I hope you're keeping warm and safe, as tornadoes and snowstorms cross the states.
Thank you for subscribing to The Irby Review. Here are some of the most interesting articles I read this past month. Please feel free to share these great reads friends, colleagues, and family.
I think that children should have unscheduled time in their day but I also think access to technology should be restricted. A child with unsupervised downtime and unfettered access to the internet could certainly result in children viewing things parents don't want their children to see. Neighborhood and community dynamics have also changed since the early 90s. As a child, my friends and I played outside and rode our bikes with few restrictions aside from a requirement to be home before dark and the general black parent rule "Don't embarrass me when you leave this house." Whether with my friends or alone, I found something to do and rarely felt bored. Were you bored often as a child? Were you bored often as a child? Were you overscheduled? Read on
The writer provides insight into the teaching profession and examines one teacher's passion for inspiring our students to learn despite being forced to use boring workbooks and a curriculum driven by test-prep. Her commitment and career was revitalized when she went to a different school which emphasized human relations and communication among students, teachers and staff. The teachers were asked to consider each of the children's personal challenges and to make education a positive experience. Rather than always focusing on how to select the best answer to multiple choice questions, the principal encourage interaction, listening, open-ended thinking and responsiveness within the classrooms. Read on
Reading a child's favorite books may seem repetitive to adults, but research has found that read alouds of the same books helps children build a rich vocabulary and world knowledge. Holding children and spending quality time with books produces a host of benefits which can be enhanced by adding a few things to any real aloud ritual. During story time before bed, parents can try asking questions during the story, point out unfamiliar words, and discuss some of the details in the illustrations. Read on
900,000 preschoolers benefit from a federal law and bipartisan agreement which imposes new, stringent standards on the nation's largest early learning program. With increased federal funding per child, better trained teachers and stricter classroom audits, low-income children appear to be on an improved educational path. The observational tool, "CLASS" that is used for evaluation, measures classroom and teaching quality, not students' performance. How will thousands of America's kids' fare in the long run? The impact is still unknown, but things are looking up for many children. Read on
There are significant, positive long term cognitive benefits for children who grow up in homes filled with books. According to a recent student, 80 or more books in a home library resulted in adults with higher literacy, numeracy, information communication technology and a desire to pursue knowledge. The professor of sociology and education who published the research concludes that children from book-rich homes who didn't attain a college level education, become as literate, numerate and technologically apt as university graduates who grew up without a home library. Read on
Positive black male figures play an important role in the lives of young black boys and young men, yet only 2% of teachers are black men. Cal. State Education Professor David Kretschmer argues that "Kids do better when they're taught by teachers who look like them." There's a growing body of research that suggest all children, especially students of color, perform better and have more positive attitudes about school, when teachers are diverse. Organizations like Future Minority Male Teachers Across California, Call Me MISTER, and The Fellowship: Black Male Educators for Social Justice in Philadelphia are striving to improve the teacher pipeline and the diversity of prospective educators. Read on
Please let me know what you think. I'd love to hear your thoughts about any of these articles. Email your comments to airby@readingholidayproject.org
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