by Robert Pondiscio
May 7th, 2008
Tags: commercial interests, television
Posted in Parents | No Comments »
BabyFirstTV, a subscription-based network, is available via satellite and cable for $4.99 a month. Its programs air 24 hours a day, seven days a week and are targeted to children ages 6 months to 3 years. It claims to be an “educational tool that provides a positive learning environment and an engaging experience for both you and your baby.”
“Did you just shudder? Or did you reach for the phone to call DirecTV?” asks Buzz McClain of the McClatchy Newspapers. “Lots of adults have done both. Since its launch on Mother’s Day 2006, BabyFirstTV has found its way to 30 countries, making the network available to some 80 million homes. A DVD line of the programming is coming to stores soon.”
“BabyFirstTV transforms traditional TV into an interactive and educational tool that relies on the television as a medium to deliver high-quality programming and an engaging experience for both baby and parents,” the channel’s website breathlessly announces. “BabyFirstTV can enrich the connection between parents and baby and give them new opportunities for learning and playing together.”
“The general idea of parking babies in car seats on the floor in front of a television troubles childhood development professionals,” writes McClain. “The American Academy of Pediatrics says simply, “Don’t do it!”
Meanwhile the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood added BabyFirstTV to a suit filed with the Federal Trade Commission a month after the network launched, complaining that it, as well as the Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby line of DVDs — were falsely advertising educational benefits without evidence.”
by Robert Pondiscio
May 7th, 2008
Posted in Education Theory | No Comments »
Edutopia, a George Lucas-funded education newsletter with a tendency to wander off into cloud cuckoo land, has a piece on its site about “buildings that teach” which claims the way a building is designed and used has a “profound impact” on the way students learn.
“In state-of-the-art learning environments, classrooms with straight rows of desks and a teacher lecturing in the front are gone,” writes architecture professor Anne Taylor. “Instead, the indoor spaces of the school are carefully planned to encourage learning and support the developmental needs of the whole person. They consist of places for students to engage in applied hands-on inquiry, problem solving, group work, discussions, presentations, and reflection.”
Couldn’t get any further than that. Feel free to read it and report back.
by Robert Pondiscio
May 7th, 2008
Posted in School News | No Comments »
James Born spends his weekdays teaching English at Pennsylvania’s Harbor Creek junior high school. He spends his nights at the Erie County Community Corrections Center. No, he’s not teaching inmates to read. He’s doing time — 30 days to six months with work-release privileges.
The Erie Times-News quotes Harbor Creek schools Superintendent Rick Lansberry who says the situation is “not something the district is happy about” but was advised legally to allow Born to keep working in the classroom after he violated his estranged wife’s order of protection
“He is here today doing an effective job teaching,” Lansberry said of Born. “At this point, our primary concern is performance.” The paper reports Born “is the same teacher who was accused of sexually assaulting two female students in his 11th-grade English class during separate incidents in January 1999 and March 1999. A jury found him not guilty of all charges — two counts of indecent assault, two counts of corruption of a minor and one count of luring a child into a motor vehicle — in May 2001.”
by Robert Pondiscio
May 7th, 2008
Tags: NCLB
Posted in Assessment and Testing, Educational Policy, Parents | No Comments »
Mike Petrilli over at Fordham’s Flypaper is offering free advice to presumptive nominee Barack Obama this morning on using education to tack to the center in the general election. Responding to Timesman David Brooks’ observation Obama supporters “look more and more like the McGovern-Dukakis constituency,” Professor Petrilli prescribes a little ed talk:
“He should surely continue to channel Bill Cosby and talk about the need for parents to take responsibility for their children. (Beyond being sensible, this appeals to social conservatives.) This is a standard theme he mentions when addressing predominantly African-American audiences (themselves quite socially conservative); he should use it all the time.
“As for suburban independents, his position on No Child Left Behind most likely appeals to them already, what with his talk about saving art and music and literature from the ravages of “teaching to the test.” But he could go one step further and also talk about high-performing students who are being forgotten by our current education system and the need to help them achieve their potential too. (What suburban independent doesn’t think that his or her own child is gifted?)”
Pay attention, Senator. This will be on the test.
by Robert Pondiscio
May 7th, 2008
Posted in Higher Education | No Comments »
The President of the NCAA is promising to hold major college sports teams accountable for their performance…in the classroom. Myles Brand is threatening underachievers with the NCAA’s harshest sanctions: fewer scholarships, reductions in practice and even a postseason ban. USA Today reports the NCAA on Tuesday hit more than 200 college sports teams with scholarship reductions and other sanctions because of academic shortcomings.
“Academic reform is here to stay, and those penalties resemble what we give for major infractions. So these are serious penalties and there are a number of teams that received those,” Brand said after releasing this year’s Academic Progress Report Tuesday. “Yes, there are individual institutions who have seen a steady decline (academically) over the last four years, and for them, the situation is dire.”
Next time its multi-billion dollar football and basketball TV contracts are up for renewal, perhaps the NCAA might require the networks to post players GPAs onscreen along with their sports statistics.
by Robert Pondiscio
May 7th, 2008
Posted in Education Practice, Students | No Comments »
Writing in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dixon Adair says the U.S. has much to learn from the Chinese educational system. He’s concerned that the premium the country places on education will make it difficult for the U.S. to compete economically.
Just back from a lengthy visit to Xi’an, the capital of Sha’anxi Province, Adair notes that in Chinese schools, a focus on the group is emphasized. Differentiated instruction? Forget it. “If any students in a Chinese class learn at a slower pace or in a different way, they will simply have to get used to the way in which the material is already being taught,” Adair observes, “because the class must not be slowed down.”
Many educational practices are aimed at stimulating competition among students. “All the students’ grades are posted for the whole class to see, and information about individuals is considered public,” writes Adair. “In China, praise and humiliation work side by side to encourage excellence and discourage disobedience. Though we would say this system seems harsh and unfair, especially for students who already have a low level of self-confidence, the reality in China is that nobody has time for second chances,” writes Adair, who describes being shocked initially at the “public-ness” and rigid structure of Chinese school life, but gaining an appreciation for how the sheer size and scale of education in China make “privacy and flexibility as we know them impossible.”
Adair also observed students giving themselves extra work to improve “for their own good, not just so that their teachers would be impressed,” families who are “focused and determined” to help their offspring succeed academically, and teachers who “demanded excellence at an almost perfect level, even from students who struggled.”
Did I mention that Adair is a 10th grader?
“Now that I am back at school in the U.S.,” he concludes, ”I enjoy the individual attention of teachers, the chance to participate often in class discussion, more leisure time to explore my own interests, the encouragement to think differently. But I have a new respect and appreciation for what distinguishes Chinese education. I admire the determination, drive and patriotic pride that have made the Chinese so successful economically. I am concerned about how Americans will continue to compete in world markets without valuing education and group success more than we do.”
