It's Morse Code Day!

 

Grammar Poetry :)

(a) History of Religion - spot on, or the art of Paul Kinsella

The Leafy Fountain of Knowledge

What to Say to Kids Instead of “Be Careful!”

From Backwoods Mama:

Slava Polunine, palhaço filósofo

For clown philosophers like Slava Polunin, happiness is both an art form and a mission statement. Through constant and playful practice, Polunin has dedicated the past 40 years of his life to nurturing the art of foolishness. Blurring the line between fantasy and real life, Polunin’s famous shows have brought joy to millions of people around the world.

In this short film by the American Theatre Wing, enter the whimsical world of Slava Polunin and follow clowns Brent McBeth, Joel Jeske, and David Shiner through their routines. Rooted in physical comedy, clowning has been transcending cultural barriers since ancient times. Speaking the universal language of laughter, clowns bring people together to share in the joy and absurdity of the human condition. As said by Big Apple Circus clown Joel Jeske, "Clowns fall down so we don't have to."

Credits: Directed and produced by Margarita Jimeno; cinematography by Daniel Takács and Adam Jandrup; edited by Sofia Subercaseaux; music composition by Julio Monterrey.

On Mindfulness

I am in preschool

Just a Second!

If you want to browse illustrated books AND read an insightful review, look no further than Brain Pickings

The second doesn’t relate to any cycle in nature — it’s a human invention, and the shortest interval of time most of us use in our daily lives. The Babylonians came up with the idea of the second about 4,000 years ago, but they had no way to measure such a short interval of time.”

Steve Jenkins

One Perspective: The Opium is Our Children

From More Intelligent Life magazine

If a Roman senator’s opium was his public life, a Viking’s was battle. Our ancestors have been addicted to honour, craved virtue and wealth, been hooked on conquest, on adventure, and on God. But ours is the first civilisation to find its deepest fulfilment in its descendants. Our opium is our children.

We’re all familiar with the results. There is the greater dismay we seem to feel at youth unemployment than at the poverty of pensioners, although some of the most disturbing scenes I’ve witnessed have been in the homes of the elderly. There is the way that older people are expected to give far more to voluntary organisations. We assume that the over-65s will take on almost the entire burden of supporting political parties, for which the young occasionally vote, and of maintaining the churches in which the young like to marry. We accept too easily that the young should not be called upon to carry the burden of sustaining communities because "their lives are too busy".

People who might once have been public figures, deeply invested in their work, are instead busy serving their children. Ours is a culture not of ancestor worship but of descendant worship. Children must sense that nothing an adult does is more important than their own desires. All political questions seem to come down to the interests of "the next generation".

I am reminded of the philosopher who was informed by a lady that the world rested on a turtle. When asked what the turtle rested on, she replied it was "turtles all the way down". Our purpose is our children, whose purpose is their children. And so on. Each generation more important than the one before. Generation after generation, all the way down.

This seems a self-defeating, infinite regression. I’d prefer our opium to be the struggle to create a living civilisation, which might daunt even our descendants. We should seek to emulate previous generations. Our obligation cannot be uniquely to the young, and those yet to be born. It is also to the living, and to the dead.

Have your say What do you think is the opium of the people? Vote in our online poll

Rory Stewart is a British MP and a former soldier who spent two years walking across Asia. He is the co-author of "Can Intervention Work?"

5 ways to raise a grateful child

Your 9-year-old keeps a running -- and growing -- list of toys he has to have. He's up to number 23 this season.

In-The-Moment Fix: "Emphasize that you appreciate there are many things he wants, but let him know it will only be possible to get a few of them," says Robert Brooks, Ph.D., a psychologist at Harvard Medical School and coauthor of Raising a Self-Disciplined Child. That way, you won't make him feel greedy or foolish for compiling a lengthy list, but you will set his expectations.

Another idea: Ask him to make a second list, equal in number to the things he wants to get, of things or actions he is willing to give, suggests Maureen Healy, author of 365 Perfect Things to Say to Your Kids. For example: 1) Clean his room, 2) Help you find a charity that the family can donate to, 3) Pitch in when Dad starts wrapping presents, 4) Make a holiday card. Last, if you're in for belt-tightening this year, let him know.

Be honest, but keep it simple and undramatic so you don't scare him. Instead of saying "Dad might lose his job, so we have to cut back" -- which might make him sure you'll be losing the house next -- say something like "Nothing major is going to change, but we'll have to wait until next year to go on vacation and we have to hold off on getting the new bike you wanted." It's likely your kid will think "Okay, I can live with that," says Lerner.

Long-Term Strategy: Help him understand that gifts are thoughtful gestures, not just a way for him to score materialistic gain, says Lerner. Anytime he receives a present, point out everything the giver put into it. If a classmate makes him a friendship bracelet, for example, say "Oh, wow -- Lucy remembered that you thought these were cool. She picked out colors she knows you like, and it probably took her a whole hour to make. That is so nice."

Do this enough times and he'll get the "quality, not quantity" idea before you know it.

Your 5-year-old grimaces at the stuffed Elmo her aunt gives her and says, "But I wanted a Barbie!

In-The-Moment Fix: "The concept of hiding your own negative feelings to protect someone else's is way too complex for kids five and under," says Lerner. (Older kids get better and better but will still have frequent slipups.) So validate your daughter's feelings without responding critically, says Brooks.

Say "I know you wanted a Barbie, but let's think about all the different ways we can play with Elmo." You can also step in and model the appropriate response -- and defuse the uncomfortable situation -- by exclaiming something like "Wow, that was so thoughtful, wasn't it, Alli? Aunt Karen remembered you needed mittens!" This trick works for all ages: If your older son receives a gift he already owns, for example, say "Oh, cool! That's your favorite game!"

Write a little script for your child to follow when he gets a present, recommends Bette Freedson of the National Association of Social Workers. Come up with a stock line or two together, like "Thank you! I like it a lot!" He can also pick out one thing to specifically compliment ("This blanket feels really soft").

Long-Term Strategy: Before any gift-getting occasion, prepare your child for the possibility that she may not like all her presents, but at the same time, let her know that it's still important to show her appreciation. Remind her that people put effort into trying to find her the best thing. Then devise a special cue between the two of you, suggests Lerner, that reminds her to say thank you. When you see her mouth turning down, you can clap your hands and say "Great present!" to snap her back into good-manners mode.

You can't even take your kid to get socks or light bulbs without him whining for you to buy him something -- seemingly anything. 

In-The-Moment Fix: Before you go on any shopping trip, inform your child that you'll be hitting the mall to, say, buy gifts for his cousins. "Engage him in the process," says Lerner. "Ask him what his cousin Jane likes and which toy you should get her. Get him excited about buying for someone else." At the same time, make it clear that you won't be able to buy anything for him. Then, if your son throws a fit at the store, you can refer back to that conversation, and say something like "I know it's hard to be here when you're not getting anything, but that's the rule. Now, I really need your help finding something for Jane." Let's be honest: That might not be enough to stop his whining. But steel yourself and stay strong. Caving in will only teach him that he will eventually get his way if he complains loud or long enough.

Long-Term Strategy: Your weekends may be errand time, but try to avoid spending all your family moments pushing a shopping cart. That way, your kids won't think acquiring stuff is the leisure-time norm. (Don't get us wrong, though: We know those flattering jeans are sometimes an absolute necessity!) Denver mom Beth Korin says she and her two boys, ages 7 and 9, frequently head to the library, an indoor pool, or a rock-climbing gym instead. "We try to think of things we can do that don't involve hanging out in stores," she says. Prepare kids for these events the same way you would for gifts ("We're going to have a big, delicious meal with all of your favorite foods, and then we're going to play games!"). The idea you want to get across is that having experiences can be just as exciting as accumulating things (if not more).

Your 6-year-old gobbles down the Teddy Grahams that another parent at the playground gives him. But when you prod him to say "Thank you," he won't.

In-The-Moment Fix: It's easy to turn this "teachable moment" into a battle of wills -- one where you're repeating "I didn't hear you say thank you!" to your tantrum-ing child while the person he's supposed to thank is backing away in discomfort. But, explains Lerner, the fact that your son doesn't always say the words likely just means they haven't become a habit for him yet. "And getting into power struggles actually impedes the process," she says. So while you should definitely remind your kids to give thanks, it's best not to make a big deal about it if it doesn't happen.

Long-Term Strategy: Remind yourself to model grateful behavior. When your cookie-muncher goes silent, go ahead and say the necessary "Thank you so much!" for him. (At least until he gets older and can be counted on to follow your cues.) In your own everyday interactions, always offer warm thank-yous and praise to grocery store clerks, gas-station attendants, waiters, teachers -- anyone who's helpful to you or him. You may think your child isn't paying attention to those small moments, but he actually is.

When you say no to a DS that, according to your daughter, "everyone at school" has, she complains that all her BFFs get cooler stuff than she does.

In-The-Moment Fix: Sympathize with her frustration, but remind your daughter that, actually, many people don't have as much as she does. How? Begin a tradition of charity work and donating. Start simple: As young as age 3, children can be encouraged to go through their belongings and pick out items to donate, says Lerner. Every year after that, they can get more involved. Last year, Gabrielle Melchionda of Yarmouth, ME, and her two sons, ages 5 and 9, volunteered to decorate low-income homes for Christmas. "It was so nice to see all of the kids, mine and those who lived there, on their bellies coloring together," she says. "Later, my kids asked things like 'Was that the whole house?' It sparked conversation for months. It was an experience none of us will forget."

Long-Term Strategy: Expose your daughter to people from all walks of life. "We often try to shield our children from those who are less fortunate, but it's important that kids know how lucky they are," says Dale McGowan, a father of three in Atlanta and coauthor of Parenting Beyond Belief. So the next time you see a homeless person, pass a shelter, or read a story in the news about a needy family, he suggests, ask questions -- "Where do you think that man sleeps?" or "Can you imagine what it would be like not to have a home?" -- that get your kids to put themselves in someone else's shoes. (At the same time, assure them that your family will always have a place to call home.) You'll be surprised -- and pleased -- at how often kids are moved to want to help.

Bonus mom advice: Don't diss gifts yourself as long as your little one is around. In fact, make a point of talking about the redeeming qualities of even that hideous necklace from your mother-in-law--how shiny! "You have to model gratitude if you want your child to practice it, too," points out Janette B. Benson, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at the University of Denver.

CNN

Will your baby be super-smart?

/a>  

Why dinosaurs are important

by Dr. Dave Hone for The Guardian Science (and to be continued):

It is far from my intention to talk endlessly about dinosaurs on the Lost Worlds, but as a key part of my research and given the near endless public interest in them, they are going to keep coming up. I can assure readers that a more diverse set of posts will eventually turn up, but there are some good reasons to focus on the dinosaurs both in terms of thisscience in general and science communication in general, and that is worth dwelling on a little before I bore my readers with still more references to them.

I'll start with the issues of communication, outreach and education. With the odd exception of the children of palaeontologists, I've yet to meet a child who is not interested in dinosaurs, or at least used to be interested in dinosaurs. When I have the time and an invitation, I do give talks in schools and similar venues on dinosaurs and palaeontology, and am generally treated to a wonderful display of interest and an unending stream of questions afterwards.

There's a good deal of anecdotal evidence for this popularity, from the cheap plastic dinosaur toys that never seem to go out of fashion, the endless range of dinosaur books aimed at youngsters that appear year on year, and any new dinosaur exhibition can guarantee a queue around the block of children eager to see the new discoveries. I won't pretend to know why, but kids really do love dinosaurs and the important thing is that they do. (And let's not forget that there's no little interest from a great many adults too).

That provides a fantastic hook and instant introduction for palaeontologists and educators to get kids involved and interested in science. They might come for the giant bones, but there are a lot of good reasons for them to stay. Short of university, few people are likely to get even a cursory formal introduction to palaeontology, geology and the like during their education and moreover some things are not likely to generate much interest.

Few kids will (I suspect) willingly pick up a book on geology, perhaps not even one on general palaeontology, but most will probably own a dinosaur book or two at some point that will have been avidly devoured. Most of the better ones (even those aimed at younger readers) cover at least a little of how fossils are formed, different rock formations, the age of the Earth and the like, and thus they will be presented with at least a little geological information and there will likely also be parts on relationships between groups and changes over time thus introducing ideas about evolution, taxonomy and extinction.

In short, dinosaurs provide a wonderful way of talking to a young audience about all manner of scientific ideas and showing how things like geochemistry and biology can come together. They can also provide a great frame of reference for discussing issues in palaeontology. There might be better examples in the fossil record when discussing one issue in palaeontology or another, but one can all but guarantee that a good example on dinosaurs will be recognised and understood by the audience.

This then makes dinosaurs a superb educational tool and thus one that I'd be using here even if I didn't work on them myself, but dinosaurs are also inherently worthy of research. Well OK, any branch of science is inherently worthy of investigation as indeed is any group of organisms. It's perhaps better to say that dinosaurs do offer us some opportunities in palaeontological research that other groups don't necessarily offer. Thus while I wouldn't call them more worthy than other fossil groups, they're also going to be of interest to researchers who don't specialise in dinosaurs.

The modern terrestrial world is considered to be dominated by the mammals and this has more or less been the case since the demise of the dinosaurs (birds aside) some 65 million years ago. On an apparently unrelated note, the further back in time you go, the worse the fossil record (generally) gets. But together this means that if you want to look at a terrestrial fossil fauna that is not dominated by mammals, or the evolution of a non-mammalian group over time, or to examine a major extinction event and restructuring of a terrestrial ecosystem, or how terrestrial animals responded to the break up of the continents etc, the obvious place to turn to is the era of the dinosaurs. More recently it's pretty much all mammals. Further back the data is more patchy.

Similarly, dinosaurs were around for a very long time, and so for any kind of study of evolutionary change or diversity over a long period of time, dinosaurs are going to be a good candidate. Coupled to the fact that birds are dinosaurs and we have the opportunity to study a truly incredible and important piece of evolutionary history – the origin of powered flight – and of course gain insights into the origins and changes of the birds (themselves an important and diverse group).

Dinosaurs also include the largest terrestrial animals of all time in their ranks and so provide interest for biomechanics, the evolution of large size, the structures of ecosystems and more.

Finally, dinosaurs have already attracted a lot of research interest over the years, which means we know more about them than many other groups. While this does then become a bit of a self fulfilling prophesy, it does make them a better group for still further research or more integrated projects than some other groups as we're starting from a more solid base of knowledge.

Thus dinosaurs provide some unique research opportunities as well as more "normal" palaeontological research. Either way, though, their enduring popularity makes them a key part of the arsenal of the science educator. Kids love them and as such they are an ideal way of introducing children to other areas of science, especially those perceived to be "unsexy" or that might otherwise be overlooked.

I make no apology for my own love of dinosaurs, but I'd also be silly not to exploit their charisma and the instant recognition they bring. Non-dinosaur articles are coming, but expect more than a few that do involve them as the necessary educational relish to the beef of the Lost Worlds blog posts.

Birthday Parties are different now - Amy Fusselman, courtesy of McSweeneys

Family Practice 

Last week my daughter turned three. We had a little party at home and invited four other girls to celebrate.

Hey, remember ancient times, when you were a child having a birthday party and everyone who was invited to the party—this would be 8 or 10 of your own friends, not 50 of your parents’ friends—sat around in a circle on your living room floor and watched you open your gifts? And this gift-opening was not a somewhat shameful activity to engaged in alone, after the party was over, like a drug binge, but was actually one of the party’s main events? And children exclaimed over the gifts, and passed them around to examine, as if they were precious artifacts? You remember that? Well, there was a reason why parties were like that: it was a million years ago, before the Internet, and people were dumb then.

If you are old enough to remember these times, you have probably scratched your Cro-Magnon-esque forehead and felt perplexed when you have received a birthday party invitation for your kid that says, “No gifts, please.” You have been sending your kid off to birthday parties with gaily-wrapped objets for years now. You yourself learned from your mother not to arrive at a party empty-handed. Vigilance regarding this behavior was once known as good manners; gift-giving was once a hallmark of generosity. Who are these people coming along trying to change this?

I’ll tell you who: the new people, the ones who haven’t been here long. You are not one of them anymore. You, who remember a time when all objects were mute and unresponsive, and did not know, or care, that you were alive, are now part of a past that seems almost unimaginably quaint, like people who wore tall black hats and rode the stagecoach.

The new people see things differently. Here is how they think: firstly, for American kids today, there are only five presents: Ipod, Ipod Touch, Wii, Xbox, and Playstation. Most kids have one or all of those already, and they don’t want any other crap from you.

This brings us to the second point, which is that kids do not want crap anymore, period. This is another vestige of your bygone days, when American toddlers—perhaps you were one of them—played happily with boxes, lint, bread twisty-ties, bugs, and dirt; when a plastic harmonica was an exciting thing you could blow into once and then stomp on, and then you could examine all the excitingly sharp smithereens. Kids do not want to deal with that stuff anymore. They don’t want to examine stuff that ignores them. Exploring that junk is for the kids in Africa, who live on piles of it.

American kids do not want objects at all, except for the aforementioned five. They want experiences. And here are some of the things they want to experience to celebrate the miraculous day of their birth: torturing pygmies by throwing them in volcanoes; slicing airborne watermelons with giant knives; and listening to a cute, red, retarded creature imitating their speech. They want to do all this, while sitting on the couch with their friends, in a clean, dry, temperature-controlled environment, eating Nerds and drinking red water from single-serve plastic bottles.

But my daughter is young, and I am still in charge of her parties, so her party was not like that. Her party involved multi-colored balloons, playing with the toys we have around the house, a round cake, and in an impromptu finale, several rounds of Ring-Around-the-Rosie, including the second verse, which I had never heard before, but another mom knew: “Cows are in the meadow/Eating buttercups/Thunder, lightning/We all jump up!”

It was surprising to me how the jumping-up of verse two made the falling-down of verse one much more satisfying: it made Ring-Around-the-Rosie more like The Ring, which was good; personally, I think we can always use a little more Wagner in our American childhood rituals.

And although the whole party was over in less than 90 minutes (hardly Wagner-ian, alas) and ended without a disaster (also not very operatic), it did contain a Gotterdammerung-ian moment of realization—for me, that is—which began when the first guest walked in the door with a large, octagon-shaped present.

When I saw it, I got all excited, because I could only think of one toy that could possibly be inside, and it was one of those brightly-colored, German, wooden mosaic puzzles I have had my eye on for years now. I sat next to my daughter as she tugged at the bow. Inside were six—six—pairs of pink and white plastic high heels, each adorned with jewels and/or feathers.

I watched my girl, who rides around our apartment nude a lot on her scooter, as she toddled unevenly in the shoes, and remembered what my Russian-born, theater-director friend Yelena said when I told her I was having a girl. Yelena, then pregnant with her third boy, looked at me conspiratorially and asked: “How are you going to tell her she’s fucked?”

I laughed.

Now, a few years later, I realize that this is, in fact, one of the more vexing questions of my girl’s childhood, and that the usual course of events is that people do not tell this to their girl children at all.

But why not? Why should I not just tell my girl that she is burdened in a way that her two older brothers are not? To say the truth does not mean that we don’t wish it were otherwise.

So far, I have been avoiding the issue. I donated the high heels, as well as the purple plastic vacuum cleaner Grandma got her for Christmas. And I suppose I could just go on like this, trying to keep the truth at bay, telling the bemused and eye-rolling parents of my girl’s friends that if they are going to get her anything for her birthday they should make sure it’s suitable for a future physicist. And I could just continue looking for books that don’t have insipid princess themes to read to her, and then I could send her to a girls’ school, so she can hear about how girls can rule the world and all that.

Or I could just start, right now, to tell the truth, and maybe that would not be as much of a disservice as we fear—maybe it would actually helps things a little.

I could say, you know, your brothers are studying hard because they are going to go out in the world and make money someday, but you will probably end up married and having children, so why bother? Did I tell you how I spent my early 20s? I sat in a lovely wood-paneled room under the tutelage of a future Nobel Prize winner who was sued for sexual harassment. And you know what I do now? Clean up poop. And tell your brothers not to hit each other.

Or I could say, the reason you are not going to play flag football today and your seven-year-old brother is, is because you are a girl and girls are supposed to be pretty and smell nice and not clock people and say “Hey, fucko” like he does. So work on that, I have some frosty lip gloss for you to get all excited about. Girl power, yay!

And then, if she brings up that’s it’s unfair, and why is it that way, I’ll just say it’s because girls grow into women, and women have the children. So you can try not to have any children; that would probably help you. Now come here and hug me and we can bake some cookies together.

I was thinking about all this, at the party, with images of “Ring-Around-The Rosie”/The Ring in my head. The Ring has been performed here in New York City this season, and I saw Gotterdammerung the previous week. I saw almost all of it, that is. I left after the second intermission—that would be four hours into it—which, after having seen the previous three installments (Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, and Siegfried) in their entirety—is a little like deciding to stop running the NYC marathon with 10 minutes left.

I left early without thinking too much about why—I was tired—but looking back I believe there was something about seeing The Ring through to the end that was challenging in the same way that children are challenging to their parents. Unlike the power-ballad thesis put forth in The Lion King, the circle of life, especially when it starts coming to a close, is not calming and reassuring at all: it is terrifying and disturbing, the kind of terrifying and disturbing that makes you want to suddenly leave the plush chair of the theater and go for a long soothing walk down Ninth Avenue eating Skittles.

And the recognition of this fact, and the embrace of it, and the determination to see this perspective through to the end, is going to be the next big wave in parenting, I am telling you. It’s going to Ring-big, and I am going to start in church basements, giving talks about mosaic puzzles and honesty, and then slowly and surely I am going to write gigantic, Dr.Sears-size, paperback books full of advice, and in order to reassure my future audience that I am a complete and total authority on this and every other subject, I am going to hook a giant, creaky machine to my pants and hoist myself up to the rafters as a learned person, “Doctor” Amy Fusselman, pleased to meet you.

Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?

Be well. Until next time!

Welcome to Your Child's Brain ;)

The blog, and now the book (soon to be translated into Portuguese by yours truly ;)

Wishlist: Oblo

Science Bloggers on their fave Children's Books

How Handwriting Trains the Brain

Ask preschooler Zane Pike to write his name or the alphabet, then watch this 4-year-old's stubborn side kick in. He spurns practice at school and tosses aside workbooks at home. But Angie Pike, Zane's mom, persists, believing that handwriting is a building block to learning.

She's right. Using advanced tools such as magnetic resonance imaging, researchers are finding that writing by hand is more than just a way to communicate. The practice helps with learning letters and shapes, can improve idea composition and expression, and may aid fine motor-skill development. 

It's not just children who benefit. Adults studying new symbols, such as Chinese characters, might enhance recognition by writing the characters by hand, researchers say. Some physicians say handwriting could be a good cognitive exercise for baby boomers working to keep their minds sharp as they age.

Studies suggest there's real value in learning and maintaining this ancient skill, even as we increasingly communicate electronically via keyboards big and small. Indeed, technology often gets blamed for handwriting's demise. But in an interesting twist, new software for touch-screen devices, such as the iPad, is starting to reinvigorate the practice.

Most schools still include conventional handwriting instruction in their primary-grade curriculum, but today that amounts to just over an hour a week, according to Zaner-Bloser Inc., one of the nation's largest handwriting-curriculum publishers. Even at institutions that make it a strong priority, such as the private Brearley School in New York City, "some parents say, 'I can't believe you are wasting a minute on this,'" says Linda Boldt, the school's head of learning skills.

Recent research illustrates how writing by hand engages the brain in learning. During one study at Indiana University published this year, researchers invited children to man a "spaceship," actually an MRI machine using a specialized scan called "functional" MRI that spots neural activity in the brain. The kids were shown letters before and after receiving different letter-learning instruction. In children who had practiced printing by hand, the neural activity was far more enhanced and "adult-like" than in those who had simply looked at letters.

"It seems there is something really important about manually manipulating and drawing out two-dimensional things we see all the time," says Karin Harman James, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Indiana University who led the study.

Adults may benefit similarly when learning a new graphically different language, such as Mandarin, or symbol systems for mathematics, music and chemistry, Dr. James says. For instance, in a 2008 study in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, adults were asked to distinguish between new characters and a mirror image of them after producing the characters using pen-and-paper writing and a computer keyboard. The result: For those writing by hand, there was stronger and longer-lasting recognition of the characters' proper orientation, suggesting that the specific movements memorized when learning how to write aided the visual identification of graphic shapes. 

Other research highlights the hand's unique relationship with the brain when it comes to composing thoughts and ideas. Virginia Berninger, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, says handwriting differs from typing because it requires executing sequential strokes to form a letter, whereas keyboarding involves selecting a whole letter by touching a key.

She says pictures of the brain have illustrated that sequential finger movements activated massive regions involved in thinking, language and working memory—the system for temporarily storing and managing information.

And one recent study of hers demonstrated that in grades two, four and six, children wrote more words, faster, and expressed more ideas when writing essays by hand versus with a keyboard. 

Even in the digital age, people remain enthralled by handwriting for myriad reasons—the intimacy implied by a loved one's script, or what the slant and shape of letters might reveal about personality. During actress Lindsay Lohan's probation violation court appearance this summer, a swarm of handwriting experts proffered analysis of her blocky courtroom scribbling. "Projecting a false image" and "crossing boundaries," concluded two on celebrity news and entertainment site hollywoodlife.com. Beyond identifying personality traits through handwriting, called graphology, some doctors treating neurological disorders say handwriting can be an early diagnostic tool. 

"Some patients bring in journals from the years, and you can see dramatic change from when they were 55 and doing fine and now at 70," says P. Murali Doraiswamy, a neuroscientist at Duke University. "As more people lose writing skills and migrate to the computer, retraining people in handwriting skills could be a useful cognitive exercise."

In high schools, where laptops are increasingly used, handwriting still matters. In the essay section of SAT college-entrance exams, scorers unable to read a student's writing can assign that portion an "illegible" score of 0. 

Even legible handwriting that's messy can have its own ramifications, says Steve Graham, professor of education at Vanderbilt University. He cites several studies indicating that good handwriting can take a generic classroom test score from the 50th percentile to the 84th percentile, while bad penmanship could tank it to the 16th. "There is a reader effect that is insidious," Dr. Graham says. "People judge the quality of your ideas based on your handwriting."

Handwriting-curriculum creators say they're seeing renewed interest among parents looking to hone older children's skills—or even their own penmanship. Nan Barchowsky, who developed the Barchowsky Fluent Handwriting method to ease transition from print-script to joined cursive letters, says she's sold more than 1,500 copies of "Fix It … Write" in the past year.

Some high-tech allies also are giving the practice an unexpected boost through hand-held gadgets like smartphones and tablets. Dan Feather, a graphic designer and computer consultant in Nashville, Tenn., says he's "never adapted well to the keypads on little devices." Instead, he uses a $3.99 application called "WritePad" on his iPhone. It accepts handwriting input with a finger or stylus, then converts it to text for email, documents or Twitter updates.

And apps are helping Zane Pike—the 4-year-old who refused to practice his letters. The Cabot, Ark., boy won't put down his mom's iPhone, where she's downloaded a $1.99 app called "abc PocketPhonics." The program instructs Zane to draw letters with his finger or a stylus; correct movements earn him cheering pencils.

"He thinks it's a game," says Angie Pike.

Similarly, kindergartners at Harford Day School in Bel Air, Md., are taught to write on paper but recently also began tracing letter shapes on the screen of an iPad using a handwriting app.

"Children will be using technology unlike I did, and it's important for teachers to be familiar with it," says Kay Crocker, the school's lead kindergarten teacher. Regardless of the input method, she says, "You still need to be able to write, and someone needs to be able to read it."

From The WSJ

Multiple Intelligences - eight, no less ;)

 

According to Howard Gardner, a child has not just one chance to be gifted, but eight! That's because, according to Gardner, there exist eight separable "intelligences"-verbal-linguistic (facility with words and languages), logical-mathematical (facility with logic, abstractions, reasoning, and numbers), spatial (facility with visualizing and mentally manipulating objects), musical (facility with rhythm, music, and hearing), bodily-kinesthetic (facility physical movement), interpersonal (facility interacting with other people), intrapersonal (facility with introspective and self-reflective thought), and naturalist (facility relating to nature) [5]. He is currently considering adding existential intelligence to the lineup (still not clear what that one is all about). He has excluded spiritual and moral intelligences as possibilities [6]. However, breakdancers rejoice! Under Gardner's framework, bodily/kinesthetic ability is considered a form of intelligence.

WICS Model

Robert J. Sternberg views giftedness as the synthesis of wisdom, intelligence (based on his theory of successful intelligence), and creativity [7, 8]. Sternberg argues that in life, people need creative skills and attitudes to produce new and original ideas; analytical skills and attitudes to evaluate the quality of these ideas; practical skills and attitudes to execute ideas and to persuade others of their value, and wisdom-related skills and attitudes in order to ensure that one's ideas help to foster a common good, rather than only the good of oneself and those closely associated with oneself. According to Dr. Sternberg, the child without the synthesis of these abilities does not deserve the label gifted.

So, is every child gifted?

As you can see, whether a child is considered by a particular school as gifted depends on which model of giftedness that that school adopts. Of course, there will be some "special" (I already admitted it, your child is special!) children who just don't possess at the moment any abilities that are at least in the top 20% relative to other children their age, and are simultaneously valued by the school system (forget about society- some abilities are valued by society, but schools just don't have the funding to pay much attention to them). So not every student at any given point in time will be eligible to receive the label "gifted". It stinks (I know!), but that's life for you.

This certainly doesn't mean though that as a parent you shouldn't keep exposing your child to varied experiences, make note of his or her particular interests, and encourage him or her to pursue them. That child just may develop a talent. This is why it's important that schools screen for gifted students repeatedly over the course of the education cycle.

It also certainly doesn't mean that you, as a parent, can't provide additional resources to the child if you can afford it (which, unfortunately, many parents can't). Just don't count on your school system to help out much.

At the end of the day, my suggestion for parents is this: if your child seems to have a particular gift that you think is valued in society, and you want your school to nurture it above and beyond the normal track at school, then research your schools very carefully and find one that values your child's gift and adopts the model of giftedness that best fits your child's ability. For some, just the IQ based model might work. For others, your child may be bursting with a slightly above average IQ, but a high level of creativity and task commitment. So find a school that likes Renzulli's model. Or better yet, go to your school administration and petition to change the system. Some schools, and even school psychologists who are indoctrinated in the IQ model of giftedness, might simply not be familiar with alternative methods of identifying children with extraordinary talent. You are now better informed that there is more than one conceptualization of giftedness.

In other words, if your child can yodel better than Justin Timberlake, then there may in fact be a place for him after all-consider sending him off to a school for the performing arts where he'll fit in quite nicely.

Psychology Today

Let Children Learn

Thanx to Papel de Lustro ;)


things to learn from Matt Edgar on Vimeo.