[A response is required to receive training credits. The final reflection is in addition to the required 8 posts for training credit. All posts and final reflections should be completed by Sunday, March 4th].
For your final reflection, talk about new learnings, if any, that have come from this book and this discussion. New perspectives? New information? New connections? New priorities? Can you identify any one idea that came from the book or from the discussion as having had the greatest impact on your thinking?
In addition, talk about specific changes in your practices you contemplate making as a result of this experience. Do you anticipate changing the way you plan and implement curriculum? The way you interact with children? The way you orient and train staff? The way you communicate with parents? Who do you feel the urge to talk to about these issues, and what do you intend to tell them?
And, of course, feel free to share any other final thoughts you deem important. Use the above questions as ways to kick-start your thinking – don’t feel compelled to answer each and every one of the prompts! Your final reflection should be at least the equivalent of a one-page, double-spaced paper.
For your final reflection, talk about new learnings, if any, that have come from this book and this discussion. New perspectives? New information? New connections? New priorities? Can you identify any one idea that came from the book or from the discussion as having had the greatest impact on your thinking?
In addition, talk about specific changes in your practices you contemplate making as a result of this experience. Do you anticipate changing the way you plan and implement curriculum? The way you interact with children? The way you orient and train staff? The way you communicate with parents? Who do you feel the urge to talk to about these issues, and what do you intend to tell them?
And, of course, feel free to share any other final thoughts you deem important. Use the above questions as ways to kick-start your thinking – don’t feel compelled to answer each and every one of the prompts! Your final reflection should be at least the equivalent of a one-page, double-spaced paper.
24 comments:
Greg, I really enjoyed the book discussion group. This was my first time. I was drawn to it because of the choice of book. I'm a fan of Galinsky's since I read her book "Between Generations: The Stages of Parenthood" 20 years ago. Some of her 7 skills is confirming material I've been learning about through workshops with Jeanine Fitzgerald, especially Focus and Self control and perspective taking. I think the greatest impact is the skill of Making Connections. It helped me understand 1 child that I currently have and others in the past who seem to get lost when you give them a task and then "change the rules". I never thought of "switching" as a skill to be learned. I saw evidence of it yesterday when I was giving verbal directions to this child. He had a paper with 12 boxes on it. I read him a direction for each box. He would frequently follow the direction from the box before and was not able to "change the rules" . Now that I know he has difficulty switching, I can develop curriculum to focus in on teaching him this vital skill. I also want to increase my use of board games and card games. I feel I use to use them a lot to teach various skills but now I'm more focused on trying to make sure they get all the academics in. As a kindergarten teacher for 24 years I must say things have changed a lot regarding academic expectations. I still try to give my children lots of free time to use blocks, do dramatic play, etc because it is so important. I may have a staff meeting night where I can review the 7 skills and paraphrase what i learned from this workshop. Our parent newsletters are well received and I will try to incorporate this info into that as well. One of the best aspects of this couse was reading the blogs from other professionals. There were interesting ideas and some resources such as the Daily Kid that I found helpful. I haven't finished reading them all but am looking forward to it. I am definately interested in joining next years group. In thinking of suggestions for books I have one name to recommend. David Elkind is a hero to me in the field of ECE. I have a few of his books and saw him speak at an NAEYC convention years ago. Miseducation;Preschoolers at Risk and The Hurried Child are some of my favorites. Thanks!
Final Reflection
Greg , thank you for hosting this discussion group This was a new and enlightening experience for me and I am looking forward to nexts years topic. The ideas, suggestions and input from so many knowledgable professionals was equally as valuable as reading Galinskys 7 Life skills and I want to thank everyone for sharing.
As I shared at group that as I read the skills , I could not help but apply each to my own interactions with the children I am with daily and have been with in the past. Over all I felt that an intuitive part of me implimented the 7 skills at various points of learning but I never thought of describing my actions into words. Ellen Galinsky did that for me. I will definately use her research to help parents understand situations and how to interprete misunderstood behavior. I have always felt that children need to learn by expressing their own ideas on their time with structured GUIDENCE from a safe source. Games from the past did have value besides fun!! When a child is laughing, engaging, and participating many skills are learnt at the same time . I took from this book that that idea of learning is not all pen and paper or achievment lists. Children need the priveledge to be "silly " kids that can learn from spilt milk that it only needs to be wiped up. Keep it Simple. All will be retained with patience and time.
I could identify with The foundational attitudes toward dealing with stress and life's challenges from the book as having had the greatest impact on my thinking. I am going to try to keep in the forefront of my thinking to be aware of stressful situations in my life as well as the childs . You don't know what you don't know, maybe there is more going on then whats meets the eye. Its not about me and what I have planned for the day but about what my kids need for the day.
Thank you all , it was fun !
Greg-
Thank you for coordinating the book group. I am really excited that I had the opportunity to read such a valuable book. I really liked the fact that Galinsky went and collected all the data from the 7 skills so that she premised the information on research. The research definately gives validity to the importance of these particular 7 skills. As these skills may appear to be common sense, it is nice to have the research to back up anything we say to parents when speaking about the importance of these skills. I also like the fact that she moved from the research to practicality of anecdotes about children and also ideas of things to do to reinforce the skills. In this way, Galinsky made the book easy and enjoyable to read.
Perspective taking hit me the most. It is so easy to misunderstand a situation and I can see how children do it often. Children on the autism spectrum have real trouble with social thinking which we often have to explicitly teach to these children as they have a deficit in this area. They have difficulty with cognitive flexibility to understand what another person is thinking. Perspective taking leads to problem solving skills which is so important in life as we have to encounter many people. When people are able to problem solve, they are able to own it which may in fact make them more invested in solving the problem.
Although I am not teaching now, I will use the ideas in my own family life. In my professional life, I plan to share ideas in my newsletters with parents so they can benefit from Galinsky in manageable doses.
Like the others said, thank you, Greg, for hosting this discussion book. It was new experience for me. I enjoyed hearing (or reading) what other people got out of the book and how they have used it in their classrooms. Also, thank you to Stacy for your classroom suggestions.
For many years, I was in a high scope environment, and this book reinforced many of the teaching strategies that I used, like problem solving, open ended questions, and making connections. Galinsky reintroduced these ideas to me with new wording that I can pass on to parents, like “you can’t walk before you can run.” There were also many new little concepts introduced: hostile attribution bias, growth concept and the curse of knowledge. The phrase “hostile attribution bias” stands out to me because of a child in my program who was always accusing people of harming him when no one had touched him. It’s hard to watch this child interact with others and he’s often very unhappy. I’ve begun trying to have him take a step back and evaluate the situation. Although he still seems wounded, he often recovers more quickly.
The growth concept (p. 295) was also an interesting study. I’ve always thought that study skills were the key to be successful in school. I’m not sure how to transfer this to the preschool level but it’s something that I need to use at home with my older children and share with parents. I would like to share many of these topics with parents but haven’t decided on the best way to approach it. I loved the classroom iPad idea that was brought up last Monday.
Since this discussion group has started, we have posted open-ended questions all around the classroom. I’ve also become acutely aware how often I hear someone praise a child with “good job”. While discussing this with my co-worker, she agreed and also pointed out how often people comment on girl’s appearances instead of their skills. I would like to have more discussions like this with my co-workers and see how we can improve on this. For me, that would make the biggest impact.
When I first started reading Mind In The Making I got nervous that I would not be able to get into it. There was a lot of research and I was not sure how I felt about it. I then started highlighting points that I connected to personally or that just stood out at me. The discussion about how the research is a key to backing us up and possibly being used as a translator between us, parents, and children really struck a chord with me.
I loved our first face to face meeting. I started looking at the book from a more personal perspective! With each blog I wrote and posted the more I began to actually love this book! I really took a step back and began to not only look at my classroom differently but also at myself and my teaching methods.
Someone the other night said that most of this stuff comes "natural" and is "common sense" . The first thing that popped into my head was a picture of that parent that has plopped their child into the cart, is racing thru the grocery store, and balancing the phone between their ear and shoulder. We have all done it! Society is so rushed! With this some of the important time with children is pushed to the back burner. This book is an eye opener to those moments.
Another thing that stuck out at me is that "routines change like the flip of a dime". Sometimes children are not allowed enough time and they are rushed. This causing them to have high anxiety levels at a young age. We do not want children to constantly be afraid of life. The other night someone said "you have to be willing to take a risk in order to learn from mistakes". Greg said, "if you can't make mistakes you can't learn". Do we allow children to make those risks or are we so set in our ways and structure that there are not many opportunities for this to happen.
People were saying how they wish certain parents would read this book. Yes,there are parents that I wish would but I also wish my boss would! She has been in the field for a long time and is dead-set against things such as free-play for toddlers! She also wants teachers to stick to their exact lesson plans. As my new position as an education mentor for the toddler teachers I am hoping to be able to utilize what I have taken away from this workshop. I want to work with the other teachers in learning how to have patience and help the children expand on these skills. I am hoping to find ways to help broaden lesson plans and create happy successful classrooms!
Thank you for this great opportunity and exposing me to this book! Not only have I enjoyed these discussions but I love the book. I hope to use it to better myself as a teacher and as a parent! Thank you again!
As I prepared for this assignment I browsed through the book to review te passages I underlined, put exclamation marks by, wrote in a student's name. It was pretty marked up! To me this is a sign of a really good read. I now need to take some of those gems and share them with my PreSchool parents and my staff. So to have a little fun with this I'll pull a sentance or two from each chapter that I will remember.
#1 Focus and Self Control
"Skills are like muscles - the more we work on them, the stronger they become. Galinsky expanded my list to include; self control, focus, cognitive flexibility, working memory and executive function.
#2 Perspective Taking
"... some children immediately interpret abiguous situations as hostile" this explained alot about certain students.
& the 3R's program in New York Public Schools "This program doesn't separate teaching children to handle conflict from other kinds of academic teaching; it combines what I see as social, emotional, and intellectual skills."
#3 Communicating
On page 145 the difference between"one is Business Talk such as "Stop that", "Do this" or "Come here" that expresses adult needs and "Extra Talk" - where parents talk about "what if" "Remember?" and "What do you think?" or use other words that respond to, elaborate and extend what the children are doing or saying. I see my staff getting too eager to finish a "to do" list in the classroom, that would be the business talk. Let's make time for the "extra talk"!
#4 Making Connections
"Making errors is fundamental to learning. Some errors have to do with the process of learning - we often don't get it right until we get it wrong first"!!!
#5 Critical Thinking
"To promote children's curiosity, be careful not to jump in too quickly to fix things they're struggling with...Instead, where possible, help them figure out how they can resolve it for themselves." This can be hard because we are such nurturers!
#6 Taking on Challenges
"A childhood that has no stress in it would not prepare you for adulthood. If you never allow your child(ren) to exceed what they can do, how are they going to learn to manage adult life - where a lot of it is managing more than you thought you could manage?"
#7 Self Directed Engaged Learning
"...if they're in fight or flight mode for long periods of time - they're less able to pay attention, to remember and to have self control. Children need to feel safe in order to learn."
We need to provide that emotional safety in every classroom.
The ending quote I love is; "That's why I can say with assurance that every day is a new day in parenthood: every day we can make a diffeence, despite what has happened in the past." Can we say the same for our students and our classrooms? Every child deserves every day to be a fresh start.
Thanks Greg, I enjoyed the class.
I am glad that I was able to participate in another book group. I was talking to my mom, who is in the other group and is also my "Boss," about how the book groups allow us to interact with other professionals at a level that is not always understood by many of our colleagues. The conversation is always stimulating and really challenges our thinking and beliefs. It is so interesting and validating to see other people in the field who think on a deeper level and have the ability to go beyond fingerplays and color matching.
While the book reinforced many ideas that we have believed for many years, I have a better idea of how to explain these principles to my staff. I also understand things from the perspective of research based evidence, not just inference or trial and error. It was validating as well to read that some of the things we have been doing for several years are right on. I'm not sure about other people, but lately as an educator I constantly feel like I am being told what we are doing is not enough, or is not quite on point. This book validated several things we have known for a while and explained them well. I think especially of perspective taking and self-control and self-regulation. While we understand where the problems lie, or can see when they begin to emerge as behaviors, Galinsky very clearly explains the process of learning self-regulation and what we learn not to do in order to achieve self-regulation. (hope I am making sense here.) In doing so, she has equipped me with the words and explanations I can use for helping parents, and staff, understand the process. I do think that parent education is part of our job as well. I take also from this book, several new ideas for our parent board and staff meeting focus topics. Thank you again for an intellectually stimulating series.
As I stated in one of my blogs, I loved the idea of complementing stategies to learning as apposed to complimenting a good job. I did not realize that that is almost exactly what I have done over the years with my last 2 children, one who recently graduated high school and one that is now a junior in hs. Strategies for dealing with the oldest(Sarah) was different than the one that is still in school (Stefanie). Sarah has been on add meds since 1st grade and as we discussed the other night means teaching and dealing with strategies in a different way. Stef on the the other hand did not have any those difficulties. Setting smaller goals for Sarah and larger ones for Stef and most important was making them accountable. In Sarah's senior year we allowed her to be completely on her own. Although she knew what to do she chose the easy way out and went from "B"s and "C" to a few "C" and mostly "D". When I asked her if she was setting up stategies, etc. She said yes but I knew she was not. She became happy just squeeking by. Stefanie on the other hand continues to seek statagies and will ask for help if need be but seems to figure it out on her own. Quite honestly I am glad when it comes to classes for her as I did not have to take Bio 2, chem, Algebra 2 or Trig. I would be lost. I don't anticipate Stef falling into Sarah's trap. Different children, different situations. But as stated the other evening the life skills and stategies and those awesome teachable moments have made for my children to be who they are.
I would like to say that I will set up those same stategies with my daycare. The kids might be only 3 and 4, but if we start early I am hoping to set things up and if they work, let parents know what I have done. I have one child (Kate) who though loves her mom, just would rather hang around and play when her mom comes to pick her up.she does not greet her mom in very nice matnner. She will say, "NO mom the minute she walks in the door". I will start tomorrow with asking her how she thinks she can change her greeting to mom when she comes to pick up. It will be interesting to see how/if this changes. I believe that this book and discussion has been a very helpful tool to the daycare and plan to impliment more. I especially will use the tip of the day on a regular basis.
Children come to me as early as 8 weeks and stay with me til sometimes kindergarten and are with me from 7am to 4or 5pm, so I can see me capitalizing on their gifts early, finding those lemonade stands and using it to their advantage and mine. And in case parents have not seen those gifts I will make it known to them. We spend more time with their children than they do and see things that they don"t see, so hopefully we can work together. My parents for the most part are not like the parents that seemed to be represented the other evening. They work hard with their kids. But I am sure that I will have challenging parents in the future. And look forward to the opportunity to encourage them the way the book has encouraged me.
First off I would like to say Thank You to Greg for organizing the book discussion group, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I have learned many things in reading Ellen Galinsky's Seven Essential Like Skills Every Child Needs. I have learned how much infants actually take in even at 2 to 3 days old. How infants react to their mothers voice above all instinctively. How infants learn to recognize our facial expression/emotions understand them and have the capacity to respond appropriately. Learning more in depth about how much infants learn and react so early on has better helped shape me as a teacher, and will go on to better shape my classroom. I liked how Galinsky first focused on infants then worked her way through toddlers, preschoolers, and school-aged children. This allows the reader to gain knowledge into not only the child at a certain age but as the child begins to and continues to grow.
One change I am going to make as a result of this experience is the parent education newsletter; as learned from Diane. I feel this is a great way to help the learning of the young children go beyond the four walls of my classroom. In being educated and educating the parent we can work more as a team, therefore providing the child with a better chance for success. In this area I would mention how parents need to take a step back and let their child learn and experience new things on their own. I think that is what I may start with in the parent education news letter. I have lots of ideas flowing through my brain but I do not want to overwhelm the parents with too much information at one time.
Again, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and the discussion blog. I plan to use all of my new knowledge in my classroom from here on out!
As I listened to the discussions in our book group, it came to my attention that many of the people there believed what was written in this book was just common sense and that most parents should already be aware of these seven essential skills. That made me really stop and think about how long I have been in this field. What seems to be common sense for many teachers I think is really knowledge gained from many years of experience working with young children and many years of studying early childhood education. I had to think back to my first years of teaching and how much I didn’t know and still needed to learn. I believe a solid understanding of the seven essential skills really came with time and experience. Even after 25 years of teaching, I am still learning more about early childhood education through attending workshops and conferences and reading professional literature. Joining the book discussion group is just another way I continue to further my education and knowledge. After reading this book, something new I learned was many of the skills that I thought were being developed during the preschool years, were actually beginning at infancy. Knowing this, I believe it is even more important that parents focus on these skills with their children right from birth.
So, how can we as teachers then make parents more aware and knowledgeable of these seven essential skills? I believe we can do this through a variety of ways. We can write about them in our newsletters, we can discuss them at parent-teacher conferences, and we can present workshops on the different skills throughout the school year. The key to becoming successful with teaching these skills though I believe is time and patience. Unfortunately we live in a “hurried world” that can make it very difficult to stop and take the time to learn and practice these crucial, life skills. Putting in that little bit of extra time when the children are very young, can make a world of difference in their life as they grow older. Even as adults, I feel we continue to refine these skills. It is most definitely a lifelong process. No matter what our age is, there will always be room for growth and improvement!
Thank you, Greg, for this opportunity and thanks to all who shared. While I learned much from last year’s study, the face-to-face sharings added so much. (There it is – the social and emotional engagement supporting cognitive learning!)
I am one of those who knew in a general way, through experience, observation and “maternal instinct” much of this information. Galinsky’s presentation expanded on and supported my understandings with scientific research, clear explanations and helpful suggestions for utilizing this information most effectively. I really appreciate how basic and practical this book is. My Lead Teacher has already ordered one and I plan to encourage my Administrators to read it. I am also hopeful that we can expose our parents to the importance of these seven basic skills and provide them with tips/suggestions on how to interact with their children to support these skills.
The take-aways that will immediately impact my interaction with my students:
1. Fewer “Good jobs!” and more praise of strategies and effort.
2. Asking more “What do you think?” questions when reading stories or approaching new tasks.
3. Building on each child’s strengths and interests, providing opportunities for exploration.
4. Remembering Bauer’s findings that children remember experiences best “when children find meaning in the process, when they’re involved hands-on, and when there’s conversation about what they’re doing.” (p.326) She also emphasizes the importance of repetitive experiences.
Another personal take-away: having successfully scored a “6” on the Focus Quiz, I will no longer be amazed that I almost never “come in first” on memory- recollection games, even when I am playing with children under three!
First of all I want to say how much I enjoyed being a part of such a diverse and clearly, committed group of early childhood professionals! I really enjoyed the face-to-face discussions and felt they were very heart felt and insightful. It was a pleasure to be apart of this discussion!
After volunteering to work at a day care center when I was in high school and then attending college for early childhood, I believed (naively as you do when you are young) that I knew just about all I needed to know. When I began teaching, I learned shortly after beginning that that was not the case! I now believe that as much as I learn, there is always something new and valuable to be gleamed from experiences, the knowledge of others and from books such as this one. I feel that much of the “Seven Essential Skills” is what most seasoned teacher/caregivers already know, understand and practice intuitively. However, it is not what those who do not spend time daily in a classroom or with children know; not because they are not in touch with their child but because we, in the field, who do spend each day with children, are early childhood oriented. Working with children and promoting all of their skills is what we are passionate about! It is why we do what we do. I like how Ellen Galinsky clarified and put all those things that we understand and try to put into practice so simply, realistically (by antidotes and examples) and in a way that professionals as well as parents can understand – and most importantly – showed the research and studies to back it up! It helps to prove to parents and others that it is not just the teachers talking – there is proof of how vital these skills are for their children to have. It validates the way in which I try to teach perspective taking, self-control and self-regulation and encourages me to go the extra step in my methods and to promote it to others. I think the suggestions for how to teach/reinforce these essential skills in young children are helpful for both parents and teachers!
Recently I had the opportunity to observe a new teacher as she taught a group. I think sharing this book not only with parents and administrators but also with those that are new to the field would be beneficial: to help them gain some of the information that it took us time in the classroom to observe and learn. I just wish that this book was being offered in spoken word (for easy listening in the car, etc.) for those parents/professionals that are too busy to sit down and read!
Thank you Greg and BAEYC for choosing this book and putting together another great book discussion group!
While I really liked the book, I can’t say I found it easy to read. That is to say, there is just so much information in it. I need to take it in small doses so I will be returning to it for some time to come.
One of my favorite experiments that Galinsky mentions is the one that describes young children’s pro-social behavior where the children are shown a shape trying to make it up an incline. One shape is helpful to the climber and one hinders the climbing shape. The young children show a preference for the helpful shape. There is something life affirming and hopeful about that experiment as I am currently grappling with a group of 4 and 5 year old boys who want nothing more than to be “bad guys” and pick on younger children and each other.
Galinsky backs up all of her ideas with research and it has sparked an interest in me to do a bit of teacher research. Up until now, I had been accepting the behavior of the boys as typical boy play. Maybe it is, or maybe something else is going on. The current dynamic among this group of boys is pretty negative and it really stems from 2 children in particular. I have written about these 2 children in this blog and more than other children their age, they are lacking in the skill of perspective taking.
One question I have is how much of an impact does environment or family life affect a child’s ability to take someone else’s perspective. Is it just a coincidence that the boys who are the most disruptive, (I don’t mean just during circle time but on the playground and in the classroom as well,) are each experiencing difficult situations at home? One boy has a dad who is an alcoholic and an inconsistent part of his life. The other boy has a mom who is so busy that she if away from home much of the time. Dad is busy too and pretty stressed. I’ll leave that question to the researchers.
While I don’t think that is a question I can solve I can strategize ways to help these 2 children. I plan to meet with my co-teachers to do some focused observation and reading related specifically to these boys. We’ll start with reading a bit about typical social development in 5 year olds, such as Your Five Year Old by Louise Bates Ames. I will also share with them the chapter on perspective taking, and then I will look at some of the books on boys such as The Wonder of Boys by Michael Gurian. Maybe we’ll even watch a movie! Raising Cain comes to mind.
I have really enjoyed this book as well as the thoughtful discussion of my classmates. This is the best professional development I have done! My one suggestion would be for us to make name placards during both of the face to face meetings. I would have liked to be able to identify the writers on the blog with the actual person. Thank you so much and I am looking forward to next year’s discussion.
As I said in my first entry, this book was a big aha moment. It was interesting in our last face to face discussion to hear others express the same thoughts that I initially had while reading. Thoughts like aren’t these activities just common sense? And of course that’s how you would talk to a preschooler. But of course we know that although we ‘get it’ when it comes to developing those seven essential skills not everyone else does particularly some of the parents we work with on a daily basis.
My plans for how I am going to use this book start with professional development for my staff. I plan to take the suggestions Gallinsky has included in the book for activities and really develop with my staff a varied bag of tricks for focusing on various skills. I also want to stress with my staff that idea of perspective taking. Although we have our peace table for the children to discuss their problems I find that sometimes my staff jump to conclusions. I want them to stop and look at the situation before making that jump.
From there, I plan to include some of those activities I our newsletters, as ‘homework’ suggestions, and as car talk suggestions. I have also placed a copy of the book on our parent shelf and spoke about it at our last parent meeting.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book particularly since I got the vook edition on my ipad and was able to watch the experiments that were being done. The face to face discussions, especially the final one, were invigorating and the blog was full of great stories and ideas. I can’t wait for the next book!
I love the name tag idea…
The face to face meetings were great, I loved listening to others perspectives and how they had and were going to incorporate the seven skills into their programs. I read the book through the first time, and then I have spent the past few weeks revisiting sections as something in my day would make me think about something I had read. Having the research in place to back up these “soft skills” is great; parents want accountability and to believe that their child is developing and learning. These skills are essential to life!
One life skill that struck a cord for me was perspective taking. This skill is lacking in a child on the autistic spectrum. We, as parents and teachers, use many of the techniques Galinsky writes about in the book to help teach this skill (Look around and do what everyone else is doing; analyzing situations and trying to guess some else’s motivations and feelings, use social stories etc.). Sometimes teaching these skills can backfire for a kid like this as there are gray areas for rules to situations. How do you teach a child to not do something when they see their peers doing it? They are copying what their peers are doing…What do you do when your child gets caught and in trouble for doing something and they don’t understand because they were doing what everyone else was doing? Sometimes rules and signs are flexible and have shades of gray that these kids struggle to understand.
I enjoyed the discussion around empowering the children to go with their interests and generate their own learning. There have been days that we have been outside from 7:30 until 12, stopping for lunch and naps and then going right back out. We go for walks in the woods on the trails near my home, field trips to the local farm or playground or just explore the ants that are tunneling through the bricks on my patio and wonder at their strength as they are displacing these 5lb bricks! There are other days that we may spend all day building bridges and train tracks, incorporating various math, science and reading readiness skills as we go along. They are having so much fun they don’t even realize that they are learning. I like to think of it as “going through the back door”. Giving the children the power to learn is going to help them gain focus and control and thus develop their executive functioning.
On page 280 Galinsky also writes about the fixed verses growth mindset. I was really saddened to read that the children who were praised for intelligence had lied about their score on the test, even when they knew they would never meet the reader. To want to save their “smart” image so badly that they would lie really makes me stop and think about how I respond to the work and actions that the children do. I am making an effort to be more concrete in my praise of their strategies and efforts. “If they’re praised for their effort and for the strategies they’re using, they’re more likely to want to learn and to try harder. If they’re praised for their intelligence, they’re more likely to pull back.”
And finally, every day is a new day. Every moment is a new moment. Galinsky‘s book is not to make parents or teachers feel badly, but to demonstrate that it is never too late to try new ways with our children.
When I first began this book I was a little worried, it seemed to be just for parents and there seemed to be a lot about infants. Then the more I delved into the book, the more I realized it is for everyone, parents and teachers and it is about children of any age. What I really took from this book was not so much about what to do about a child as it was about me, I have to do first then teach. Such as perspective, I need to not only help children experience and learn it, I need to take the time out to put myself in their shoes. I also need to watch how I conduct myself and just put extra thought and care into everything. Just seeing how I react to something, children are imitating and learning. If anything it is a self-help book for adults to be more aware!
I agreed with many of the perspectives of the book and as we said in the class discussion it seems like common sense to those of us in the field. We just have to remember not everyone has been through the schooling we have or had our experiences. Just because someone is a parent in no way makes them a child expert, this is why we can sometimes get frustrated with the parents that come in and seem “clueless”. This is why instead of putting them down or talking behind their back we need to explain why we do what we do with their children. Then go a step further and give them hints, ideas and information about how to engage their children and give them all these necessary life skills not just academic skills. This is why I plan to use things such as the daily kid, passages and activities from this book attached to the newsletter.
Other than the adult aspects of the book it really reinforced my ideas about the important life skills children need to learn to make it through life. It was great to see it backed by scientific experiments and studies. We get so caught up in what children cannot do and evaluating them on knowledge, the life skills get put on the back burner. We need to reevaluate and help facilitate functioning young men and women who are prepared for this worlds stress and demands, everything else will come.
When I first began this book I was a little worried, it seemed to be just for parents and there seemed to be a lot about infants. Then the more I delved into the book, the more I realized it is for everyone, parents and teachers and it is about children of any age. What I really took from this book was not so much about what to do about a child as it was about me, I have to do first then teach. Such as perspective, I need to not only help children experience and learn it, I need to take the time out to put myself in their shoes. I also need to watch how I conduct myself and just put extra thought and care into everything. Just seeing how I react to something, children are imitating and learning. If anything it is a self-help book for adults to be more aware!
I agreed with many of the perspectives of the book and as we said in the class discussion it seems like common sense to those of us in the field. We just have to remember not everyone has been through the schooling we have or had our experiences. Just because someone is a parent in no way makes them a child expert, this is why we can sometimes get frustrated with the parents that come in and seem “clueless”. This is why instead of putting them down or talking behind their back we need to explain why we do what we do with their children. Then go a step further and give them hints, ideas and information about how to engage their children and give them all these necessary life skills not just academic skills. This is why I plan to use things such as the daily kid, passages and activities from this book attached to the newsletter.
Other than the adult aspects of the book it really reinforced my ideas about the important life skills children need to learn to make it through life. It was great to see it backed by scientific experiments and studies. We get so caught up in what children cannot do and evaluating them on knowledge, the life skills get put on the back burner. We need to reevaluate and help facilitate functioning young men and women who are prepared for this worlds stress and demands, everything else will come.
Greg,
Thank you so much for providing this book discussion group. This was my first time. I enjoyed it and I look forward to the next one. I find that I am always pressed for time. I love to read but can never fit it into the day. By the time I have a few minutes I just want to go to sleep. This gave me the opportunity to read a great book, and add to my tool box of skills. It also gave me a little practice in reading a book on an e-reader. I do wish that I had purchased the hard copy and not the digital version. I found it difficult to follow this book. I think in part this is because I could not dog ear my pages or highlight parts of interest like I would in a real book. Next time I will stay with the old fashioned way of reading and purchase the book. I actually may purchase a hard copy version of this book so that I can easily reference parts of the book.
I think the part of the book that has had the most meaning to me is actually the first chapter. I never really thought how difficult it is to focus in the world today. There are so many distractions and things that steal our attention because we feel they need to be dealt with immediately. I am referring to cell phone calls, texts and emails. These forms of communication are wonderful but we spend so much time with them, but most of it is not as important as what we should be dealing with in person at the time. I am easily distracted and I find that my children are also. I will be using some of the techniques in the book to hopefully help my children focus.
I plan on taking the 7 essential life skills and breaking them down into short little lessons. I will present these lessons at the next few staff meetings and in my future newsletters. I think if I can present it in a condensed and simple format, I can spark the interest of parents and teachers to show them just how important, yet basic these 7 life skills are.
I think the thing that most struck me about Galinsky's book, "Mind In The Making", was the back up of her seven life skills with brain research. It was the research that I found most interesting. It is not very often that I get to read research written in layman's language relating to my day to day work in the classroom. The book was also affirming about what I do in the classroom every day. It will be very helpful in my talking to parents about what happens in the classroom.
The most profound chapter for me was Skill Three: Communicating. Because I am a teacher in the Pre K classroom, the discussion about beginning reading was facinating. The thought that reading is a completely novel cultural invention, and that until only a few centuries ago very few people on Earth were reading, is an amazing thought for me, a consummate bookworm! It makes our national goal of providing every citizen with the tool of reading seem both noble and arduous. The mechanics of learning to read, as discussed by Stanislas Dehaene in his book, "Reading In The Brain", where the brain converts graphemes to phonemes, has me thinking about ways to step up our practicing letter/sound connections in the classroom. While researchers can't agree on the age to start reading, all agree that the thing to start with is playing sound games. As I have seen reading curriculum pushed down through the grades earlier and earlier, I have felt the need to prepare my classes for kindergarten by emphasizing letter recognition. Now I think that sounds are just as important, and that associating letters with sounds from the very beginning is the way to prepare for reading.
I have always provided lots of time to talk with children. Our weekly Show and Tell has always been very popular with children, and it will be something that I continue to do. It gives each child a chance to talk about something important to them, and it gives me a chance to help them elaborate on a subject, or go off on a conversational tangent, which is equally important. I will use this chapter, and this particular skill of conversation, as a part of my parent conferences when discussing ways for parents to help with reading at home.
Being in the field of early education for 35 years has made me concerned about the concepts of focus and control from Chapter 1. I think it is interesting research that talks about creating experiences of delayed gratification (Walter Mischel and the Marshmallow Test) by the age of four predicting how well a child will do on SATs, and how well they themselves felt they were doing in terms of goal achievement in their early thirties. This is research that I think will be useful for parents to know. I am happy to have the research behind me when I suggest that parents find ways for their children to learn to calm themselves, and to learn to focus. I think it is a result of our fast moving, multi-tasking society that children are unable to slow down and focus, but I think that the research in chapter 1 will help me talk about this problem with parents at conference time.
Finally, I feel validated about being a Reggio inspired school when I read in the final chapter about how important it is to have "a curriculum based on closely observing children and then providing activities that moved the children from where they were to the next step in learning.", and to "give each child his or her own lemonade stand", which is to me the very essence of the teachings of Reggio Emilia.
"Mind In The Making" was a terrific book, both for teachers and parents. It will spark many excellent conversations in the near future at The Sandpiper Nursery School!
I think the thing that most struck me about Galinsky's book, "Mind In The Making", was the back up of her seven life skills with brain research. It was the research that I found most interesting. It is not very often that I get to read research written in layman's language relating to my day to day work in the classroom. The book was also affirming about what I do in the classroom every day. It will be very helpful in my talking to parents about what happens in the classroom.
The most profound chapter for me was Skill Three: Communicating. Because I am a teacher in the Pre K classroom, the discussion about beginning reading was facinating. The thought that reading is a completely novel cultural invention, and that until only a few centuries ago very few people on Earth were reading, is an amazing thought for me, a consummate bookworm! It makes our national goal of providing every citizen with the tool of reading seem both noble and arduous. The mechanics of learning to read, as discussed by Stanislas Dehaene in his book, "Reading In The Brain", where the brain converts graphemes to phonemes, has me thinking about ways to step up our practicing letter/sound connections in the classroom. While researchers can't agree on the age to start reading, all agree that the thing to start with is playing sound games. As I have seen reading curriculum pushed down through the grades earlier and earlier, I have felt the need to prepare my classes for kindergarten by emphasizing letter recognition. Now I think that sounds are just as important, and that associating letters with sounds from the very beginning is the way to prepare for reading.
I have always provided lots of time to talk with children. Our weekly Show and Tell has always been very popular with children, and it will be something that I continue to do. It gives each child a chance to talk about something important to them, and it gives me a chance to help them elaborate on a subject, or go off on a conversational tangent, which is equally important. I will use this chapter, and this particular skill of conversation, as a part of my parent conferences when discussing ways for parents to help with reading at home.
Being in the field of early education for 35 years has made me concerned about the concepts of focus and control from Chapter 1. I think it is interesting research that talks about creating experiences of delayed gratification (Walter Mischel and the Marshmallow Test) by the age of four predicting how well a child will do on SATs, and how well they themselves felt they were doing in terms of goal achievement in their early thirties. This is research that I think will be useful for parents to know. I am happy to have the research behind me when I suggest that parents find ways for their children to learn to calm themselves, and to learn to focus. I think it is a result of our fast moving, multi-tasking society that children are unable to slow down and focus, but I think that the research in chapter 1 will help me talk about this problem with parents at conference time.
Finally, I feel validated about being a Reggio inspired school when I read in the final chapter about how important it is to have "a curriculum based on closely observing children and then providing activities that moved the children from where they were to the next step in learning.", and to "give each child his or her own lemonade stand", which is to me the very essence of the teachings of Reggio Emilia.
"Mind In The Making" was a terrific book, both for teachers and parents. It will spark many excellent conversations in the near future at The Sandpiper Nursery School!
Dear Dr. Nelson and discussion participants,
Well, it is time to say Goodbye and Thank You for that unique chance to listen, to reflect, to share, and to be heard by all of you. According to the postings, reading book Mind in the Making was definitely a very touching experience for all of us. It brought to the surface of our everyday lives memorable experiences from our past and present problematic moments that are awaiting our solutions; it connected them in realizing the “Aha” and “I heard that before” moments, it explained some things and gave some suggestions… Anyway and anyhow we all were touched by Ellen Galinsky’s ability to organize scientific facts, summarize, describe them in readable order, supply with detailed examples from her own family life, life of the other parents and children and, overall, make reading captivating and promising to some extend.
For me personally, as an English language learner, the book Mind in the Making was a valuable source of flawlessly written intelligent, sophisticated, and vibrant English language with rich morphology and vocabulary. I have to admit, I wrote out more than 50 words I intended to use in the future…I hope I will
The book also contributed to my professional growth. Among more than 80 suggestions I found such suggestions as using board games and introducing more meaningful art activities in order to advance child’s cognitive development very helpful and innovating.
I hope the book will make difference in parents’ prospective on raising children though for most people the essence of being a good parent is very individual and in direct connection with their family history. The core values we want our children to understand and follow are interweaved in our own views and reaffirmed in our most important life decisions. There is no silver bullet (or book) that in a moment will transform you and make you to accept and implement someone’s teaching… it takes sometimes a life time of one generation or maybe two…
This book discussion has definitely made me look at the work that I do and the children very differently. I realized that there are many things that I am actually doing very well such as playing board games, and memory games, etc. However, I did not realize how crucial and how much of an impact that these type of games can help the children improve on one of Galinsky’s Seven Essential Skills that children should have. For example when you look at a board game you know that the kids are learning to count but you do not necessarily realize that they are learning the relationships between numbers. Reading this book made me want to create my own board game; setting the game up in rows of ten so, that the kids could really start making connections with math and how we group numbers into tens, etc.
My daycare uses the Caring Curriculum and the assessments that go along with it. The assessments seem very thorough as far as large motor, fine motor, cognitive development, social dev., etc. but it still seems to be lacking in some of the areas of executive functioning that Galinsky speaks about. As I mentioned in one of my postings that I have a little girl that seems to have a gap in her learning / processing but she knows all of her alphabet and relates well to others but something seems missing. I feel like Galinsky really touched upon some of those issues like short term memory and processing. It isn’t really something that you talk about in regular education classes which is concerning because right now this little girl looks like she is average or above average but this problem is going to catch up to her when her school works becomes more complicated.
I also loved the idea of the Lemonade Stand and reading everyone posts of things that their kids have been really invested in and how they helped encourage the kids to make the project continue to flourish and grow. The children that I worked with have created some long term projects and have become very excited about them but I feel like this is an area that I could improve upon. I think this is partially difficult for us because we have some kids that are here all week and then a mix of part time kids that come in and out so, it is never the same crew over the course of a week. I think that I could create a poster board or little story book about what the kids did and what happened the day before so, kids could look at it and continue with the project and add to it.
There were so many great ideas that I took notes on. Now I need to make an effort to find the time to incorporate them into our everyday activities. I think the most important piece in working with children is to make the process of learning fun for all. I am a bit of a nerd myself and really enjoy learning and reading. Hopefully, my enthusiasm for learning will rub off on the children.
*Thanks so much everyone for your participation and sharing your ideas. I really enjoyed this opportunity and have learned so much from all of your perspectives.
PART I:
THANKS EVERYONE, I really like this book. My only criticism is that the anecdotes make the messages a little diffuse. She's pulling a lot together and I appreciate the light she sheds on fascinating research, but sometimes the anecdotes water down or don't sharply illustrate the subjects she matches them to.
And I love the BAEYC book group concept. As I mentioned in our last meeting, Bridgewater could run a group out of Cape Cod.....maybe the Falmouth Fire or Police Departments' community rooms. I think you would get a huge response because the blog/ discussion format is great and there are so few opportunities on the Cape. falmouth alone has more than enough teachers to fill a class. I know you did Last Child already but it is a great book, timely subject. I'm in!
For me, my years in Waldorf schools underscored what a gift it it is to witness how wondrously most children grow without too much (despite too much?) managing and angst from the adults in their lives. There were, of course, some children who needed more than the gift of time. Some stayed in the Waldorf school and thrived with extra help. Some left for settings that offered more support for their unique challenges. While acknowledging that Waldorf is not for everyone, I must say that for me, it was a gift. I am happy that my formative teaching years were shaped by Waldorf pedagogy. Nancy mentioned the sharp knives little children used to cut vegetables for soup. And how our worry for safety and the litigiousness of our society can lead us to narrow, and even diminish what we offer children.
There is another kind of safety obsession that also confines children and keeps them from fully developing. I think of it as "self-esteem safety." It is practiced by people who probably witnessed/ experienced bullying and teasing themselves. In my childhood bullying and teasing were viewed as unavoidable, and this complicit attitude by many adults was harmful and wrong. But what I have called "self-esteem safety" is the most extreme counter-measure taken. Everything becomes so cloyingly innocuous, fluffy and sweet as if children are so delicate that they cannot hand sadness, badness, madness even in their books. Mother Goose stories get reworked--- the whippings and withholding of The Old Woman are abolished. She kisses and feeds her children good whole wheat bread before bed. When there are games, everyone gets a first place medal. Every little word or deed is given hyperbolic praise. Maurice Sendak books are avoided because they are dark and ambiguous. And children treated this way become so fragile that a single cross word shatters them completely. This kind of crazy inspires the writers of Portlandia. Ever seen it?
I think this zeal for "safety" is in some way related to a misguided idea that keeping things safe decreases stress. That kids who don't do dangerous things are better off and won't grow up to be thrill seekers. Or that we were raised by wolves but we won't abandon our children the way our parents did us! My mom and dad had six by the time they were 27! Benign neglect was the way they coped. It worked for me mostly, but I know lots of people who felt their parents were way too laissez-faire, or of the "suck it up" school of parenting. I am not articulating this clearly but here is another anecdote to get closer to what I am attempting to say:
PART II:
When my first born, ( now 17-year-old) was a baby I somehow fell in with a group of intelligent, highly educated, alarmingly informed, seemingly perfect and sometimes neurotic moms (and maybe first time motherhood amplified this for us all!). We sat together a few times a week for support. And while nursing our infants we talked about our hopes and fears for them, and our worries and fears. We occasionally addressed our somewhat competitive, anxiety-driven obsessions with how early our babies were hitting developmental milestones. We wanted perfect lives for our perfect little babies. The stakes were high, but if we paid enough attention we might not make any mistakes with these wondrous new beings. No compromises, purity for eternity. We even agonized over the noise the Velcro on the diaper covers made when we changed our darlings in the middle of the night, causing them untold stress. I remember weeping when my infant startled and cried because I kept forgetting to pull as slowly as possible! We really thought that if we did everything right our perfect children would never experience stress and would be grow up perfectly intact, miraculous as the day they were born. Of course, I already knew this did not apply to my baby because I startled her every 2 a.m. I was so sleep deprived I could not bring the requisite intentionality to the diaper change. I have never admitted this to the baby group moms but when my daughter confronts me one day I will admit that I blew it on day three and in the wee hours of most days for weeks to come.
It took us new moms awhile to realize that stress is obviously an unavoidable and even necessary part of life. Mistakes happen. We are not perfect parents and our children would not thrive with perfect parents. The goal is to raise humans, complex, autonomous and, yes, deeply flawed fellow Hunan beings. We will have to deal with our parenting mistakes. So will our children them. And they will forgive, even thank us, for the mistakes we made because they allowed them to strengthen their responses to them, to find resilience and equilibrium from within themselves. Slowly realized our children will also make their own mistakes. And in how they deal with these mistakes they would reveal to us the strength of their resilience and their current mastery of life skills, skills that could only be formed by the imperfect lives we lead. The messy, often fraught, way-too-busy lives our children lead.
I hope that the identity of my own little school reflects the gift that the Waldorf pedagogy gave me: I hope we've created a setting that facilitates families relaxing and enjoying their children's childhoods rather than worry about assessing them for where they "shoud" be. I hope we can continue to cut with sharp knives. We will not let the worry for physical safety be compounded by an obsession for self-esteem safety. I do not want to be part of a movement that puts safety and achievement above engaging with life in all its imperfect, dangerous glory. I do not want to be part of the group doing pretty crazy things to Mother Goose and the kids in our lives! I do not advocate for intentionally broken bones or deliberately mean words, but I do think we have to let children experience some of the messy complexities of life so that they experience stress warnings and begin to develop internal warning and coping skills for themselves. A child who never gets dirty is not really doing the work of getting into his/ her physical body. A child who never says a mean or petty word is probably bottling up a lot of steam and not experiencing his/ her authentic emotions. That child, for sure, will fall apart if he does not get a blue ribbon for every effort, however mediocre or it may be.
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