Archive for January 8th, 2009

Why Nature (and Recess) Might Help Kids Learn

Published by Dan Willingham on January 8, 2009 in Research and Reports. 7 Comments

A few months back Robert posted an entry on “Nature Deficit Disorder“–the idea that children today don’t get enough time outdoors. The concern, according to Richard Louv, author of “Last Child in the Woods” is that interaction with nature helps develop important cognitive abilities. I said at the time that I was unaware of any research supporting the idea. I have since learned that there are data supporting something like this claim, at least.

The basic finding is not that interaction with nature is important for development, but that it is “restorative.” Several studies published in the last few years have shown that people do better on certain attention-demanding tasks after a brief interaction with nature. A recent study (Berman et al, 2008, Psychological Science, 19, 1207-1212) provides a convincing argument for what is behind the effect.

Here’s the basic idea: there are two ways that attention can be directed. In one case, attention is directed to something that you find inherently intriguing, e.g., a beautiful painting, or the flames in a fireplace.  In the other case, you direct attention to something that you want to think about (and you suppress attention going elsewhere).  This latter type of attention is more fatiguing.  This distinction between kinds of attention has been around for over 100 years, and a good deal of behavioral and neural data collected in the last thirty years supports it.

Interaction with nature provides, for most of us, lots of stimuli of inherent interest. We like to look at birds, flowers, and trees. Urban environments, in contrast, provide too many stimuli to which we direct attention–for example, the car that you’re afraid won’t slow down at the intersection–and also pelts us with so many stimuli that we must do a lot of suppression to avoid being overwhelmed. So interaction with nature is restorative because it provides a rest for the directive attention system.  Interestingly, the experimenters observed a difference in cognitive performance even after watching slides of nature vs. slides of urban environments. So it’s not just the peace and quiet of nature that’s behind the effect.

This directive type of attention is, many people believe, especially important to schooling. This finding fits well with other data showing that recess does provide a cognitive boost for students.

Would it help to project slides of natural scenes at urban schools during recess? It might be worth a try. The size of the effect reported in this experiment was not small.

Red Ink Blues

Published by Robert Pondiscio on January 8, 2009 in Educational Policy. 6 Comments

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to shorten the school year by 5 days to save money.  Georgia is proposing larger class sizes for next year.  One Detroit elementary school is even asking for donations of toilet paper and light bulbs to continue operating.

Things are tough all over, but with drumbeats for a bailout of state budgets growing louder, Mike Petrilli, Checker Finn and Rick Hess argue at National Review that a stimulus package may retard education reform.  “There’s scant evidence that an extra dollar invested in today’s schools delivers an extra dollar in value,” the trio note.  “And ample evidence that this kind of bail-out will spare school administrators from making hard-but-overdue choices about how to make their enterprise more efficient and effective.”

Over at Flypaper, Petrilli writes with eyes wide open, “Yes, we’re ready for the hate mail.”

The Unbearable Whiteness of Newbery?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on January 8, 2009 in Curriculum, Education News and Research and Reports. 2 Comments

Pop quiz, ELA teachers:  When was the last time a Newbery Medal winner featured a black protagonist?  It was Christopher Paul Curtis’ depression-era historical novel Bud, Not Buddy in 2000.  The last Hispanic protagonist?  Maia Wojciechowska’s Shadow of a Bull in 1965.  The Newbery is presented each year by the Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC), and its ubiquitous gold seal on a winner’s cover triggers the sale of more books than any other literary honor, including the Pulitzer Prize. 

Anthony Nisse of Brigham Young University has analyzed every Newbery winner from 1922 and 2007 for gender, age, race, family structure, and economic status of their main and supporting characters. The School Library Journal reports he found precious few nonwhite protagonists—or even secondary characters.

ALSC President Pat Scales defends the award, saying, ‘the Newbery is given for literary quality’ and that the selection committee does not take ethnicity, gender, and other considerations into account. According to the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, children’s books with minorities as the main character represent only 10 percent of the total of all children’s books published annually, a figure that has remained constant since 1992.

The Newbery finds an ironic defender in author and editor Anita Silvey, who labels the study unfair.  “In the past nine years, an African-American author, Korean-American author, and Japanese-American author have all won the award,” she tells SBJ. “Since 90 to 95 percent of all children’s books published are by white writers, the Newbery committee has done a much better job in terms of diversity than the children’s publishing industry in general.”

It was Silvey who penned the much-discussed article in SBJ last October, wondering if the Newberry has “lost its way.” The last four winners prize winners—Kira-Kira (2004), Criss Cross (2005), The Higher Power of Lucky (2006), and Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! (2007)—were particularly disappointing, she noted.  “Cash-strapped teachers, who spend part of their paychecks on paper, pencils, and other classroom essentials, say they can’t afford to buy any books,” wrote Silvey. ”But the only recent winners they enjoy teaching are Bud, Not Buddy, A Single Shard, and The Tale of Despereaux.”

Book aficionados frequently used the words “odd,” “unusual,” or “unconventional” to describe the latest Newbery winners. It’s possible in an age of sequels that committee members have unintentionally gravitated toward quirky offerings. But valuing uniqueness over universality has often led judges down the wrong road. Case in point? A member of the 1953 Newbery committee, which chose The Secret of the Andes (Viking, 1952) over E. B. White’s masterpiece, Charlotte’s Web (Harper, 1952), confessed that she preferred the former because she hadn’t seen any good books about South America.

This year’s winner will be announced on January 26.