closet space in science classrooms.

The Endangered Learning List

In addition to our top 12 lost or soon-to-be-lost lessons, there are also a few skills that may also be in danger of falling into extinction.
  • Reading a clock - Don't let digital kill the clock!
  • Spelling / proofreading - With word processors auto-correcting or highlighting most potential mistakes, kids don't care to double check.
  • Note-taking - Why take notes when you can take video of the lecture or get a print off of the power point? Because it helps you learn and add your own ideas!
  • Balancing a checkbook - While not necessarily school-related, it strikes me as odd that most kids won't even know what that means.
Are you fighting to keep these lessons alive in your classroom?

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

What Kids Are Reading, In School And Out

What Kids Are Reading, In School And Out



 
A group of young adults reading
 
Walk into any bookstore or library, and you'll find shelves and shelves of hugely popular novels and book series for kids. But research shows that as young readers get older, they are not moving to more complex books. High-schoolers are reading books written for younger kids, and teachers aren't assigning difficult classics as much as they once did.
At Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, D.C., the 11th-grade honors English students are reading The Kite Runner. And students like Megan Bell are reading some heavy-duty books in their spare time. "I like a lot of like old-fashioned historical dramas," Bell says. "Like I just read Anna Karenina ... I plowed through it, and it was a really good book."
But most teens are not forging their way through Russian literature, says Walter Dean Myers, who is currently serving as National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. A popular author of young-adult novels that are often set in the inner city, Myers wants his readers to see themselves in his books. But sometimes, he's surprised by his own fan mail.
"I'm glad they wrote," he says, "but it is not very heartening to see what they are reading as juniors and seniors." Asked what exactly is discouraging, Myers says that these juniors and seniors are reading books that he wrote with fifth- and sixth-graders in mind.
And a lot of the kids who like to read in their spare time are more likely to be reading the latest vampire novel than the classics, says Anita Silvey, author of 500 Great Books for Teens. Silvey teaches graduate students in a children's literature program, and at the beginning of the class, she asked her students — who grew up in the age of Harry Potter — about the books they like.
"Every single person in the class said, 'I don't like realism, I don't like historical fiction. What I like is fantasy, science fiction, horror and fairy tales.' "
Those anecdotal observations are reflected in a study of kids' reading habits by Renaissance Learning. For the fifth year in a row, the educational company used its Accelerated Reader program to track what kids are reading in grades one through 12.
"Last year, we had more than 8.6 million students from across the country who read a total of 283 million books," says Eric Stickney, the educational research director for Renaissance Learning. Students participate in the Accelerated Reader program through their schools. When they read a book, they take a brief comprehension quiz, and the book is then recorded in the system. The books are assigned a grade level based on vocabulary and sentence complexity.
And Stickney says that after the late part of middle school, students generally don't continue to increase the difficulty levels of the books they read.
Last year, almost all of the top 40 books read in grades nine through 12 were well below grade level. The most popular books, the three books in The Hunger Games series, were assessed to be at the fifth-grade level.
Last year, for the first time, Renaissance did a separate study to find out what books were being assigned to high school students. "The complexity of texts students are being assigned to read," Stickney says, "has declined by about three grade levels over the past 100 years. A century ago, students were being assigned books with the complexity of around the ninth- or 10th-grade level. But in 2012, the average was around the sixth-grade level."
Most of the assigned books are novels, like To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men or Animal Farm. Students even read recent works like The Help and The Notebook. But in 1989, high school students were being assigned works by Sophocles, Shakespeare, Dickens, George Bernard Shaw, Emily Bronte and Edith Wharton.
Now, with the exception of Shakespeare, most classics have dropped off the list.
Back at Woodrow Wilson High School, at a 10th-grade English class — regular, not honors — students say they don't read much outside of school. But Tyler Jefferson and Adriel Miller are eager to talk. Adriel likes books about sports; Tyler likes history. Both say their teachers have assigned books they would not have chosen on their own. "I read The Odyssey, Tyler says. "I read Romeo and Juliet. I didn't read Hamlet. Asked what he thought of the books, Tyler acknowledges some challenges. "It was very different, because how the language was back then, the dialogue that they had.
Adriel agrees that books like that are tougher to read. "That's why we have great teachers that actually make us understand," he says. "It's a harder challenge of our brain, you know; it's a challenge."
But a challenge with its rewards, as Tyler says. "It gives us a new view on things."
Sandra Stotsky would be heartened to hear that. Professor emerita of education at the University of Arkansas, Stotsky firmly believes that high school students should be reading challenging fiction to get ready for the reading they'll do in college. "You wouldn't find words like 'malevolent,' 'malicious' or 'incorrigible' in science or history materials," she says, stressing the importance of literature. Stotsky says in the '60s and '70s, schools began introducing more accessible books in order to motivate kids to read. That trend has continued, and the result is that kids get stuck at a low level of reading.
"Kids were never pulled out of that particular mode in order to realize that in order to read more difficult works, you really have to work at it a little bit more," she says. "You've got to broaden your vocabulary. You may have to use a dictionary occasionally. You've got to do a lot more reading altogether."
"There's something wonderful about the language, the thinking, the intelligence of the classics," says Anita Silvey. She acknowledges that schools and parents may need to work a little harder to get kids to read the classics these days, but that doesn't mean kids shouldn't continue to read the popular contemporary novels they love. Both have value: "There's an emotional, psychological attraction to books for readers. And I think some of, particularly, these dark, dystopic novels that predict a future where in fact the teenager is going to have to find the answers, I think these are very compelling reads for these young people right now."
Reading leads to reading, says Silvey. It's when kids stop reading, or never get started in the first place, that there's no chance of ever getting them hooked on more complex books.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/06/11/190669029/what-kids-are-reading-in-school-and-out
 

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

You Raise Me Up


I love the lyrics to this song (and the music!).  I would hope that we would do this for all our Esperanza educators and scholars. 



You Raise Me Up Painting by Nik Helbig

"You Raise Me Up"--lyrics by Josh Groban
When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary;
When troubles come and my heart burdened be;
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence,
Until you come and sit awhile with me.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up... To more than I can be.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up... To more than I can be.

There is no life - no life without its hunger;
Each restless heart beats so imperfectly;
But when you come and I am filled with wonder,
Sometimes, I think I glimpse eternity.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up... To more than I can be.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up... To more than I can be.

You raise me up... To more than I can be.

Monday, June 17, 2013

Science and human heart both say dads important to a kid's life

Science and human heart both say dads important to a kid's life


Published: Saturday, June 15 2013 7:24 p.m. MDT

Jonathan Ubri watches his son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 as they play at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News) Jonathan Ubri watches his son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 as they play at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
BOUNTIFUL — Every afternoon, 14-month-old Calder Ubri stands by the glass panel in the front door and watches for his dad to come home.
And each afternoon, Jonathan Ubri gets off the bus and walks home. When he gets close enough to see his toddler bouncing up and down at the sight of him, little arms pinwheeling, the dad starts running, his own arms outstretched.
"Calder, Calder, Calder," he yells, smiling wide. As he clears the door, he scoops up his baby boy and they roll on the ground, hugging and wrestling and bestowing sloppy kisses on each other.
Father-son time is a joyous thing for Jonathan Ubri, 26, unlike anything he had growing up. His own father showed up rarely and somewhat randomly when Ubri was a child growing up near Boston. Ubri is determined to not be that kind of dad. He plans to be there for his son.
Jonathan and Celeste Ubri play with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News) Jonathan and Celeste Ubri play with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
Research says that will be a great gift for Calder's future.
A gift from dad
Positive father involvement affects every stage of a child's development, impacting young lives at each age, according to numerous studies. Dad helps an infant's secure attachment, a toddler's ability to regulate negative emotions and a middle school-aged child's self-esteem. A good relationship with Dad also boosts school achievement for adolescents, according to Erin Kramer Holmes, assistant professor in the Brigham Young University School of Family Life.
"Almost four decades of good social science research establish that fathers matter to children's healthy development," she said. "The quality of men's parenting has also been associated with fewer behavior problems, lower depression rates and better social skills with peers."
Jonathan and Celeste Ubri pose with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News) Jonathan and Celeste Ubri pose with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
Holmes' colleague, Justin Dyer, also an assistant professor, points out that dads aren't better than moms, but each gender's offerings are vital. "You can see fathers and mothers both uniquely contribute to almost anything you could possibly think of," he said.
Father's Day is a good time to celebrate the father-child bond. The more dads are involved with kids, attending games, helping with homework, playing, talking, nurturing, the more positive effects are bestowed on a child's development. When a father is warm and expresses love, that has unique effects.
"It's so clear from the research that the more fathers do, the better off kids are emotionally, socially and academically," Dyer said.
Fathers have great influence over how children see themselves in terms of individual value. "If my father does not value me, if the person that created me, that is a part of me, doesn't value me, then am I worth anything at all?" Dyer asked. "This is where the wonderful and often heroic efforts of grandparents, uncles, stepdads and adoptive fathers are so valuable to children whose biological fathers are not involved."
Jonathan and Celeste Ubri play with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News) Jonathan and Celeste Ubri play with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
Research published in the journal Psychological Medicine found that girls whose dads were absent when they were very young are more prone to depression as teens. A different study noted that girls who are close to their fathers are less likely to become pregnant as teenagers. And researchers in Britain are among those linking Dad's presence to a child's better academic performance and lower involvement in crime.
The Department of Health and Human Services summarizes a father's vital role this way: "Involved fathers provide practical support in raising children and serve as models for their development. Children with involved, loving fathers are significantly more likely to do well in school, have healthy self-esteem, exhibit empathy and pro-social behavior compared to children who have uninvolved fathers. Committed and responsible fathering during infancy and early childhood contributes emotional security, curiosity, and math and verbal skills."
Jonathan and Celeste Ubri play with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News) Jonathan and Celeste Ubri play with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
The benefits a good relationship bestows are not one-sided, either. Strong bonds help Dad, too.
"When men engage with their children, they gain a stronger sense of purpose in life, increase intergenerational and extended family interaction and report increased job performance. One of my graduate school advisors used to say, 'Good fathering is good for everyone.' The empirical research seems to support this claim," Holmes said.
Not together
The strongest family structure with the best outcome for kids is an intact two-parent family. But that's not everyone's story. It's important to recognize that you can have no father in your life and still win record numbers of gold medals, like Michael Phelps, or grow up to be the president of the United States. However, strong ties to Dad give kids real advantages.
Jonathan and Celeste Ubri play with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News) Jonathan and Celeste Ubri play with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
Fathers strongly influence how children see themselves. Dads can bestow "the assurance the person I am indelibly linked to through biology cares about me and thinks that I am important," Dyer said. Many of the cognitive, academic and behavioral problems a child might have stem from that child's view of his or her own value.
Research suggests the single most important thing a noncustodial dad can do to help his children is to financially invest in them so that other issues like poverty and hunger don't interfere with their development. That doesn't take away from the importance of also showing up to games and helping with school and being a strong presence in children's lives.
Whether parents are together or not, it's crucial that they are on the same page, supporting each other, when it comes to their children. If parents are out of sync — and that can happen even when couples are together —the kids get mixed messages. If one parent tries to undermine the other, it becomes stressful for the kids and weakens their footing, said Dyer.
Jonathan and Celeste Ubri play with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News) Jonathan and Celeste Ubri play with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
If dad doesn't live with his kids, he needs to maintain a parenting role, not a pal role. The so-called Disneyland Dad (it can also be a mom) who is just there for fun things puts tremendous pressure on the parent who has daily responsibility and must enforce rules like schoolwork and curfew, Dyer said.
"Kids need parents more than they need friends," he added. They also need consistency, so parents need to agree on things like homework and chores and rules, together or not.
That's not to say parents have to agree on everything or can't disagree in front of the kids. It's important for children to see parents as individuals who may have different views but are able to resolve them. That teaches children the powerful lesson that problems can be solved, that people don't always see things the same, and agreement or compromise can be reached.
Jonathan and Celeste Ubri play with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News) Jonathan and Celeste Ubri play with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
It changes Dad, too
A study from Northwestern University showed that higher levels of testosterone help men attract mates, but once a baby is born, testosterone levels drop, helping men become nurturers. The researchers said it helps men focus on taking care of dependent offspring.
Warren Farrell, a self-described "father-and-child reunionist" and author of "Why Men Are the Way They Are," thinks dads and moms provide natural checks and balances to each other and that benefits kids. Dads tend to push children a little, while moms worry about keeping their baby safe. Farrell uses the example of a student who doesn't like his teacher. Mom's reaction is to call the school and try to get the child moved, because it's a crucial year and it needs to go well. Dad wants to wait and see if the child adapts.
Jonathan Ubri looks up at his son Calder as they play on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News) Jonathan Ubri looks up at his son Calder as they play on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
"Who is right?" Farrell asked, then paused before answering. "Both."
Dad is the primary boundary enforcer, though he may not have set them. He also provides a sense of adventure and security that lets children explore their world and take some risks. That's important for healthy development.
"Most fathers have a natural propensity to roughhouse, to not let children get away with things or manipulate. They are less likely to overprotect. Dads are important to reading skills and learning to trust your instincts. Moms are not supposed to be second dads and dads are not supposed to be another mom," Farrell said.
Taken seriously
Parenting leaves an indelible mark that is unique for each father, Farrell said. What Dad adds to his son's or daughter's life will "seep in like syrup drips into a pancake."
Jonathan and Celeste Ubri play with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News) Jonathan and Celeste Ubri play with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
Jonathan Ubri knows that, both from his own lack of a father and from the father figures he found to guide him as a teenager. Through their examples, he knows what a dad can contribute to a child and he has plans for Calder and for the siblings he's sure the little boy will one day have.
When he started dating his wife Celeste, he was, in his own words, "constantly analyzing" her dad, Randy Russell of Sugar City, Idaho. Comparing him to his other mentors, he recognized there are different types of fathers and that he could learn from each of them. He likes the fact Russell didn't have to tell his kids to be good. He is a good man who provided that example and the expectation never had to be put into words.
Celeste Ubri stays home with Calder and by the time his dad, who is a campaign manager for KSL Local Interactive, gets home, "He's kind of done with me and bored," she said. "Calder's a lot more affectionate with his dad than he is with me. It's pretty funny. Jonathan reads him books. They play a lot. I entertain Calder with toys. Jonathan just plays with him."
Jonathan and Celeste Ubri play with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News) Jonathan and Celeste Ubri play with their son Calder on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at their Bountiful home. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
Even without a father to emulate in his home, Jonathan Ubri was fundamentally decent. "I always had a good conscience; I was not ever ill-intentioned," he said. He wants to pass that on.
His goals are both lofty and breathtakingly simple. Jonathan Ubri wants to be the go-to guy for his kids, a leader they look up to and a place they go for love, absolutely certain they will get it from him, no matter what. He never, by the way, felt unloved. His mom made sure of that, he said.
He said he will know he was the type of dad he wanted to become if, when Calder is grown and faced with a choice, a question or a dilemma, he responds: "I'll ask my dad. He probably knows."
EMAIL: lois@deseretnews.com, Twitter: Loisco
Copyright 2013, Deseret News Publishing Company

Sunday, June 16, 2013

The Human Body

I listened this morning to the BYU Devotional speech--The Human Body:  A Gift and a Responsibility-- by Larry Tucker on May 28, 2013. 

It was such an important reminder that we want to do what we can to encourage our Esperanza educators and scholars to do what needs to be done so they can have healthy bodies. 

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Do They Know As Many Words?

Do They Know As Many Words?

Lexical knowledge in bilingual children
Although the advantages of being bilingual are numerous (see here), parents and educators are often worried that bilingual children will not know as many words as their monolingual peers. However much time one spends describing and justifying bilingualism (after all, half the world's population, if not more, is bilingual), the question keeps coming back is: But do bilingual children know as many words?
Dr. Barbara Zurer Pearson, a pioneering researcher in the field of childhood language acquisition, and her colleague Sylvia Fernández, studied this question in the 1990s. They examined the vocabulary development of English-Spanish bilingual children, aged between 8 and 30 months. They found that the rate and pace of development of the bilinguals' lexical knowledge were similar to those of monolingual children. In addition, the total vocabulary count of these children (taking into account both languages) was not different to that of the monolinguals, but their single language vocabularies were somewhat smaller. So we have known for some time that bilingual children do have as many words as their monolingual counterparts when both languages are taken into account but maybe not so when one examines only one language.


To see the rest of the article, please visit  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201306/do-they-know-many-words

 

Friday, June 14, 2013

13 Little Known Historical Events that Made Education What it is Today

13 Little Known Historical Events that Made Education What it is Today



History of education


The Invention of Writing:

I admit this is far from a little known historical event. But we don’t often think about the role it played specifically in the formation of practices of education.
Imagine if education meant going to the movies. At one time education was conveyed in the form of entertainment, in the same way that we consume movies, television shows and music. Educators were once famous entertainers and artists, like our musicians and actors.
Before a culture has writing the preservation of knowledge through memorization is incredibly important. This memorization occurs mainly through song and poetry. This poetry is then communicated to the community through performances that unite both entertainment and education. Passive audiences receive cultural education through a memorization that happens naturally due to repetitive musical performances and enjoyment. Information was preserved in the same way that songs we hear repeatedly on the radio enter our memories whether or not we want them to.
Educators were once famous entertainers and artists, like our musicians and actors.
Once writing became the dominant form of cultural memory, for example in places like Ancient Greece, a crisis in education began. It seemed that the information that had once required full community memorization by means of cultural performance could now be perfectly preserved in physical objects such as scrolls and, later, books. This decreased the importance of community educators, what we might think of as bards and poets, as preservers and transmitters of knowledge.
But, the idea that the written word and the pure information it preserved are entirely adequate for education conflicted with a continued sense that the ability to read alone did not provide all necessary knowledge. In particular, skills and methods of thought were difficult to preserve through writing alone.
Much of the following history of education involves a conflict between the providing of information to be memorized and a more personal interaction between the student and the teacher able to provide demonstrations of skills, methods of thought, and modes of behavior. The teacher becomes caught between simply providing texts while aiding or authoritatively enforcing the student’s access to them or, instead, playing the role of cultural performance once filled by poetic entertainers. The question becomes, is education about providing information or about initiating students into the living knowledge of skills and methods.

2. The Rise of Medieval Guilds:

What if getting into your high-school meant learning several secret handshakes and passwords, and the existence of your school was a secret that had to be kept from the most powerful political forces around you? What if getting an education was itself a revolutionary act? What if sharing what you learned could get you killed by your own classmates? If you can imagine this, you get a sense of what education in early medieval guilds was like. As we will see in this and the following two sections, educational developments during the Medieval Period were central parts of risky large-scale social revolutions.
Contemporary education is clearly considered a collective social concern and is frequently provided through community and government supported or run schools. This was not always the case.
Throughout much of history education was seen mainly as a family concern. Parents would provide whatever education was necessary for their children or find someone equipped to do so.
Guilds
Within the Medieval Period, however, several developments led to dramatic changes in the forms education takes. One of these key changes was the rise of groups of craftsmen who, often in secret, developed and maintained standards for their areas of work. These became professional guilds.
The maintenance of professional standards required networks of education that initiated new members into the standard skills and practices of the line of work they were entering. Guilds served to refine and standardize a unique model of education, specifically apprenticeship, through which students studied for a particular amount of time with a mask of a craft before gaining the status of a legitimate craftsman.
The apprenticeship model of education was clearly hierarchical and eschewed the centrality of texts. Skills were not easily transmitted through texts, books were expensive, and most of society couldn’t read.
Apprenticeship offered a contrast with the family focused style of education. It also conflicted with the other dominant model of education at the time, church sermons. Church sermons offered a minimal type of social and theological education to entire communities as a social and religious service. Apprenticeship, on the other hand, was offered to only small numbers of specific students and payment was expected. This payment was provided through the service apprentices provided to their masters.  
Perhaps most importantly, however, the formation of guilds took the power over education out of the hands of political and religious leaders. It also served to place control over professions in the hands of that profession’s most skilled masters. For these reasons guilds were often politically or religious repressed and guild secrets and control over professions were savagely defended.

3. The Forming of the Medieval Free Cities:

The formation of Medieval Guilds was part of another major social change. The 10th through 12th Centuries saw the formation of many cities in Medieval Europe. These cities were formed largely by peasants and serfs who, often illegally, sought independence from their service to nobles. They also came to exist largely free of any noble, royal or religious support. It is first within the free cities that we find the development of the guild networks discussed above. Hamburg, Bremen, Cologne as well as the vast majority of Italian city-states including Milan, Venice, Pisa and Mantua all started as Medieval free cities.
Up until the formation of the free cities education for the lower classes in Europe was tightly controlled by ruling nobles and the church while being limited primarily to religious and ethical teachings. With the formation of the free cities education could be expanded in the form of guild networks. Without these cities such guild networks would have likely been suppressed or kept from forming since they offered a social mobility, organization, and power to peasants that was opposed by rulers and religious leaders alike.
It is at this point that we see most clearly the early blossoming of a concept of education free from political or religious control. Once the free cities provided fertile ground for the establishment of guilds these guilds spread to cities existing under the rule of specific royals or nobles, such as Paris and London.     

4. The Establishment of Universities:

Colleges and Universities have the reputation for being hotbeds of political activism, but it is less often recognized that their very creation was once an act of political revolution.
The largely practical guild networks protected within the free cities soon gave rise to a very different model of education, that of the university. Universities started out as themselves guilds, although they tended towards more advanced scholarly activity than the craft skills of concern to most guilds.
These scholastic guilds began, just like the free cities, without authorization or support from the nobility, royalty or church. It is not surprising, then, that many of the earliest universities began in the free cities themselves, such as the University of Bologna which began in 1088. However even royally governed cities such as Paris saw the rise of universities, such as the University of Paris sometime before 1150, which asserted their independence from royal or church authority.
What we see in the University, then, is the combination of the apprenticeship model of education and its resistance to external authority but with the addition of textual scholarship. This was to prove so powerful a form of education that, despite their independent and arguably revolutionary beginnings, Universities would swiftly gain the support and patronage of kings and popes.

5. The Reformation

Would you believe that the changes that plunged Europe into over a hundred years of religious warfare during the 16th and 17th Centuries were largely about education?
The Reformation was the bloody split within Christian Europe that lead to the formation of most of the Protestant religions. It began in 1517 with the posting of Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses, which demanded certain changes to the structure and dogma of the Catholic Church. Much like the first item on this list, this is certainly not a little known historical event. But what tends to be little known is that it was largely an argument about education.
The main justification and role of the Catholic Church during the Medieval Period was as an interpreter of the Bible and teacher of the book’s message. Those who were not members of holy orders were not, however, expected or encouraged to read the book if indeed they could read at all. In fact, reading the Bible was frequently outright forbidden since those with a basic education were not expected to have the knowledge or skills necessary to interpret its meaning.
Since for the Medievals the Bible represented the foundation of all ethical, political and cosmological knowledge, let alone religious truth, the authority to interpret and teach the Bible was synonymous with complete control of education in general. This also meant control of any questions of political or legal legitimacy. It was very clear in the Medieval Period that those who controlled education controlled society.
One of the key developments of the Protestant break with the Catholic Church was the idea that the Bible should be translated into the languages of the individual nations and be made available to all literate people. This amounted to a claim that everyone should be able to educate themselves.
Here we see the contrast, mentioned earlier when discussing the invention of written language, between a belief in the adequacy of a text for education and the belief in the need for an educator. We also see an expansion of the guild and university commitment to education and thought free from political or religious control. Although it wasn’t the intention of the religious thinkers who lead the Reformation, this would be the foundation of the rise of secular and public education.   

6. Colonialism:

Thomas_Babington_Macaulay,_Baron_Macaulay
Throughout history education has been tied to issues of political power. As Europe expanded its political and religious influence through exploration, conquest and colonization it brought with it models of education intended to help solidify its world power. The 18th and 19th Centuries saw massive world-wide changes to education fueled by the needs of colonial governance in places like Africa and India.
In 1835 Thomas Babington Macaulay, an important British historian and politician, introduced a system of public education in India with the goal of creating an English speaking anglicised class of Indians who could work as cultural intermediaries between the British colonial forces and the Indians. His reforms were built on the back of the earlier establishment of missionary schools that taught English primarily as a method for conveying religious teachings.
This basic development, from missionary education to civic education intended to assist in the goals of colonial rule was to be a basic pattern throughout the colonized world.
These reforms, which rested on a foundation of small local schools in villages and developed up to the level of establishing Universities such as the University of Madras in India, make clear the continuing tension between visions of education as independent from, or even opposed to, political and religious domination and education as a tool of both political and religious power.

7. The New England War on Satan:

Yep, you read that correctly. Public education in North America was born under the banner of a war on the devil! In the 1640s the American colony of Massachusetts passed a series of school laws establishing the first colony-wide public schools. These laws would soon spread throughout the American colonies generally and provide the foundation for public education in the new nation following the American Revolutionary War.
That all sounds mild enough. But the most famous and first of these laws, the one that got the entire ball rolling, came to be known as the “Old Deluder Satan Law”. This law starts out rather dramatically as follows, “It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times keeping them in an unknown tongue…” and then proceeds to legislate the necessity of all citizens of the colony learning how to read through the establishment of a school system. 

8. The Failure to Establish the New Hampshire State College:

No one would have expected the failure to found a state college to give birth to the public library system. But history is often a story of productive failures and happy accidents. The birth of the public library system in the United States of America, which was to influence similar library systems throughout the world, was the product of such a failure.
Libraries of various sorts have been around throughout history. However, most of them have been limited to certain social classes or specific members who alone are allowed access. Benjamin Franklin, for example, is often touted as having helped to found the public library system of the United States of America. What he established, however, was a pay service whereby people could pay to be part of a book sharing organization. This ruled out library access to any without the money to pay for it.
In the 1830s the State of New Hampshire decided it wanted to start a state college. It gathered taxes for the project but eventually hopes of founding the school died. The state, left with the money that had been gathered to found a college, decided to return the money to the state’s townships for the generalized purpose of expanding education.
In 1833 the small town of Peterborough, upon receipt of the money, decided to invest in books and open a library available to all citizens of the town. The idea quickly caught on and in 1849 New Hampshire was the first state to pass a law allowing local tax money to be used in the founding of public libraries. In 1854 the Boston Library, often considered the first real public library in the U.S., was founded. The rest is educational history and all thanks to the failure to found a college.   

9. The Invention of the Female Teacher:

It is certainly bad to think that the role of schoolteacher is properly just a role for women, but there was a time when just this idea changed the face of education, and the opportunities open to women, for the better.
Sexism and the systematic denial to women of access to education loom large in the history of the world. However, the limiting of women to what in the past were wrongly considered distinctly female careers is also a key moment in the history of sexism. It is interesting, however, that the creating of the image of the female teacher was a valuable, if limited, move in the war for sexual equality and a decisive development in the history of education.
If you consider the power involved in the role of educator it is clear that for much of history the secondary status of women was maintained by distancing them from knowledge. The entrance of women generally into education was a decisive revolution in this history and it occurred in large part due to the work of several hardcore female writers and teachers. These include Abigail Adams, whose letters to her husband and future U.S. President John Adams stand as a monument to her intelligence and commitment to the importance of female citizens in the new country; Lydia Maria Child, whose work for women’s rights, the abolition of slaver, Indian rights and female education were highly influential; and both Catharine Maria Sedgwick and Lydia Sigourney, whose poetry and novels placed female literary contributions firmly in the bloodstream of American culture.
On top of their other achievements, each of these women contributed to a development that would come to be known as the “Republican Motherhood Movement”. Their argument was that the formation of civic-minded U.S. citizens depends extensively on the role played by mothers in the rearing and education of their children. As such, the political and social health of the nation depended on the existence of educated mothers prepared to raise their children with a full knowledge of the cultural and political heritage that made the nation possible.
This argument proved so influential that it led to the inclusion of women as students in the previously largely exclusionary public education systems. It also created the clear image of the woman and mother as educator that led to the establishment of women as a central pillar of the educational edifice through the role of schoolteachers.  

10. The Invention of Childhood:

Yes, it may sound strange to talk about the “invention of childhood”, but different societies and different historical time periods have given rise to very different conceptions of childhood. In his book Childhood and Society, the famous developmental psychologist Erik Erikson argues for precisely this point through discussing the role that our conception of childhood plays in our understanding of society itself.
Surprisingly, much of history consists of the view that children are just small adults waiting to grow into full bodily power. The idea that mental capacities take an extended period of development to mature has not been the standard view. Conceptions of the length of childhood and its nature have therefore varied extensively. It should be no surprise that how childhood is conceived plays a huge role in the extent and nature of the education a child receives.
Much of history consists of the view that children are just small adults waiting to grow into full bodily power.
Developments in the 19th and 20th Centuries in education have gone hand in hand with changes in how childhood is understood. Consider, for example, the difference between some children on farms in the 17th Century who were taught to read from adult texts and integrated into adult farm labor or married off at young ages versus the contemporary tendency to isolate stages of childhood in which children are largely sheltered from the adult world and engaged with uniquely childhood activities and types of education.
We can see the relation between conceptions of childhood and conceptions of education clearly in the example of the Meiji Reforms in Japan. These were reforms aimed at restoring imperial rule in Japan in 1868. Part of the reforms, however, was a new education policy involving an establishment of modern public education in Japan. Part of these educational reforms included the importation of Western-style schools and the dedication of time during childhood to the reading of children’s books, playing with educational toys and schooling specifically aimed at different age groups. Prior to this children were seen very much as adults and not provided space, education and activities unique to a period of childhood. The Meiji reforms represent, then, an establishment of certain conceptions of childhood that had largely been invented previously in Europe and America.      

11. The Resignation of Jonathan Baldwin Turner from Illinois College

JBTurner
Jonathan Turner was a professor at Illinois College who was forced to resign because of unorthodox religious views, passionate abolitionism, and controversial views concerning colleges and universities. After resigning he had time to dedicate more extensively to educational activism, and the U.S. public education system has never been the same since.
Before the contemporary period of history colleges and universities were general established independently from government support. Sometimes they were even formed directly in opposition to government power, as in the case of the first medieval universities, or through local and state support without the larger intercession of the nation as a whole as in the case of the failed New Hampshire state college of the 1830s. That changed in the middle to late 1800s in the United States. At the same time that colonial powers were establishing the University of Madras in India, a similar involvement of national policy in education was occurring in the U.S. though aimed towards a different goal.
The first real move of the federal government into the realm of public education was the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act of 1862 and 1890. These would lay the groundwork, however, for more extensive federal involvement in the elementary levels of education as well.
These acts, which provided federal land to each state for the establishment of public colleges, were largely the outcome of the work of Jonathan Baldwin Turner. Following his resignation from his teaching position Turner dedicated himself to opening up higher education to the industrial and agricultural classes. Appalled by the extent to which traditional colleges and universities were inaccessible to farmers and industrial workers, Turner pushed for the establishment of public nonreligious colleges dedicated to agricultural and industrial subjects. This idea did not just help force him out of his teaching position, but also led to his farm being burned to the ground. Indeed, the first Morrill Act could only be passed because most of the states that opposed the act had seceded from the Union in the build up to the Civil War.
Unlike during the Medieval Period, this connection of centers of higher education with national political authority served to insolate them from the overt control of either the religious or moneyed interests and opened them up to the lower classes. It is possible none of this would have happened, though, had not one man been forced out of his teaching job.

12. World War II

If World War II certainly isn’t a little known historical event, the fact that the fate of the war likely turned on questions of education may be. World War II taught the nations of the world the lesson that education, whether used in the invention and breaking of secret codes or the development of planes and city-leveling bombs, decides wars. In fact it has often been suggested that a large part of why the war went in the direction it did was because the Nazis had driven out many of their best scientists. This fact kept them from being able to develop an atomic bomb of their own. Albert Einstein, for example, had emigrated to the U.S. from Germany due to the rise of the Nazis and was the one who informed President Roosevelt of the possibility of an atomic bomb. The war made clear that power rests in the hands of those with superior technology and that technology depended on education.
It was considerations like these that contributed to the largest expansion of education in the United States in history at the same time that other countries were pursuing similar expansions. In the U.S. it took the form of the G.I. Bill, provisions of which provided funding for returning servicemen to attend college. The bill, which had originally also provided funding for the underprivileged but passed having been limited only to servicemen, set off a huge boom in college and university education. Similar booms were underway in places like the United Kingdom, where funding was extended to all citizens who needed it in a manner similar to President Roosevelt’s original intention for the G.I. Bill.
It had been clear, from the Medieval Period to the Colonial and beyond, that control of education meant control of society. World War II, on the other hand, made clear that quality education meant control over international world events especially within the venue of warfare.

13. Sputnik and the Space Race

Space Age
For the first time in history a small man-made satellite successfully enters orbit around the earth and a new international technological race begins. The U.S.S.R.’s launching of Sputnik set off what would be known as the Space Race, a race between capitalist and communist countries for who could gain dominance over space first. This went hand in hand with larger investments in, and reforms directed towards, public education.
What the many-leveled technological races of the Cold War made clear was that educational foundations for technological innovation are not just limited in their influence to literal warfare. The Cold War was also largely an economic conflict, and the Space Race was as much about economic investment and return as it was about control of space. In fact it has often been suggested that strategies like the Space Race were about overspending the competition, and so driving them into economic collapse.
From the moment in 1961 that President Kennedy announced that the U.S. would put a man on the moon, national investment in education for the sake of security and economic health became an unavoidable refrain in public debate. It is now clearer than ever that the topic of education is unavoidably connected to the economic success of any nation.
Stay tuned for my next post in which insights drawn from the history we have looked at will provide the foundation for considering “Hidden Challenges Facing Contemporary Education”.

About

W. H. Koch has a Master's degree and a Ph.D. in philosophy. He is passionate about education and teaches philosophy and critical thinking at the university and college levels. He has also provided tutoring for the S.A.T., L.S.A.T., G.R.E., M.C.A.T. and G.M.A.T. as well as teaching reading, literature and study skills to students from the per-kindergarten to college level.


Cited From: http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/history-of-education/#ixzz2WBli9778