The Educational Crisis

Some Useful Websites
NCS-Tech! is a mix of K-8 educational technology resources, commentary, lesson ideas and more, for members of any school community and the world.
Crayola Digi Color is a site from Crayola where your young chldren can choose a type of pen and color and then scribble or write whatever they want.
Classtools.net allows you to create free educational games, activities and diagrams in a Flash! Host them on your own blog, website or intranet! No signup, no passwords, no charge!
Rethink Learning Now is a powerful website where people share their most important learning moments, you can share your story here too!
Neuroscience for Kids is a site where you can discover the exciting world of the brain, spinal cord, neurons and the senses. Do experiments, activities and games to help you learn about the nervous system.

Some Articles to Read
When Teaching the Right Answers is the Wrong Direction
Dyslexia: Some Very Smart Accomplished People Cannot Read Well
Cognitive Scientists Debunk Learning-Style Theories -Scroll down the articles in the blog Inside School Research to access the article.

Thoughts from Yrisarri
I recently read Studying Young Minds, and How to Teach Them by Benedict Carey in NYTimes.com.  This article is primarily about teaching young children focused math education based upon  brain  and learning research.  Current research indicates that a number instinct is hard-wired into the anatomy of the brain.  Stanislas Dehaene, a cognitive neuroscientist believes that

The firing of the number neurons becomes increasingly more selective to single quantities, he said; and these cells apparently begin to communicate with neurons across the brain in language areas, connecting precise quantities to words: “two,” “ten,” “five.”

A similar honing process is thought to occur when young children begin to link letter shapes and their associated sounds.  Cells in the visual cortex wired to recognize shapes specialize in recognizing letters; these cells communicate with neurons in the auditory cortex as the letters are associated with sounds.

There is some research indicating that the brain does not fully fuse letters and sounds until a person is about 11 years old.

I have always believed that the most important part of an early education are affective and psycho-motor learning not cognitive skills acquisition.  My experience and some early studies in learning revealed that by age 8 most children were in about the same place with their reading skills.  Brain research is teaching us that our brains are plastic and although there are optimal learning times for some things, any "learning deficit" is not irreversible.

If our "hardwiring" for sound-letter recognition is not fully developed by age 11, why are we pushing our children to learn to read before the age of 8?  The article in  NYTimes.com indicates to me our children could be much better served by focusing their learning on math rather than reading.  I think that it would be even better if we added second languages, dancing, singing, art and lots of movement into the early learning curriculum creating language rich and non stressful environments for learning.  They will learn to read when they are organically ready and motivated to do so.

It is my belief that we do not have an educational crisis.  The reform that needs to take place in education has to do with adults and their perception of what is important for children and what constitutes success.  Many successful people are poor readers,  yet we are planning to put teachers jobs on the line if they can not teach their classes certain reading skills within a certain amount of time. 

We do have a crisis in our inner cities.  That has been well documented by authors such as Johnathon Kozol.  When children are coming to school stressed from their environment they are not going to be able to learn.  We need to address the crisis in their environment and give them schools where learning does not add more stress to their lives.  When they are ready to learn we need to teach them skills that will lead to their success.