[Vision2020] Good Education Results Begin at Home

[Sue Hovey]

Somewhere I have a journal article that supports the idea of raising test 
scores; not by more remediation, not by longer school days, not by correct 
placement of teachers, but by somehow ensuring all students began their 
school day with a healthy breakfast.  Seems like a winner to me.  My high 
school students were continually dieting or needing a latte hit.  Not that 
the other isn't important, too, but good nutrition really does need to be a 
part of this equation.

Sue Hovey
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <nickgier at adelphia.net>
To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2007 6:55 AM
Subject: [Vision2020] Good Education Results Begin at Home


> Good Morning Visionaries:
>
> David Brooks is a conservative columnist and I agree with his assessment. 
> In fact, I've believed this for a long time.  Because of poor family 
> environments, our children are destined to fail even in the best schools.
>
> The reason why the students at Logos do well is not because they have 
> better teachers; rather, it is because they come from good families.  The 
> same goes for students who do well in public schools.  Students with good 
> virtues and work habits will be successful independent learners.
>
> As Brooks himself implies, the European welfare states are again way ahead 
> of us in the programs that we've found successful here.  European schools 
> are directed by competent national education ministries, their teachers 
> are highly unionized, and their parents get strong social and medical 
> support.  Danish schools, for example, are required to have two resident 
> dentists, which prevents tragedies of the sort that Bill London reported 
> recently.
>
> In Denmark, where my daughter went to a private international school, 
> private school teachers must be certified and their schools are fully 
> subsidized by the state.  Danish private school teachers are also 90 
> percent unionized.  So we can reject the notion that somehow teacher 
> unions are at fault.
>
> My position that strong families make for the best students is connected 
> to my commitment to character education in the schools (as well as at 
> home).  And, Ted, I promise to answer your questions about virtue 
> education very soon.
>
> March 1, 2007
> Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times
> A Critique of Pure Reason
> By DAVID BROOKS
>
> All the presidential candidates this year will talk about education. The 
> conventional ones will talk about improving the schools. The creative ones 
> will talk about improving the lives of students.
>
> The conventional ones, though they don’t know it, are prisoners of the 
> dead husk of behaviorism. They will speak of education as if children were 
> blank slates waiting to have ideas inputted into their brains with some 
> efficient delivery mechanism.
>
> The creative ones will finally absorb the truth found in decades of 
> research: the relationships children have outside school shape their 
> performance inside the school.
>
> The conventional candidates will give the same old education reform 
> speeches, trumpeting this or that bureaucratic reshuffle. The creative 
> ones will give speeches like the one David Cameron, who is reviving the 
> British Tory party, gave last month. They will talk, as Cameron did, about 
> the mushy things, like love and attachment, and will say, as Cameron did, 
> “Family relationships matter more than anything else.”
>
> They will understand that schools filled with students who can’t control 
> their impulses, who can’t focus their attention and who can’t regulate 
> their emotions will not succeed, no matter how many reforms are made by 
> governors, superintendents or presidents.
>
> These candidates will emphasize that education is a cumulative process 
> that begins at the dawn of life and builds early in life as children learn 
> how to learn. These candidates will point out that powerful social 
> trends — the doubling of single-parent families over the past generation, 
> the rise of divorce rates — mean that government has to rethink its role. 
> They’ll note that if we want to have successful human capital policies, we 
> have to get over the definition of education as something that takes place 
> in schools between the hours of 8 and 3, between the months of September 
> and June, and between the ages of 5 and 18.
>
> As Bob Marvin of the University of Virginia points out, there is a 
> mountain of evidence demonstrating that early childhood attachments shape 
> lifelong learning competence.
>
> Children do have inborn temperaments and intelligence. Nevertheless, 
> students make the most of their natural dispositions when they have a 
> secure emotional base from which to explore, and even the brightest 
> children stumble when there is chaos inside.
>
> Research over the past few decades impressively shows that children who 
> emerge from attentive, attuned parental relationships do better in school 
> and beyond. They tend to choose friends wisely. They handle frustration 
> better. They’re more resilient in the face of setbacks. They grow up to 
> become more productive workers.
>
> On the other hand, as Martha Farah of the University of Pennsylvania has 
> found, students who do not feel emotionally safe tend not to develop good 
> memories (which is consistent with cortisol experiments in animals). 
> Students from less stimulating environments have worse language skills.
>
> The question, of course, is, What can government do about any of this? The 
> answer is that there are programs that do work to help young and stressed 
> mothers establish healthier attachments. These programs usually involve 
> having nurses or mature women make a series of home visits to give young 
> mothers the sort of cajoling and practical wisdom that in other times 
> would have been delivered by grandmothers or elders.
>
> The Circle of Security program has measurably improved attachments and 
> enhanced social skills. The Nurse-Family Partnerships program, founded by 
> David Olds, has produced rigorously examined, impressive results. Children 
> who have been in this program had 59 percent fewer arrests at age 15. 
> (Presidential candidates are commanded to read Katherine Boo’s Feb. 6, 
> 2006, New Yorker article to get a feel for how these programs work.)
>
> It’s important not to get carried away. “Enhancing Early Attachments,” a 
> review of the literature edited by Lisa Berlin and others, is filled with 
> phrases like “marginal success” and “modest but significant benefits.” But 
> these programs can be expanded.
>
> And one thing is clear: It’s crazy to have educational policies that, in 
> effect, chop up children’s brains into the rational cortex, which the 
> government ministers to in schools, and the emotional limbic system, which 
> the government ignores. In nature there is no neat division. Emotional 
> engagement is the essence of information processing and learning.
>
> In Britain, where both David Cameron and Gordon Brown have grappled with 
> this reality, policy is catching up with the research. In the United 
> States, we are forever behind. But that won’t last. This year, some smart 
> presidential candidate will help us catch up.
>
> =======================================================
> List services made available by First Step Internet,
> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>               http://www.fsr.net
>          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> =======================================================
>
>
>
> -- 
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.5/707 - Release Date: 3/1/2007 
> 2:43 PM
>
>