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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36701\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36701\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Mindshift1_illo2_72.jpg\" alt=\"By Jane Mount/MindShift\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Mindshift1_illo2_72.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Mindshift1_illo2_72-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Mindshift1_illo2_72-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">By Jane Mount/MindShift\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cdiv class=\"div_for_spokenlayer_player\" style=\"clear:both\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">When Mollie Cueva-Dabkoski was dissecting a sheep’s heart during an eighth-grade science class, she had an epiphany that changed her life. “That heart told the story of anatomy and physiology!” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Realizing that science is best communicated through stories, Cueva-Dabkoski, now just 19 years old, went on to explore beetles in China. She's now at Johns Hopkins University, and continues to do research during breaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cueva-Dabkoski is considered an \"\u003ca href=\"http://extremelearners.iftf.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Extreme Learner\u003c/a>,\" a designation applied to just 12 individuals by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.iftf.org/home/\" target=\"_blank\">Institute for the Future\u003c/a>, for her radical and gutsy approach to learning. Extreme Learners are self-directed, wide-ranging in their interests, comfortable with technology, and adept at building communities around their interests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Extreme learners aren’t so different from everybody else,” said \u003ca href=\"http://www.iftf.org/miltonchen/\" target=\"_blank\">Milton Chen\u003c/a>, a fellow at the Institute for the Future and advocate for education reform. “We picked people who are extreme in their passion for learning.\" They are also willing to go their own way when traditional educational institutions interfere with their pursuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thomas Hunt, for example, another designated \"extreme learner,\" dropped out of high school when he was 14 to work on cancer research. Always interested in science, he found high school stultifying and needlessly time-consuming. Kids of varied interests were thrown together and taught in “the cookie-cutter method,” he said. After he left, Hunt found like-minded learners when he became one of 20 \u003ca href=\"http://www.thielfellowship.org/home/\" target=\"_blank\">Thiel Fellows\u003c/a>, formerly known as “\u003ca href=\"http://www.thielfellowship.org/20-under-20-thiel-fellowship-rules/\" target=\"_blank\">20 Under 20\u003c/a>,” which paid him $100,000 to drop out of school for two years and pursue his studies. “For some kids who have a vision of what they’re interested in, high school is not for them,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">“I’ve recognized that this is what makes me different: I may not know it, but I don’t see it has a barrier.”\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>This was also true for Marc Roth, another extreme learner who dropped out of high school three times and never finished his community college education. (He earned his high school equivalency degree in three weeks.) Today, Roth is the founder of the \u003ca href=\"http://news.typeamachines.com/the-learning-shelter/\" target=\"_blank\">Learning Shelter\u003c/a>, a 90-day training program that teaches homeless people high-tech manufacturing skills. Roth is 40, and his improbable path to the Learning Shelter included delivering pizzas, programming and consulting in IT, sailing the seas on a cruise ship, and starting his own business. When that business collapsed, and Roth’s net worth fell from $21 million to nothing, he moved to San Francisco and lived in his car. When his car was broken into, Roth decamped to a homeless shelter for five months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roth reversed his fortune — and earned his bona fides as an Extreme Learner — when he was broke and living in the shelter. He heard others talking about a nearby \u003ca href=\"http://techshop.ws/\" target=\"_blank\">TechShop,\u003c/a> and decided to scrape up the $59 membership fee and give it a try. TechShops are stand-alone buildings with staffs and million-dollar tools that train high-tech skills to anyone interested and able to afford the modest fee; set up with laser cutters and plastics labs, among other tools, they are meant to promote creativity and skill-development. Roth devoured the learning opportunities at the TechShop in San Francisco, starting with sewing and vinyl cutting, and within two months moved from pupil to teacher. “When I only had pennies to my name, I turned everything I had into education instead of comforts or niceties,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>INSATIABLE NEED FOR LEARNING\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the hunger for learning rather than raw intellect that distinguishes Extreme Learners from the gifted. Intensely motivated and harboring a breadth of interests, they also consider ignorance a temporary and reparable condition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lenore Edman, for example, who along with her husband designs and produces robotic kits for their company \u003ca href=\"http://www.evilmadscientist.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Evil Mad Scientist\u003c/a>, is motivated by what she doesn’t know. “I’ve recognized that this is what makes me different: I may not know it, but I don’t see it has a barrier,” she said, reflecting the premise behind the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/tag/growth-mindset/\" target=\"_blank\">growth mindset disposition\u003c/a>. “The most extreme thing is not being afraid to learn new things,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In her work, Edman erases boundaries between math and food, electricity and paper crafts. Recently, she sewed what she called a “missile command skirt,” styled after a vintage video game, and built a “circuitry snack” out of candy. “It was a fun project because we got to eat the candy at the end,” she said. She’s most interested in what happens when different fields intersect, and looks for ways to take the tools of one field and apply them to another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What's the lesson here for schools? In short, standardization, repetition, and rigidity are deadly for the curious. “Nothing bores me more than seeing a list of redundant facts I have to memorize,” Mollie Cueva-Dabkoski said. Biology class dragged for Thomas Hunt, but the school turned him down when he tried to replace a few classes with work in a lab outside school. “High school is a big day care system,” Roth said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36703\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-36703\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/image_1-300x165.jpg\" alt=\"Mollie Cueva-Dabkoski\" width=\"300\" height=\"165\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mollie Cueva-Dabkoski\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But some schools have figured out how to engage their inquisitive students. Mollie Cueva-Dabkoski attended Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts, an arts-based school that rewarded exploration and free choice. “We were given a ridiculous amount of time to read and explore,” she said, which allowed her to discover her genuine interests. The school also encouraged creativity through arts, which Cueva-Dabkoski credits with stimulating her enthusiasm for the Brazilian arts. Outside school, she joined an Afro-Brazilian dance troupe and taught dance to kids in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Of all the places in school, in art kids can create exactly what they want,” she said. And in a conflict between depth and breadth of learning, the school rewarded depth. Rather than memorize the dates and key figures in World War II, for example, students were encouraged to go deep on one particular person or event. Time, freedom, and space to make art crystalized for Cueva-Dabkoski, who is scurrying to publish her extracurricular research on beetles before the summer ends and Johns Hopkins beckons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you put the pieces together, you see a movement,” Chen said. Along with \u003ca href=\"http://makezine.com/2013/05/22/the-difference-between-hackerspaces-makerspaces-techshops-and-fablabs/\">MakerLabs, Maker Faires\u003c/a>, and TechShops, all of which foster independent learning and creativity, Extreme Learners have indulged their intellectual passions in their own time and on their own terms. Formal educational institutions have little to do with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The main takeaway for teachers is, give students more flexibility and choice over what they’re working on,” Milton Chen said. “Give kids the tools to identify their interests and gather information. And help them find like-minded people to work with.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36701\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36701\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Mindshift1_illo2_72.jpg\" alt=\"By Jane Mount/MindShift\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Mindshift1_illo2_72.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Mindshift1_illo2_72-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Mindshift1_illo2_72-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">By Jane Mount/MindShift\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cdiv class=\"div_for_spokenlayer_player\" style=\"clear:both\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">When Mollie Cueva-Dabkoski was dissecting a sheep’s heart during an eighth-grade science class, she had an epiphany that changed her life. “That heart told the story of anatomy and physiology!” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Realizing that science is best communicated through stories, Cueva-Dabkoski, now just 19 years old, went on to explore beetles in China. She's now at Johns Hopkins University, and continues to do research during breaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cueva-Dabkoski is considered an \"\u003ca href=\"http://extremelearners.iftf.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Extreme Learner\u003c/a>,\" a designation applied to just 12 individuals by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.iftf.org/home/\" target=\"_blank\">Institute for the Future\u003c/a>, for her radical and gutsy approach to learning. Extreme Learners are self-directed, wide-ranging in their interests, comfortable with technology, and adept at building communities around their interests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Extreme learners aren’t so different from everybody else,” said \u003ca href=\"http://www.iftf.org/miltonchen/\" target=\"_blank\">Milton Chen\u003c/a>, a fellow at the Institute for the Future and advocate for education reform. “We picked people who are extreme in their passion for learning.\" They are also willing to go their own way when traditional educational institutions interfere with their pursuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thomas Hunt, for example, another designated \"extreme learner,\" dropped out of high school when he was 14 to work on cancer research. Always interested in science, he found high school stultifying and needlessly time-consuming. Kids of varied interests were thrown together and taught in “the cookie-cutter method,” he said. After he left, Hunt found like-minded learners when he became one of 20 \u003ca href=\"http://www.thielfellowship.org/home/\" target=\"_blank\">Thiel Fellows\u003c/a>, formerly known as “\u003ca href=\"http://www.thielfellowship.org/20-under-20-thiel-fellowship-rules/\" target=\"_blank\">20 Under 20\u003c/a>,” which paid him $100,000 to drop out of school for two years and pursue his studies. “For some kids who have a vision of what they’re interested in, high school is not for them,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">“I’ve recognized that this is what makes me different: I may not know it, but I don’t see it has a barrier.”\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>This was also true for Marc Roth, another extreme learner who dropped out of high school three times and never finished his community college education. (He earned his high school equivalency degree in three weeks.) Today, Roth is the founder of the \u003ca href=\"http://news.typeamachines.com/the-learning-shelter/\" target=\"_blank\">Learning Shelter\u003c/a>, a 90-day training program that teaches homeless people high-tech manufacturing skills. Roth is 40, and his improbable path to the Learning Shelter included delivering pizzas, programming and consulting in IT, sailing the seas on a cruise ship, and starting his own business. When that business collapsed, and Roth’s net worth fell from $21 million to nothing, he moved to San Francisco and lived in his car. When his car was broken into, Roth decamped to a homeless shelter for five months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roth reversed his fortune — and earned his bona fides as an Extreme Learner — when he was broke and living in the shelter. He heard others talking about a nearby \u003ca href=\"http://techshop.ws/\" target=\"_blank\">TechShop,\u003c/a> and decided to scrape up the $59 membership fee and give it a try. TechShops are stand-alone buildings with staffs and million-dollar tools that train high-tech skills to anyone interested and able to afford the modest fee; set up with laser cutters and plastics labs, among other tools, they are meant to promote creativity and skill-development. Roth devoured the learning opportunities at the TechShop in San Francisco, starting with sewing and vinyl cutting, and within two months moved from pupil to teacher. “When I only had pennies to my name, I turned everything I had into education instead of comforts or niceties,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>INSATIABLE NEED FOR LEARNING\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the hunger for learning rather than raw intellect that distinguishes Extreme Learners from the gifted. Intensely motivated and harboring a breadth of interests, they also consider ignorance a temporary and reparable condition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lenore Edman, for example, who along with her husband designs and produces robotic kits for their company \u003ca href=\"http://www.evilmadscientist.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Evil Mad Scientist\u003c/a>, is motivated by what she doesn’t know. “I’ve recognized that this is what makes me different: I may not know it, but I don’t see it has a barrier,” she said, reflecting the premise behind the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/tag/growth-mindset/\" target=\"_blank\">growth mindset disposition\u003c/a>. “The most extreme thing is not being afraid to learn new things,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In her work, Edman erases boundaries between math and food, electricity and paper crafts. Recently, she sewed what she called a “missile command skirt,” styled after a vintage video game, and built a “circuitry snack” out of candy. “It was a fun project because we got to eat the candy at the end,” she said. She’s most interested in what happens when different fields intersect, and looks for ways to take the tools of one field and apply them to another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What's the lesson here for schools? In short, standardization, repetition, and rigidity are deadly for the curious. “Nothing bores me more than seeing a list of redundant facts I have to memorize,” Mollie Cueva-Dabkoski said. Biology class dragged for Thomas Hunt, but the school turned him down when he tried to replace a few classes with work in a lab outside school. “High school is a big day care system,” Roth said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36703\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-36703\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/image_1-300x165.jpg\" alt=\"Mollie Cueva-Dabkoski\" width=\"300\" height=\"165\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mollie Cueva-Dabkoski\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But some schools have figured out how to engage their inquisitive students. Mollie Cueva-Dabkoski attended Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts, an arts-based school that rewarded exploration and free choice. “We were given a ridiculous amount of time to read and explore,” she said, which allowed her to discover her genuine interests. The school also encouraged creativity through arts, which Cueva-Dabkoski credits with stimulating her enthusiasm for the Brazilian arts. Outside school, she joined an Afro-Brazilian dance troupe and taught dance to kids in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Of all the places in school, in art kids can create exactly what they want,” she said. And in a conflict between depth and breadth of learning, the school rewarded depth. Rather than memorize the dates and key figures in World War II, for example, students were encouraged to go deep on one particular person or event. Time, freedom, and space to make art crystalized for Cueva-Dabkoski, who is scurrying to publish her extracurricular research on beetles before the summer ends and Johns Hopkins beckons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you put the pieces together, you see a movement,” Chen said. Along with \u003ca href=\"http://makezine.com/2013/05/22/the-difference-between-hackerspaces-makerspaces-techshops-and-fablabs/\">MakerLabs, Maker Faires\u003c/a>, and TechShops, all of which foster independent learning and creativity, Extreme Learners have indulged their intellectual passions in their own time and on their own terms. Formal educational institutions have little to do with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36662\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-36662\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Screen-Shot-2014-07-03-at-11.16.24-AM-640x356.png\" alt=\"Augmented reality at Avenues: The World Schools\" width=\"640\" height=\"356\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Augmented reality at Avenues: The World Schools\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/ipadqueen2012\" target=\"_blank\">Courtney Pepe\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">When many of today’s teachers who grew up in Generation X are asked to reflect on traditional learning objects from their classrooms of the 1980’s and 1990’s, they think of paper, pencils, chalkboards, and textbooks. When they're shown a series of pictures of those classroom’s from the '70s, '80s, and '90s, and asked to describe them, they use adjectives like \"utilitarian, boring, and two-dimensional.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The classrooms in which Millennials and Generation Z learn are a world apart from those of Baby Boomers and Generation X. In 2014, using augmented reality as a launching pad into discovery is becoming more common. Gone are the direct instructions of “sit down and be quiet” or “take out your textbooks and turn to page 21.” The modern classroom makes use of Augmented Reality to curate the web for this generation of digital natives. These days, students can walk into a classroom and use their tablet or smartphone as the AR device to trigger to original content made on movie-making software and posted to YouTube, leading to an immediate and immersive learning experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the sound of learning has changed in today's classrooms, from the vocal command of the teacher directing students toward the sound of students working together in groups, or listening to audio or visual content on their devices through their ear phones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Kids are actively doing rather than passively listening,\" says Jeff Gorman, Assistant Superintendent of Schools in Monroe Township, New Jersey, and a frequent observer of these forward-looking classrooms. \"The question is no longer what did the teacher teach today, the question is now what interesting question did you explore in school. This indicates a shift in learning towards higher level thinking skills.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meg Wilson, Technology Integration Specialist at Avenues: The World Schools in New York City, says using AR her in classroom adds another dimension to learning. “Layering digital content over our physical spaces has allowed Avenues to redefine the learning experience, as it provides students opportunities to create and explore multi-media content in a way that is both engaging and active,” as illustrated by the video of their AR Map below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYTejLqrbbk\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By now, many people have heard of, if not actually seen people wearing Google Glass, and more and more teachers are beta-testing in their classrooms. More important than the actual device itself is the cultural shift in learning patterns that they're accelerating. Observing the tactile changes within the “glassroom,\" students are moving away from the tablets' “touch, swipe, double tap” to interacting with content through voice and head motions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Florida science educator, Adam Winkle, and EduGlasses are developing an app called Edustream that will control the computer, sync to Google Drive on the glasses, and allow the wearer to access documents, hands-free, in the classroom. This application will let the teacher move freely around the room and project content to a class without being chained to the front or having their hands full with a device.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The wink of an eye, the simple one-finger tactile swipe down -- these are the sights, sounds, and kinesthetic gestures that are changing the context of modern learning. While we do not know what the devices of the future will look like, we do not know that innovation in education does not have a fixed audio, visual, or tactile prescription for all learners. The advent of tablets, augmented reality, and wearable tech makes the shape of knowledge completely malleable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Courtney Pepe is a high school teacher in Monroe Township, New Jersey. She will be presenting on her experiences with Google Glass, iPads, and Augmented Reality at the \u003ca href=\"http://ettsummit.org/register/\" target=\"_blank\">July 28-30 EdTechTeacher Summit in Chicago\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"disqusTitle": "Games Can Advance Education: A Conversation With James Paul Gee",
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"headTitle": "The MindShift Guide to Digital Games and Learning | MindShift | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36573\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36573\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/462354351-e1403928907654.jpg\" alt=\"Getty\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/462354351-e1403928907654.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/462354351-e1403928907654-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/462354351-e1403928907654-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Getty\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 10 of \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift's Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Most people involved with games and learning are familiar with the work of \u003ca href=\"http://www.jamespaulgee.com/\" target=\"_blank\">James Paul Gee\u003c/a>. A researcher in the field of theoretical linguistics, he argues for the consideration of multiple kinds of literacy. The notion of “New Literacies” expands the conception of literacy beyond books and reading to include visual symbols and other types of representation made possible through, among other things, current digital technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At this point in the evolution of education, it's critical that we expand our conception of literacy to include more than just words. In fact, we may need to reimagine how we nurture early literacy to make sure we provide a foundation not only for reading, but also for “New Literacies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gee is included in this series because outside of academic psycholinguistics circles, he's especially well known for his work on video games. He’s written and edited many books on game-based learning and education. He’s influenced countless game designers and educators. Some of his theories have provided the foundation for many of the ideas I’ve covered in this series, especially those having to do with systems thinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the following conversation with Gee, we discuss literacy, systems thinking, education, socio-economic inequality, and, of course, video games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jordan Shapiro: Your book, \u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>, \u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cb>is a classic in games and learning circles. It is rare that I meet a game developer who doesn’t mention it. Did you expect it to have such a big impact when you wrote it?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>James Paul Gee:\u003c/b> No, I did not expect such a big impact. I wrote the book because my then six-year-old’s gaming turned me on to try an adult game. I had never played video games before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was, at first, truly amazed by how hard and long they were. To learn to play them well required a great deal of persistence past failure. Eventually, I loved playing games and realized that if I did not write about them I would not have an academic career anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: One of key concepts in the book is that literacy is about more than just reading words. I find that it is a bit of a leap for people who aren’t familiar with linguistics to grasp that idea. These days we talk about “digital literacy” and “financial literacy” as if it just means “competency.” But it is more complicated than that. Can you briefly explain how literacy and systems thinking are related?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\"We cannot change our society in one fell swoop. Sneak in, move quietly, attack unseen, put away the suit—be a snake.\"\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JG: \u003c/b>The human brain devotes only one special function to reading (namely, decoding sounds into letters and vice-versa). Otherwise, all the mental capacities that we use to understand and give meaning to print are the very same ones we use to understand and give meaning to oral language and to the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Current work on the mind argues that words gain meaning from experiences we have had in the world. We use our previous experiences to build simulations (images and actions) that we attach to words to assign them contextually appropriate meanings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a sense, then, video games are like an external version of the mind. When we understand things and plan actions we run game-like role-playing simulations in our heads. In a sense, our mind is a game engine. We can combine elements from disparate experiences and create fantasies and think through complex problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>System thinking involves being able to think in terms of complex interacting variables that make a system more than the sum of its parts. We most certainly want to see much of the social and natural world in these terms, since being stupid about systems (e.g., global warming) can lead to nasty unintended consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-35200 alignright\" style=\"border: 0\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/04/MindShiftGames-140x140.png\" alt=\"MindShiftGames\" width=\"140\" height=\"140\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Video games are complex systems composed of rules that interact. Gamers must think like a designer and form hypotheses about how the rules interact so they can accomplish goals and even bring about emergent results. Thinking like a designer in order to understand systems is a core 21st Century skill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: Okay, so systems thinking is related to literacy, but certainly playing video games won’t teach kids how to read books, will it? In fact, the way you’re talking about literacy, it applies to more than just the language arts. And thinking in this way about literacy makes it easy to see that STEM and ELA are fundamentally both just semiotic systems. Why is this concept so important to the future of education? \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JG: \u003c/b>Understanding oral and written language involves essentially running video-game like simulations in our heads. We run problem-based simulations where we try out various actions in our heads (as ourselves or someone else) and gauge their possible consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A game manual is given meaning by the game world it is about, not by a dictionary. A physics textbook is a “game manual” for the actions, experiences, and problem solving that physicists engage in. The textbook, too, is given meaning by the “game” and the world it is played in (a somewhat different world than our everyday world, since physicists, thanks to their tools, can see things like electrons).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In school, we give people texts when they have not had enough experience in the worlds the texts are about, the experiences that give the texts meaning. It is as if we were to give kids game manuals without the games. It only works for kids who are getting a lot of experiences at home—backed up by lots of talk with adults about these experiences, talk which helps the kids learn to map language on to experience and vice-versa—but it is disastrous for less advantaged kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether it is STEM or ELA, if we do not deliver the game, but only the text, we do not get problem solvers and system thinkers, we get, at best, paper-and-pencil test passers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: Clearly, you’re not just proposing that we throw video games into the existing educational landscape willy nilly, are you? It is not that games are going to improve test scores or content retention. You’re suggesting we need to fundamentally change the way we think about learning--or at least the way we think about what and how we TEACH. Can you explain?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JG: \u003c/b>Yes and Amen\u003cb>. \u003c/b>Games can be used—like any other technology—to instantiate the current paradigm of mindless testing, punitive accountability, and fact-based education untied to thinking or problem solving. However, this is like using a machine gun to kill an ant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Games and other related technologies—together of course with talk and texts—have the potential to radically change the paradigm and unless we do change the paradigm they will just be co-opted by the current grammar of schooling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"52e2e87a7242e283de52ab5570606319\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schools today contribute to our massive inequality by providing (some of) the rich with a good education and the poor with test-prep to fit them for future service jobs. In the face of making profit and competing with near monopolies, it is easy to sell out and become part of the problem and not part of the solution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is a reason why the great game heroes we love (e.g., Solid Snake, Gordon Freeman, Lara Croft, Mario) don’t wear suits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: It seems to me, then, that your message is more about learning from games than it is about using games. Am I correct? Your (and my) vision of a utopian school doesn’t look like a video game convention full of kids clutching joysticks. So, if you had to pick one primary way of thinking about learning/teaching that our schools should appropriate from video game developers--the big soundbite takeaway--what would it be? \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>JG:\u003c/strong> I want to bring rich, well-mentored, well-designed learning systems to school. These systems would connect digital tools, other technologies, interactions, talk, and text (each being used for what they are best for) to marry experience and language in the name of problem-solving and design thinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36569\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 254px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36569\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/gjames_l.jpg\" alt=\"James Paul Gee\" width=\"254\" height=\"237\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">James Paul Gee\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: Still, video games can be one tool that’s used in the classroom, right? It is possible to design really impactful game-based learning platforms, isn’t it? In addition to the lessons we can learn about education from video games, do you think we should continue to integrate games into some parts of the school curricula? \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JG: \u003c/b>Of course. But I am against any one tool (think textbook) being used for everything. I want all the best tools we have used in concert with each other to create collective intelligence. I want tools to be recruited in a learning system to do the jobs for which they are best fitted (which might be different in differently designed learning systems).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, games are often good for preparation for future learning, motivation, and getting lots of practice in core skills and concepts at an experiential level. They can be good, as well, at helping learners to form non-cognitive skills like passion-fueled persistence past failure in the name of copious deliberate (thoughtful, strategic) practice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: How about on a practical everyday level? Teachers are operating within an environment that you’ve called a “toxic mess.” They might change the way they think about education and literacy, but actually changing the way they teach is a much bigger challenge. Parents and politicians say they want to fix education, but they stubbornly resist anything that looks like a paradigm shift. Do you have any suggestions for how teachers might begin to make incremental changes within a maddening infrastructure?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>JG:\u003c/strong> The goal is not to make the prison better, it is to let the prisoners (students and teachers) free. Our society today is a mess. We have the highest level of inequality we have ever had. We readily ignore and even disdain evidence (e.g., global warming, evolution). We have a casino capitalism unmoored from productivity or social good. School reform has very little to do with schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are no other silver bullets. The problem of making school good for everyone is one of having the \u003ci>social will\u003c/i> to gain more equality in our society, to honor more than money and status, and to give everyone the right to be a producer and participant--not just a consumer and spectator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We keep talking about schools and teachers, because we do not want to talk about society, ourselves, and the craven way we have empowered the rich, corporations, and rampant social Darwinism. We cannot change our society in one fell swoop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sneak in, move quietly, attack unseen, put away the suit—be a snake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: In your most recent book, \u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>The Anti-Education Era: Creating Smarter Students Through Digital Learning, \u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cb>you express a lot of concern about how technology is integrated into schools. What is it that worries you?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JG: \u003c/b>What worries me is the way in which we in the United States have enshrined human stupidity. In an age where interacting complex systems are killing us with the consequences of greed and stupidity, we regularly disdain evidence and honor ideology. Lots of Americans believe the Earth is about 6000 years old, do not believe in evolution, and think that Christianity was about wealth and a form of social Darwinism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For me, evidence means trying to do something in the world (as an everyday person or a scientist) and paying close and respectful attention to how the world responds to our “probe.” Is its response good for our goals or should we rethink and act again in a new way? When we disrespect the world, the world bites back and, boy, is it biting back now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our current situation is now too dire and the complexity of the world is now too great for us to any longer rely on traditional silo-based notions of expertise (look what Alan Greenspan did to the global economy).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We need collective intelligence where we view humans, in mind and body, as plug and play devices that get smart only when they are plugged into good tools, good people, and good practices in the service of pooling knowledge and diversity to make the world a better place. Games like \u003ci>Foldit\u003c/i> or things like \u003ci>Galaxy Zoo\u003c/i> are already interesting beginnings here. Digital and social media can niche our silos into pure echo chambers or they can create worlds of new experiences and possibilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: What do parents and educators need to know about the future of education and the future of game-based learning? Some things about edtech are inevitable, are there places where we need to be especially mindful?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>JG:\u003c/strong> When I say in talks that Armageddon is upon us, people laugh and dismiss the claim as far-fetched. But the reality is Armageddon has already come for untold millions of people in the world who are starving and dying as the consequences of global warming, the global economy, and conflicts over resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is clear from massive amounts of research that while we cannot predict what will happen in the future—because we have created a swarm of black swans due our greed and stupidity—we can say it will be a time of great change and transformation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People and institutions will have to be resilient and change with change. They will have to gain very real skills with critical thinking and complexity in order not to be dupes and victims of the rich, corporations, media, and governments. They must become activists, knowers, producers, and participants and plug into and play with right team of people and tools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This requires ethical thinking and a vision for a better world. People must become proactive, deliberate learners in and out of school and for their lifetimes. Good parents and good teachers must mentor them to be such deliberate, strategic, and ethical learners. Then people will face the future as gamers gaming systems to mod our world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: Anything else you want to say that I haven’t asked you about?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>JG:\u003c/strong> Don’t trust people in suits who don’t game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a> is made possible through the generous support of the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/math-science-history-games-break-boundaries-between-subjects-interdisciplinary-learning/www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Joan Ganz Cooney Center\u003c/a> and is a project of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/initiative/games-and-learning-publishing-council-analyzing-a-rising-sector/\" target=\"_blank\">Games and Learning Publishing Council\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36573\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36573\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/462354351-e1403928907654.jpg\" alt=\"Getty\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/462354351-e1403928907654.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/462354351-e1403928907654-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/462354351-e1403928907654-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Getty\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 10 of \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift's Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Most people involved with games and learning are familiar with the work of \u003ca href=\"http://www.jamespaulgee.com/\" target=\"_blank\">James Paul Gee\u003c/a>. A researcher in the field of theoretical linguistics, he argues for the consideration of multiple kinds of literacy. The notion of “New Literacies” expands the conception of literacy beyond books and reading to include visual symbols and other types of representation made possible through, among other things, current digital technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At this point in the evolution of education, it's critical that we expand our conception of literacy to include more than just words. In fact, we may need to reimagine how we nurture early literacy to make sure we provide a foundation not only for reading, but also for “New Literacies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gee is included in this series because outside of academic psycholinguistics circles, he's especially well known for his work on video games. He’s written and edited many books on game-based learning and education. He’s influenced countless game designers and educators. Some of his theories have provided the foundation for many of the ideas I’ve covered in this series, especially those having to do with systems thinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the following conversation with Gee, we discuss literacy, systems thinking, education, socio-economic inequality, and, of course, video games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jordan Shapiro: Your book, \u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>, \u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cb>is a classic in games and learning circles. It is rare that I meet a game developer who doesn’t mention it. Did you expect it to have such a big impact when you wrote it?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>James Paul Gee:\u003c/b> No, I did not expect such a big impact. I wrote the book because my then six-year-old’s gaming turned me on to try an adult game. I had never played video games before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was, at first, truly amazed by how hard and long they were. To learn to play them well required a great deal of persistence past failure. Eventually, I loved playing games and realized that if I did not write about them I would not have an academic career anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: One of key concepts in the book is that literacy is about more than just reading words. I find that it is a bit of a leap for people who aren’t familiar with linguistics to grasp that idea. These days we talk about “digital literacy” and “financial literacy” as if it just means “competency.” But it is more complicated than that. Can you briefly explain how literacy and systems thinking are related?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\"We cannot change our society in one fell swoop. Sneak in, move quietly, attack unseen, put away the suit—be a snake.\"\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JG: \u003c/b>The human brain devotes only one special function to reading (namely, decoding sounds into letters and vice-versa). Otherwise, all the mental capacities that we use to understand and give meaning to print are the very same ones we use to understand and give meaning to oral language and to the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Current work on the mind argues that words gain meaning from experiences we have had in the world. We use our previous experiences to build simulations (images and actions) that we attach to words to assign them contextually appropriate meanings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a sense, then, video games are like an external version of the mind. When we understand things and plan actions we run game-like role-playing simulations in our heads. In a sense, our mind is a game engine. We can combine elements from disparate experiences and create fantasies and think through complex problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>System thinking involves being able to think in terms of complex interacting variables that make a system more than the sum of its parts. We most certainly want to see much of the social and natural world in these terms, since being stupid about systems (e.g., global warming) can lead to nasty unintended consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-35200 alignright\" style=\"border: 0\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/04/MindShiftGames-140x140.png\" alt=\"MindShiftGames\" width=\"140\" height=\"140\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Video games are complex systems composed of rules that interact. Gamers must think like a designer and form hypotheses about how the rules interact so they can accomplish goals and even bring about emergent results. Thinking like a designer in order to understand systems is a core 21st Century skill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: Okay, so systems thinking is related to literacy, but certainly playing video games won’t teach kids how to read books, will it? In fact, the way you’re talking about literacy, it applies to more than just the language arts. And thinking in this way about literacy makes it easy to see that STEM and ELA are fundamentally both just semiotic systems. Why is this concept so important to the future of education? \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JG: \u003c/b>Understanding oral and written language involves essentially running video-game like simulations in our heads. We run problem-based simulations where we try out various actions in our heads (as ourselves or someone else) and gauge their possible consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A game manual is given meaning by the game world it is about, not by a dictionary. A physics textbook is a “game manual” for the actions, experiences, and problem solving that physicists engage in. The textbook, too, is given meaning by the “game” and the world it is played in (a somewhat different world than our everyday world, since physicists, thanks to their tools, can see things like electrons).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In school, we give people texts when they have not had enough experience in the worlds the texts are about, the experiences that give the texts meaning. It is as if we were to give kids game manuals without the games. It only works for kids who are getting a lot of experiences at home—backed up by lots of talk with adults about these experiences, talk which helps the kids learn to map language on to experience and vice-versa—but it is disastrous for less advantaged kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether it is STEM or ELA, if we do not deliver the game, but only the text, we do not get problem solvers and system thinkers, we get, at best, paper-and-pencil test passers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: Clearly, you’re not just proposing that we throw video games into the existing educational landscape willy nilly, are you? It is not that games are going to improve test scores or content retention. You’re suggesting we need to fundamentally change the way we think about learning--or at least the way we think about what and how we TEACH. Can you explain?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JG: \u003c/b>Yes and Amen\u003cb>. \u003c/b>Games can be used—like any other technology—to instantiate the current paradigm of mindless testing, punitive accountability, and fact-based education untied to thinking or problem solving. However, this is like using a machine gun to kill an ant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Games and other related technologies—together of course with talk and texts—have the potential to radically change the paradigm and unless we do change the paradigm they will just be co-opted by the current grammar of schooling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schools today contribute to our massive inequality by providing (some of) the rich with a good education and the poor with test-prep to fit them for future service jobs. In the face of making profit and competing with near monopolies, it is easy to sell out and become part of the problem and not part of the solution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is a reason why the great game heroes we love (e.g., Solid Snake, Gordon Freeman, Lara Croft, Mario) don’t wear suits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: It seems to me, then, that your message is more about learning from games than it is about using games. Am I correct? Your (and my) vision of a utopian school doesn’t look like a video game convention full of kids clutching joysticks. So, if you had to pick one primary way of thinking about learning/teaching that our schools should appropriate from video game developers--the big soundbite takeaway--what would it be? \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>JG:\u003c/strong> I want to bring rich, well-mentored, well-designed learning systems to school. These systems would connect digital tools, other technologies, interactions, talk, and text (each being used for what they are best for) to marry experience and language in the name of problem-solving and design thinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36569\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 254px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36569\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/gjames_l.jpg\" alt=\"James Paul Gee\" width=\"254\" height=\"237\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">James Paul Gee\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: Still, video games can be one tool that’s used in the classroom, right? It is possible to design really impactful game-based learning platforms, isn’t it? In addition to the lessons we can learn about education from video games, do you think we should continue to integrate games into some parts of the school curricula? \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JG: \u003c/b>Of course. But I am against any one tool (think textbook) being used for everything. I want all the best tools we have used in concert with each other to create collective intelligence. I want tools to be recruited in a learning system to do the jobs for which they are best fitted (which might be different in differently designed learning systems).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, games are often good for preparation for future learning, motivation, and getting lots of practice in core skills and concepts at an experiential level. They can be good, as well, at helping learners to form non-cognitive skills like passion-fueled persistence past failure in the name of copious deliberate (thoughtful, strategic) practice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: How about on a practical everyday level? Teachers are operating within an environment that you’ve called a “toxic mess.” They might change the way they think about education and literacy, but actually changing the way they teach is a much bigger challenge. Parents and politicians say they want to fix education, but they stubbornly resist anything that looks like a paradigm shift. Do you have any suggestions for how teachers might begin to make incremental changes within a maddening infrastructure?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>JG:\u003c/strong> The goal is not to make the prison better, it is to let the prisoners (students and teachers) free. Our society today is a mess. We have the highest level of inequality we have ever had. We readily ignore and even disdain evidence (e.g., global warming, evolution). We have a casino capitalism unmoored from productivity or social good. School reform has very little to do with schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are no other silver bullets. The problem of making school good for everyone is one of having the \u003ci>social will\u003c/i> to gain more equality in our society, to honor more than money and status, and to give everyone the right to be a producer and participant--not just a consumer and spectator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We keep talking about schools and teachers, because we do not want to talk about society, ourselves, and the craven way we have empowered the rich, corporations, and rampant social Darwinism. We cannot change our society in one fell swoop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sneak in, move quietly, attack unseen, put away the suit—be a snake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: In your most recent book, \u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>The Anti-Education Era: Creating Smarter Students Through Digital Learning, \u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cb>you express a lot of concern about how technology is integrated into schools. What is it that worries you?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JG: \u003c/b>What worries me is the way in which we in the United States have enshrined human stupidity. In an age where interacting complex systems are killing us with the consequences of greed and stupidity, we regularly disdain evidence and honor ideology. Lots of Americans believe the Earth is about 6000 years old, do not believe in evolution, and think that Christianity was about wealth and a form of social Darwinism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For me, evidence means trying to do something in the world (as an everyday person or a scientist) and paying close and respectful attention to how the world responds to our “probe.” Is its response good for our goals or should we rethink and act again in a new way? When we disrespect the world, the world bites back and, boy, is it biting back now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our current situation is now too dire and the complexity of the world is now too great for us to any longer rely on traditional silo-based notions of expertise (look what Alan Greenspan did to the global economy).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We need collective intelligence where we view humans, in mind and body, as plug and play devices that get smart only when they are plugged into good tools, good people, and good practices in the service of pooling knowledge and diversity to make the world a better place. Games like \u003ci>Foldit\u003c/i> or things like \u003ci>Galaxy Zoo\u003c/i> are already interesting beginnings here. Digital and social media can niche our silos into pure echo chambers or they can create worlds of new experiences and possibilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: What do parents and educators need to know about the future of education and the future of game-based learning? Some things about edtech are inevitable, are there places where we need to be especially mindful?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>JG:\u003c/strong> When I say in talks that Armageddon is upon us, people laugh and dismiss the claim as far-fetched. But the reality is Armageddon has already come for untold millions of people in the world who are starving and dying as the consequences of global warming, the global economy, and conflicts over resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is clear from massive amounts of research that while we cannot predict what will happen in the future—because we have created a swarm of black swans due our greed and stupidity—we can say it will be a time of great change and transformation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People and institutions will have to be resilient and change with change. They will have to gain very real skills with critical thinking and complexity in order not to be dupes and victims of the rich, corporations, media, and governments. They must become activists, knowers, producers, and participants and plug into and play with right team of people and tools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This requires ethical thinking and a vision for a better world. People must become proactive, deliberate learners in and out of school and for their lifetimes. Good parents and good teachers must mentor them to be such deliberate, strategic, and ethical learners. Then people will face the future as gamers gaming systems to mod our world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: Anything else you want to say that I haven’t asked you about?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>JG:\u003c/strong> Don’t trust people in suits who don’t game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a> is made possible through the generous support of the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/math-science-history-games-break-boundaries-between-subjects-interdisciplinary-learning/www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Joan Ganz Cooney Center\u003c/a> and is a project of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/initiative/games-and-learning-publishing-council-analyzing-a-rising-sector/\" target=\"_blank\">Games and Learning Publishing Council\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "A School Built Entirely Around the Love of Math",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36562\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36562\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/4521936771-e1403927077744.jpg\" alt=\"Getty\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/4521936771-e1403927077744.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/4521936771-e1403927077744-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/4521936771-e1403927077744-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Getty\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Prodigies in piano or dance can study at schools like Juilliard to develop their musical or performing arts talent. By contrast, nothing like Juilliard exists for children who show great promise at math. But an ambitious experiment will soon change that: In fall 2015, a small, independent school that's exclusively tailored for math whizzes will open in downtown San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Designers of the new, non-profit \u003ca href=\"http://proofschool.org/2013/12/01/welcome-to-proof-school/\">Proof School\u003c/a> intend to provide mathematically gifted youth an intensive and complete education in grades 6-12 that typical schools can't muster. The pupils will learn advanced areas of math, such as number theory topics that a university math major or graduate student might tackle. They'll work on math research projects, and engage in community service through math tutoring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"They're going to be involved in math in a really different way, a really exciting and dynamic way,\" said Sam Vandervelde, who is leaving his math professorship at St. Lawrence University in New York to become the new school's dean of mathematical sciences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proof School will initially open with roughly 45 children in three grades, with plans to grow to around 250 students in a decade. Getting in \u003ca href=\"http://proofschool.org/about/admissions/\">won't be easy\u003c/a>, but the school's mission is to serve the needs of \u003ca href=\"http://proofschool.org/faq/do-you-have-a-math-kid/\">\"math kids\"\u003c/a> in the Bay Area -- ranging from high-IQ wunderkind types to students who participate in math competitions or math circles, to children who love to play with numbers. \"What we want is kids who are passionate about math,\" said Paul Zeitz, school co-founder and chair of mathematics at the University of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Roots in Math Circle Culture\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The new school takes its inspiration from \u003ca href=\"http://www.mathcircles.org/Wiki_WhatIsAMathCircle_HistoryOfMathCircles\">math circles\u003c/a>, an Eastern European and Russian tradition that spread to the U.S. \u003ca href=\"http://www.themathcircle.org/history.php\">starting in the 1990s\u003c/a>. These weekly extracurricular clubs bring youngsters together with a mathematician who guides them in exploring numerical ideas and concepts in depth. It's often a highly interactive conversation, with the kids avidly chiming in with questions and thoughts.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\"We want to develop and nurture every one of those kids and bring them along as far as they are capable of going.\"\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>For kids who live and breathe for numbers, the experience can be transformative, as Ian Brown of Marin County, Calif., can attest. In 2011, he began taking his 10-year-old son, Nico, to \u003ca href=\"http://www.themonthly.com/feature1404.html\">local math circles\u003c/a>. Nico hadn't been happy or thriving in his public elementary school, because \"he wasn't finding kids in his classes who understood what he was going on about when he was talking about higher mathematics,\" Brown said. But math circle changed everything. \"Not only did the lights go on, but the heart went on,\" he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About a year later, Nico joined an advanced, invitation-only math circle for a half dozen students that was led by Zeitz. \"Here they all are, for two hours once a week, joyful, joyful, joyful,\" Brown recalled. One day in January 2013, as he watched the group animatedly discussing how many ways there are to color a cube with two colors, he turned to another student's father, Dennis Leary, and marveled: \"Look at these guys, they're thrilled to be working together. Why don't we do this all day long -- and every day?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown wanted to build a school for kids like his son \"that they feel is really meant for them.\" One conversation led to another and to the birth of Proof School, with him, Leary, and Zeitz as co-founders. To jumpstart it, Brown left his job as a language-arts teacher and dean at a private school for gifted and talented youth where his son, now 13, currently attends seventh grade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While San Francisco has several high-caliber schools, including Lowell High School, it lacks specialized science schools such as Stuyvesant High School in New York City or the\u003ca href=\"http://www.ncssm.edu/\"> North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics\u003c/a> in Durham. But Proof School won't be like any school out there, anywhere, Zeitz said. Not only will its student body be different -- they'll all have exceptional math ability -- but so will its teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a traditional school, a teacher in a top-notch math classroom might take students on the intellectual equivalent of a strenuous hike that brings them to top of the hill. But as Zeitz put it, \"what they don't realize is that they're in this incredible mountain range, which they can't see because their teacher doesn't know how to get them to put on a hang glider and jump off the cliff and see the entire topography at once.\" Proof School teachers will ideally have math Ph.D.s and the deep expertise to do that, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As in math-circle style, the curriculum will emphasize working on and communicating about interesting math problems. Because one of Proof School's guiding principles or \"axioms\" is not to waste their pupils' time, the kids will be spared the unchallenging busy work or mind-numbing exercises that are common in standard schools, Zeitz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Afternoons Dedicated to Numbers\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Every afternoon, students will spend two-and-a-half to three hours learning mathematical sciences, including computer science. Following an unconventional block curriculum structure, the academic year will be broken into six blocks of math instruction that each immerse the entire school in a single topic (such as problem solving or algebra) for five weeks straight. For each topic, kids will be placed into 10 to 12 different tiers by their skill level, Vandervelde said, which allows a lot of flexibility in meeting their individual needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We'll sort kids into groups based on what they're ready for,\" he said, not by age or grade. Some off-the-charts precocious students will be able to take on very advanced problems at the level of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.maa.org/news/usa-mathematical-olympiad\">U.S.A. Mathematical Olympiad\u003c/a>, and \"we're going to be ready for them too,\" said Vandervelde, who, like Zeitz, competed in the International Mathematical Olympiad as a teenager. \"We want to develop and nurture every one of those kids and bring them along as far as they are capable of going.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recruiting girls to the school is a high priority, Zeitz said, noting that many young girls are enthusiastic about math but often drop out in their interest between sixth and ninth grades. \"We would like to fight that trend as much as possible,\" he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"1da5b991e20a8c0bff3dbd091fd87aad\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond numbers, the school will offer a full education, with non-math courses in English, history, languages, and science all scheduled in the mornings in a traditional grade-level manner. Proof School's teaching style will also draw upon \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/08/four-essential-principles-of-blended-learning/\">blended learning\u003c/a> methods that make use of technology in the classroom, as well as \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/07/the-challenges-and-realities-of-inquiry-based-learning/\">inquiry-based learning\u003c/a> practices. Because classroom facility space will initially be limited, the founders plan to tap nearby educational resources: Students might go to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science-jan-june13-science_05-07/\">Exploratorium\u003c/a> for hands-on science learning, to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.moadsf.org/\">Museum of the African Diaspora\u003c/a> for history, and to \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/business/11ping.html?dbk\">TechShop\u003c/a> for 21st century shop class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since some math kids are not exactly social butterflies when it comes to people skills, the school's guiding axioms also make a point of teaching students how to engage with and navigate the world around them. \"We will work as hard on social-emotional intelligence and communication skills -- writing and public speaking -- as we will on anything else,\" Zeitz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Turning a Math Dream into Reality\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Zeitz and his colleagues have much work ahead to make all the prime factors of their creative ideas, logistical plans, and hiring goals -- which includes finding a charismatic humanities dean who \"is able to stand up to math nerds,\" he said -- add up to an equation for success. They're getting ready to launch an early admissions program and give \"a day in the life\" school preview this summer. Currently in fundraising mode, the founders hope to secure at least $1 million in order to keep the private tuition as low as possible and provide ample scholarships and financial aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To make the school accessible to math kids around the Bay Area, the campus will be located near public transit, most likely in San Francisco's South Financial District area. The founders also plan to share their math curriculum and resources with the world in an open-source way, which will include hosting math talks and events for the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many families in Silicon Valley have expressed strong interest in Proof School, but other reactions have ranged from \u003ca href=\"http://quomodocumque.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/proof-school-its-not-just-for-math-kids-anymore/\">initial skepticism\u003c/a> to some concerns that the school will be elitist. \"We're not going to be elitist but we will be elite,\" Brown said. \"We're not going to be snobby. We're simply taking kids who operate at this [intellectual] level and putting them together with their peers, which they haven't had in the past. And many have suffered for it.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His own son, for example, is leaving his private middle school after this academic year because he has no math peers there, Brown said. If all goes well, after a gap year of homeschooling, the plan is to start Nico in ninth grade at Proof School in September 2015. \"Oh, he can't wait!\" Brown said.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36562\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36562\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/4521936771-e1403927077744.jpg\" alt=\"Getty\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/4521936771-e1403927077744.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/4521936771-e1403927077744-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/4521936771-e1403927077744-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Getty\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Prodigies in piano or dance can study at schools like Juilliard to develop their musical or performing arts talent. By contrast, nothing like Juilliard exists for children who show great promise at math. But an ambitious experiment will soon change that: In fall 2015, a small, independent school that's exclusively tailored for math whizzes will open in downtown San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Designers of the new, non-profit \u003ca href=\"http://proofschool.org/2013/12/01/welcome-to-proof-school/\">Proof School\u003c/a> intend to provide mathematically gifted youth an intensive and complete education in grades 6-12 that typical schools can't muster. The pupils will learn advanced areas of math, such as number theory topics that a university math major or graduate student might tackle. They'll work on math research projects, and engage in community service through math tutoring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"They're going to be involved in math in a really different way, a really exciting and dynamic way,\" said Sam Vandervelde, who is leaving his math professorship at St. Lawrence University in New York to become the new school's dean of mathematical sciences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proof School will initially open with roughly 45 children in three grades, with plans to grow to around 250 students in a decade. Getting in \u003ca href=\"http://proofschool.org/about/admissions/\">won't be easy\u003c/a>, but the school's mission is to serve the needs of \u003ca href=\"http://proofschool.org/faq/do-you-have-a-math-kid/\">\"math kids\"\u003c/a> in the Bay Area -- ranging from high-IQ wunderkind types to students who participate in math competitions or math circles, to children who love to play with numbers. \"What we want is kids who are passionate about math,\" said Paul Zeitz, school co-founder and chair of mathematics at the University of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Roots in Math Circle Culture\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The new school takes its inspiration from \u003ca href=\"http://www.mathcircles.org/Wiki_WhatIsAMathCircle_HistoryOfMathCircles\">math circles\u003c/a>, an Eastern European and Russian tradition that spread to the U.S. \u003ca href=\"http://www.themathcircle.org/history.php\">starting in the 1990s\u003c/a>. These weekly extracurricular clubs bring youngsters together with a mathematician who guides them in exploring numerical ideas and concepts in depth. It's often a highly interactive conversation, with the kids avidly chiming in with questions and thoughts.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\"We want to develop and nurture every one of those kids and bring them along as far as they are capable of going.\"\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>For kids who live and breathe for numbers, the experience can be transformative, as Ian Brown of Marin County, Calif., can attest. In 2011, he began taking his 10-year-old son, Nico, to \u003ca href=\"http://www.themonthly.com/feature1404.html\">local math circles\u003c/a>. Nico hadn't been happy or thriving in his public elementary school, because \"he wasn't finding kids in his classes who understood what he was going on about when he was talking about higher mathematics,\" Brown said. But math circle changed everything. \"Not only did the lights go on, but the heart went on,\" he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About a year later, Nico joined an advanced, invitation-only math circle for a half dozen students that was led by Zeitz. \"Here they all are, for two hours once a week, joyful, joyful, joyful,\" Brown recalled. One day in January 2013, as he watched the group animatedly discussing how many ways there are to color a cube with two colors, he turned to another student's father, Dennis Leary, and marveled: \"Look at these guys, they're thrilled to be working together. Why don't we do this all day long -- and every day?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown wanted to build a school for kids like his son \"that they feel is really meant for them.\" One conversation led to another and to the birth of Proof School, with him, Leary, and Zeitz as co-founders. To jumpstart it, Brown left his job as a language-arts teacher and dean at a private school for gifted and talented youth where his son, now 13, currently attends seventh grade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While San Francisco has several high-caliber schools, including Lowell High School, it lacks specialized science schools such as Stuyvesant High School in New York City or the\u003ca href=\"http://www.ncssm.edu/\"> North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics\u003c/a> in Durham. But Proof School won't be like any school out there, anywhere, Zeitz said. Not only will its student body be different -- they'll all have exceptional math ability -- but so will its teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a traditional school, a teacher in a top-notch math classroom might take students on the intellectual equivalent of a strenuous hike that brings them to top of the hill. But as Zeitz put it, \"what they don't realize is that they're in this incredible mountain range, which they can't see because their teacher doesn't know how to get them to put on a hang glider and jump off the cliff and see the entire topography at once.\" Proof School teachers will ideally have math Ph.D.s and the deep expertise to do that, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As in math-circle style, the curriculum will emphasize working on and communicating about interesting math problems. Because one of Proof School's guiding principles or \"axioms\" is not to waste their pupils' time, the kids will be spared the unchallenging busy work or mind-numbing exercises that are common in standard schools, Zeitz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Afternoons Dedicated to Numbers\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Every afternoon, students will spend two-and-a-half to three hours learning mathematical sciences, including computer science. Following an unconventional block curriculum structure, the academic year will be broken into six blocks of math instruction that each immerse the entire school in a single topic (such as problem solving or algebra) for five weeks straight. For each topic, kids will be placed into 10 to 12 different tiers by their skill level, Vandervelde said, which allows a lot of flexibility in meeting their individual needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We'll sort kids into groups based on what they're ready for,\" he said, not by age or grade. Some off-the-charts precocious students will be able to take on very advanced problems at the level of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.maa.org/news/usa-mathematical-olympiad\">U.S.A. Mathematical Olympiad\u003c/a>, and \"we're going to be ready for them too,\" said Vandervelde, who, like Zeitz, competed in the International Mathematical Olympiad as a teenager. \"We want to develop and nurture every one of those kids and bring them along as far as they are capable of going.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recruiting girls to the school is a high priority, Zeitz said, noting that many young girls are enthusiastic about math but often drop out in their interest between sixth and ninth grades. \"We would like to fight that trend as much as possible,\" he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond numbers, the school will offer a full education, with non-math courses in English, history, languages, and science all scheduled in the mornings in a traditional grade-level manner. Proof School's teaching style will also draw upon \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/08/four-essential-principles-of-blended-learning/\">blended learning\u003c/a> methods that make use of technology in the classroom, as well as \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/07/the-challenges-and-realities-of-inquiry-based-learning/\">inquiry-based learning\u003c/a> practices. Because classroom facility space will initially be limited, the founders plan to tap nearby educational resources: Students might go to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science-jan-june13-science_05-07/\">Exploratorium\u003c/a> for hands-on science learning, to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.moadsf.org/\">Museum of the African Diaspora\u003c/a> for history, and to \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/business/11ping.html?dbk\">TechShop\u003c/a> for 21st century shop class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since some math kids are not exactly social butterflies when it comes to people skills, the school's guiding axioms also make a point of teaching students how to engage with and navigate the world around them. \"We will work as hard on social-emotional intelligence and communication skills -- writing and public speaking -- as we will on anything else,\" Zeitz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Turning a Math Dream into Reality\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Zeitz and his colleagues have much work ahead to make all the prime factors of their creative ideas, logistical plans, and hiring goals -- which includes finding a charismatic humanities dean who \"is able to stand up to math nerds,\" he said -- add up to an equation for success. They're getting ready to launch an early admissions program and give \"a day in the life\" school preview this summer. Currently in fundraising mode, the founders hope to secure at least $1 million in order to keep the private tuition as low as possible and provide ample scholarships and financial aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To make the school accessible to math kids around the Bay Area, the campus will be located near public transit, most likely in San Francisco's South Financial District area. The founders also plan to share their math curriculum and resources with the world in an open-source way, which will include hosting math talks and events for the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many families in Silicon Valley have expressed strong interest in Proof School, but other reactions have ranged from \u003ca href=\"http://quomodocumque.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/proof-school-its-not-just-for-math-kids-anymore/\">initial skepticism\u003c/a> to some concerns that the school will be elitist. \"We're not going to be elitist but we will be elite,\" Brown said. \"We're not going to be snobby. We're simply taking kids who operate at this [intellectual] level and putting them together with their peers, which they haven't had in the past. And many have suffered for it.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His own son, for example, is leaving his private middle school after this academic year because he has no math peers there, Brown said. If all goes well, after a gap year of homeschooling, the plan is to start Nico in ninth grade at Proof School in September 2015. \"Oh, he can't wait!\" Brown said.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "For Creative Problem-Solving, Why Young Kids Can Outwit College Students ",
"title": "For Creative Problem-Solving, Why Young Kids Can Outwit College Students ",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-36595\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/istock_000024167344medium_wide-2f505cce4d345ac28e099a46733f94c0e954e1a4-s40-c85-e1404143051487.jpg\" alt=\"istock_000024167344medium_wide-2f505cce4d345ac28e099a46733f94c0e954e1a4-s40-c85\" width=\"640\" height=\"358\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/istock_000024167344medium_wide-2f505cce4d345ac28e099a46733f94c0e954e1a4-s40-c85-e1404143051487.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/istock_000024167344medium_wide-2f505cce4d345ac28e099a46733f94c0e954e1a4-s40-c85-e1404143051487-400x224.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/istock_000024167344medium_wide-2f505cce4d345ac28e099a46733f94c0e954e1a4-s40-c85-e1404143051487-320x179.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/06/30/325230618/preschoolers-outsmart-college-students-in-figuring-out-gadgets\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>By Michelle Trudeau\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Ever wonder why children can so easily figure out how to work the TV remote? Or why they \"totally get\" apps on your smartphone faster than you? It turns out that young children may be more open-minded than adults when it comes to solving problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at the \u003ca href=\"#_msocom_1\" name=\"_msoanchor_1\">\u003c/a>University of California, Berkeley have found that 4- and 5-year-olds are smarter than college students when it comes to figuring out how toys and gadgets work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Psychologist \u003ca href=\"http://psychology.berkeley.edu/people/alison-gopnik\">Alison Gopnik\u003c/a> led the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24566007\">study\u003c/a> along with her colleague \u003ca href=\"http://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/christopher-lucas%28bfd3e34d-dc8b-414c-afde-49851c9bbb87%29.html\">Christopher Lucas\u003c/a> from the University of Edinburgh. They wanted to find out what goes on in children's brains that allows them to learn so much so quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So they recruited over 100 preschoolers — 4- and 5-year-old boys and girls — and brought them into the lab. The kids had to figure out how to turn on a music box that could be activated by placing clay shapes either individually or in combination on top of the box. After being shown a whole series of different shapes and combinations, the children were asked if they could make the machine turn on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMaCtapBduU&w=420&h=315]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We were trying to see if very young children could figure out cause and effect,\" says Gopnik. \"What will the children do in that crucial question about making the machine go?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scientists also tested 170 college students. \"What we discovered, to our surprise, was not only were 4-year-olds amazingly good at doing this, but they were actually better at it than grown-ups were,\" Gopnik says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So why are little kids who can't even tie their shoes better at figuring out the gadget than adults? After all, conventional wisdom contends that young children really don't understand abstract things like cause and effect until pretty late in their development.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\n“The tests we have don’t do a good job of measuring what’s important to us and they don’t measure what they do measure very well.”\u003cbr>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Gopnik thinks it's because children approach solving the problem differently than adults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Children try a variety of novel ideas and unusual strategies to get the gadget to go. For example, Gopnik says, \"If the child sees that a square block and a round block independently turn the music on, then they'll take a square and take a circle and put them both on the machine together to make it go, even though they never actually saw the experimenters do that.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is flexible, fluid thinking — children exploring an unlikely hypothesis. Exploratory learning comes naturally to young children, says Gopnik. Adults, on the other hand, jump on the first, most obvious solution and doggedly stick to it, even if it's not working. That's inflexible, narrow thinking. \"We think the moral of the study is that maybe children are better at solving problems when the solution is an unexpected one,\" says Gopnik.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that flexibility may disappear earlier than we think. Gopnik's lab has also \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11/25/247160180/yes-your-toddler-really-is-smarter-than-a-5-year-old\">compared\u003c/a> toddlers and kindergartners in doing these tests of abstract thinking, and found that the diaper set are actually better at focusing on the relationship between the objects, rather than on the things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca name=\"_msocom_1\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Preschoolers+Outsmart+College+Students+In+Figuring+Out+Gadgets&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-36595\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/istock_000024167344medium_wide-2f505cce4d345ac28e099a46733f94c0e954e1a4-s40-c85-e1404143051487.jpg\" alt=\"istock_000024167344medium_wide-2f505cce4d345ac28e099a46733f94c0e954e1a4-s40-c85\" width=\"640\" height=\"358\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/istock_000024167344medium_wide-2f505cce4d345ac28e099a46733f94c0e954e1a4-s40-c85-e1404143051487.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/istock_000024167344medium_wide-2f505cce4d345ac28e099a46733f94c0e954e1a4-s40-c85-e1404143051487-400x224.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/istock_000024167344medium_wide-2f505cce4d345ac28e099a46733f94c0e954e1a4-s40-c85-e1404143051487-320x179.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/06/30/325230618/preschoolers-outsmart-college-students-in-figuring-out-gadgets\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>By Michelle Trudeau\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Ever wonder why children can so easily figure out how to work the TV remote? Or why they \"totally get\" apps on your smartphone faster than you? It turns out that young children may be more open-minded than adults when it comes to solving problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at the \u003ca href=\"#_msocom_1\" name=\"_msoanchor_1\">\u003c/a>University of California, Berkeley have found that 4- and 5-year-olds are smarter than college students when it comes to figuring out how toys and gadgets work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Psychologist \u003ca href=\"http://psychology.berkeley.edu/people/alison-gopnik\">Alison Gopnik\u003c/a> led the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24566007\">study\u003c/a> along with her colleague \u003ca href=\"http://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/christopher-lucas%28bfd3e34d-dc8b-414c-afde-49851c9bbb87%29.html\">Christopher Lucas\u003c/a> from the University of Edinburgh. They wanted to find out what goes on in children's brains that allows them to learn so much so quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36538\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/opportunity-gap.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36538\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/opportunity-gap.jpg\" alt=\"(Tina Barseghian)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/opportunity-gap.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/opportunity-gap-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/opportunity-gap-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Tina Barseghian)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">The local name for the Philadelphia neighborhood of Kensington is “the Badlands,” and with good reason. Pockmarked with empty lots and burned-out row houses, the area has an unemployment rate of 29 percent and a poverty rate of 90 percent. Just a few miles to the northwest, the genteel neighborhood of Chestnut Hill seems to belong to a different universe. Here, educated professionals shop the boutiques along Germantown Avenue and return home to gracious stone and brick houses, the average price of which hovers above $400,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within these very different communities, however, are two places remarkably similar in the resources they provide: the local public libraries. Each has been retooled with banks of new computers, the latest software and speedy Internet access. Susan B. Neuman, a professor of early childhood and literacy education at New York University, and Donna C. Celano, an assistant professor of communication at LaSalle University in Philadelphia, spent hundreds of hours in the Chestnut Hill and Badlands libraries, watching how patrons used the books and computers on offer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"9a8fc50cb7bffbee8608b4f676bc63d7\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two were especially interested in how the introduction of computers might “level the playing field” for the neighborhoods’ young people, children of “concentrated affluence” and “concentrated poverty.” They undertook their observations in a hopeful frame of mind: “Given the wizardry of these machines and their ability to support children’s self-teaching,” they wondered, “might we begin to see a closing of the opportunity gap?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many hours of observation and analysis later, Neuman and Celanano were forced to acknowledge a radically different outcome: “The very tool designed to level the playing field is, in fact, un-leveling it,” they wrote in a \u003ca href=\"http://store.tcpress.com/0807753580.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">2012 book based on their Philadelphia library study\u003c/a>. With the spread of educational technology, they predicted, “the not-so-small disparities in skills for children of affluence and children of poverty are about to get even larger.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neuman and Celano are not the only researchers to reach this surprising and distressing conclusion. While technology has often been hailed as the great equalizer of educational opportunity, a growing body of evidence indicates that in many cases, tech is actually having the opposite effect: it is increasing the gap between rich and poor, between whites and minorities, and between the school-ready and the less-prepared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is not a story of the familiar “digital divide” — a lack of access to technology for poor and minority children. This has to do, rather, with a phenomenon Neuman and Celano observed again and again in the two libraries: granted access to technology, affluent kids and poor kids use tech differently. They select different programs and features, engage in different types of mental activity, and come away with different kinds of knowledge and experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The un-leveling impact of technology also has to do with a phenomenon known as the “Matthew Effect”: the tendency for early advantages to multiply over time. Sociologist Robert Merton coined the term in 1968, making reference to a line in the gospel of Matthew (“for whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath”).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"pull-quote half right\">\"The very tool designed to level the playing field is, in fact, un-leveling it. The not-so-small disparities in skills for children of affluence and children of poverty are about to get even larger.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"https://eric.ed.gov./?id=EJ343639\" target=\"_blank\">paper published in 1986\u003c/a>, psychologists Keith E. Stanovich and Anne E. Cunningham applied the Matthew Effect to reading. They showed that children who get off to a strong early start with reading acquire more vocabulary words and more background knowledge, which in turn makes reading easier and more enjoyable, leading them to read still more: a virtuous cycle of achievement. Children who struggle early on with reading fail to acquire vocabulary and knowledge, find reading even more difficult as a result, and consequently do it less: a dispiriting downward spiral.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now researchers are beginning to document a digital Matthew Effect, in which the already advantaged gain more from technology than do the less fortunate. As with books and reading, the most knowledgeable, most experienced, and most supported students are those best positioned to use computers to leap further ahead. For example: In Texas’s \u003ca href=\"http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED536296\" target=\"_blank\">Technology Immersion Pilot\u003c/a>, a $20 million project carried out there beginning in 2003, laptops were randomly assigned to public middle school students. The benefit of owning one of these computers, researchers later determined, was significantly greater for those students whose test scores were high to begin with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This may stem in part from the influence of adults on children’s computer activities, as Susan Neuman and Donna Celano observed in the libraries they monitored. At the Chestnut Hill library, they found, young visitors to the computer area were almost always accompanied by a parent or grandparent. Adults positioned themselves close to the children and close to the screen, offering a stream of questions and suggestions. Kids were steered away from games and toward educational programs emphasizing letters, numbers and shapes. When the children became confused or frustrated, the grownups guided them to a solution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Badlands library boasted computers and software identical to Chestnut Hill’s, but here, children manipulated the computers on their own, while accompanying adults watched silently or remained in other areas of the library altogether. Lacking the “scaffolding” provided by the Chestnut Hill parents, the Badlands kids clicked around frenetically, rarely staying with one program for long. Older children figured out how to use the programs as games; younger children became discouraged and banged on the keyboard or wandered away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These different patterns of use had quantifiable effects on the children’s learning, Neuman and Celano showed. Chestnut Hill preschoolers encountered twice as many written words on computer screens as did Badlands children; the more affluent toddlers received 17 times as much adult attention while using the library’s computers as did their less privileged counterparts. The researchers documented differences among older kids as well: Chestnut Hill “tweens,” or 10- to 13-year-olds, spent five times as long reading informational text on computers as did Badlands tweens, who tended to gravitate toward online games and entertainment. When Badlands tweens did seek out information on the web, it was related to their homework only 9 percent of the time, while 39 percent of the Chestnut Hill tweens’ information searches were homework-related.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research is finding other differences in how economically disadvantaged children use technology. Some evidence suggests, for example, that schools in low-income neighborhoods are more apt to employ computers for drill and practice sessions than for creative or innovative projects. Poor children also bring less knowledge to their encounters with computers. Crucially, the comparatively rich background knowledge possessed by high-income students is not only about technology itself, but about everything in the wide world beyond one’s neighborhood. Not only are affluent kids more likely to know how to Google; they’re more likely to know what to Google for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Slogans like “one laptop per child” and “one-to-one computing” evoke an appealingly egalitarian vision: If every child has a computer, every child is starting off on equal footing. But though the sameness of the hardware may feel satisfyingly fair, it is superficial. A computer in the hands of a disadvantaged child is in an important sense not the same thing as a computer in the hands of a child of privilege.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The focus of educators, politicians, and philanthropists on differences in access to technology has obscured another problem: what some call “the second digital divide,” or differences in the use of technology. Access to adequate equipment and reliable high-speed connections remains a concern, of course. But improving the way that technology is employed in learning is an even bigger and more important issue. Addressing it would require a focus on people: training teachers, librarians, parents and children themselves to use computers effectively. It would require a focus on practices: what one researcher has called the dynamic “social envelope” that surrounds the hunks of plastic and silicon on our desks. And it would require a focus on knowledge: background knowledge that is both broad and deep. (The Common Core Standards, which do not so much as mention technology, may be education’s most significant contribution to true computer literacy.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would take all this to begin to “level the playing field” for America’s students—far more than a bank of computers in a library, or even one laptop per child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article originally appeared on the \u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/content/educational-technology-isnt-leveling-playing-field_16499/\" target=\"_blank\">Hechinger Report\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/06/neuman_celano_library_study_educational_technology_worsens_achievement_gaps.html\" target=\"_blank\">Slate\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36538\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/opportunity-gap.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36538\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/opportunity-gap.jpg\" alt=\"(Tina Barseghian)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/opportunity-gap.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/opportunity-gap-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/opportunity-gap-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Tina Barseghian)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">The local name for the Philadelphia neighborhood of Kensington is “the Badlands,” and with good reason. Pockmarked with empty lots and burned-out row houses, the area has an unemployment rate of 29 percent and a poverty rate of 90 percent. Just a few miles to the northwest, the genteel neighborhood of Chestnut Hill seems to belong to a different universe. Here, educated professionals shop the boutiques along Germantown Avenue and return home to gracious stone and brick houses, the average price of which hovers above $400,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within these very different communities, however, are two places remarkably similar in the resources they provide: the local public libraries. Each has been retooled with banks of new computers, the latest software and speedy Internet access. Susan B. Neuman, a professor of early childhood and literacy education at New York University, and Donna C. Celano, an assistant professor of communication at LaSalle University in Philadelphia, spent hundreds of hours in the Chestnut Hill and Badlands libraries, watching how patrons used the books and computers on offer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two were especially interested in how the introduction of computers might “level the playing field” for the neighborhoods’ young people, children of “concentrated affluence” and “concentrated poverty.” They undertook their observations in a hopeful frame of mind: “Given the wizardry of these machines and their ability to support children’s self-teaching,” they wondered, “might we begin to see a closing of the opportunity gap?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many hours of observation and analysis later, Neuman and Celanano were forced to acknowledge a radically different outcome: “The very tool designed to level the playing field is, in fact, un-leveling it,” they wrote in a \u003ca href=\"http://store.tcpress.com/0807753580.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">2012 book based on their Philadelphia library study\u003c/a>. With the spread of educational technology, they predicted, “the not-so-small disparities in skills for children of affluence and children of poverty are about to get even larger.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neuman and Celano are not the only researchers to reach this surprising and distressing conclusion. While technology has often been hailed as the great equalizer of educational opportunity, a growing body of evidence indicates that in many cases, tech is actually having the opposite effect: it is increasing the gap between rich and poor, between whites and minorities, and between the school-ready and the less-prepared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is not a story of the familiar “digital divide” — a lack of access to technology for poor and minority children. This has to do, rather, with a phenomenon Neuman and Celano observed again and again in the two libraries: granted access to technology, affluent kids and poor kids use tech differently. They select different programs and features, engage in different types of mental activity, and come away with different kinds of knowledge and experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The un-leveling impact of technology also has to do with a phenomenon known as the “Matthew Effect”: the tendency for early advantages to multiply over time. Sociologist Robert Merton coined the term in 1968, making reference to a line in the gospel of Matthew (“for whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath”).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"pull-quote half right\">\"The very tool designed to level the playing field is, in fact, un-leveling it. The not-so-small disparities in skills for children of affluence and children of poverty are about to get even larger.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"https://eric.ed.gov./?id=EJ343639\" target=\"_blank\">paper published in 1986\u003c/a>, psychologists Keith E. Stanovich and Anne E. Cunningham applied the Matthew Effect to reading. They showed that children who get off to a strong early start with reading acquire more vocabulary words and more background knowledge, which in turn makes reading easier and more enjoyable, leading them to read still more: a virtuous cycle of achievement. Children who struggle early on with reading fail to acquire vocabulary and knowledge, find reading even more difficult as a result, and consequently do it less: a dispiriting downward spiral.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now researchers are beginning to document a digital Matthew Effect, in which the already advantaged gain more from technology than do the less fortunate. As with books and reading, the most knowledgeable, most experienced, and most supported students are those best positioned to use computers to leap further ahead. For example: In Texas’s \u003ca href=\"http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED536296\" target=\"_blank\">Technology Immersion Pilot\u003c/a>, a $20 million project carried out there beginning in 2003, laptops were randomly assigned to public middle school students. The benefit of owning one of these computers, researchers later determined, was significantly greater for those students whose test scores were high to begin with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This may stem in part from the influence of adults on children’s computer activities, as Susan Neuman and Donna Celano observed in the libraries they monitored. At the Chestnut Hill library, they found, young visitors to the computer area were almost always accompanied by a parent or grandparent. Adults positioned themselves close to the children and close to the screen, offering a stream of questions and suggestions. Kids were steered away from games and toward educational programs emphasizing letters, numbers and shapes. When the children became confused or frustrated, the grownups guided them to a solution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Badlands library boasted computers and software identical to Chestnut Hill’s, but here, children manipulated the computers on their own, while accompanying adults watched silently or remained in other areas of the library altogether. Lacking the “scaffolding” provided by the Chestnut Hill parents, the Badlands kids clicked around frenetically, rarely staying with one program for long. Older children figured out how to use the programs as games; younger children became discouraged and banged on the keyboard or wandered away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These different patterns of use had quantifiable effects on the children’s learning, Neuman and Celano showed. Chestnut Hill preschoolers encountered twice as many written words on computer screens as did Badlands children; the more affluent toddlers received 17 times as much adult attention while using the library’s computers as did their less privileged counterparts. The researchers documented differences among older kids as well: Chestnut Hill “tweens,” or 10- to 13-year-olds, spent five times as long reading informational text on computers as did Badlands tweens, who tended to gravitate toward online games and entertainment. When Badlands tweens did seek out information on the web, it was related to their homework only 9 percent of the time, while 39 percent of the Chestnut Hill tweens’ information searches were homework-related.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research is finding other differences in how economically disadvantaged children use technology. Some evidence suggests, for example, that schools in low-income neighborhoods are more apt to employ computers for drill and practice sessions than for creative or innovative projects. Poor children also bring less knowledge to their encounters with computers. Crucially, the comparatively rich background knowledge possessed by high-income students is not only about technology itself, but about everything in the wide world beyond one’s neighborhood. Not only are affluent kids more likely to know how to Google; they’re more likely to know what to Google for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Slogans like “one laptop per child” and “one-to-one computing” evoke an appealingly egalitarian vision: If every child has a computer, every child is starting off on equal footing. But though the sameness of the hardware may feel satisfyingly fair, it is superficial. A computer in the hands of a disadvantaged child is in an important sense not the same thing as a computer in the hands of a child of privilege.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The focus of educators, politicians, and philanthropists on differences in access to technology has obscured another problem: what some call “the second digital divide,” or differences in the use of technology. Access to adequate equipment and reliable high-speed connections remains a concern, of course. But improving the way that technology is employed in learning is an even bigger and more important issue. Addressing it would require a focus on people: training teachers, librarians, parents and children themselves to use computers effectively. It would require a focus on practices: what one researcher has called the dynamic “social envelope” that surrounds the hunks of plastic and silicon on our desks. And it would require a focus on knowledge: background knowledge that is both broad and deep. (The Common Core Standards, which do not so much as mention technology, may be education’s most significant contribution to true computer literacy.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would take all this to begin to “level the playing field” for America’s students—far more than a bank of computers in a library, or even one laptop per child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article originally appeared on the \u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/content/educational-technology-isnt-leveling-playing-field_16499/\" target=\"_blank\">Hechinger Report\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/06/neuman_celano_library_study_educational_technology_worsens_achievement_gaps.html\" target=\"_blank\">Slate\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Why It's Imperative to Teach Empathy to Boys",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36450\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36450\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/2708811013_284b9f0f5c_z.jpg\" alt=\"David Robert Bliwas\" width=\"640\" height=\"388\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/2708811013_284b9f0f5c_z.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/2708811013_284b9f0f5c_z-400x243.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/2708811013_284b9f0f5c_z-320x194.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Robert Bliwas\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Gayle Allen and Deborah Farmer Kris \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">When searching for toys for their kids at chain toy stores, parents typically encounter the following scenario: toy aisles are color-coded pink and blue. They shouldn't bother looking for LEGOS, blocks, and trucks in the pink aisle, and they certainly won't find baby dolls in the blue aisle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While parents, researchers, and educators decry the lack of STEM toys for girls -- and rightly so -- what often goes unnoticed is that assigning genders to toys harms boys, as well. Too often children’s playrooms reinforce gender stereotypes that put boys at risk of failing to gain skills critical for success in life and work. The most important of these? Empathy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140424221331-1407199-why-empathy-is-the-critical-21st-century-skill\">Meg Bear\u003c/a>, Group Vice President of Oracle’s Social Cloud, calls empathy “the critical 21st century skill.” She believes it’s the “difference between good and great” when it comes to personal and professional success. Researchers at \u003ca href=\"http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/\">Greater Good Science Center\u003c/a> out of the \u003ca href=\"http://berkeley.edu/index.html\">University of California, Berkeley\u003c/a>, echo Bear’s assertion. They define empathy as “the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why is empathy important? First, empathy breeds courage. In a recent study of nearly 900 youth, ages 11-13, \u003ca href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/josi.12053/abstract\">Nicola \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fonlinelibrary.wiley.com%2Fdoi%2F10.1111%2Fjosi.12053%2Fabstract&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGEY0Gui6TUWuqkZXWPzkJzZbsd8A\">Abbott\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/josi.12053/abstract\"> and Lindsey Cameron’s, psychology researchers at University of Kent,\u003c/a> found that participants with higher levels of empathy were more likely to engage in “assertive bystander behavior.” In other words, they were willing to stand up to a bully on behalf of someone outside their peer group. This kind of courage can be life changing for a victim of bullying and prevent the damaging effects of social isolation and exclusion that often lead to anxiety and depression.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">It’s clear we need to cultivate empathy in all children, but gender stereotypes -- often reinforced in playrooms -- risk leaving boys, in particular, with a social deficit.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Empathy also yields happiness. People with empathy have \u003ca href=\"http://switchandshift.com/empathy-and-good-managers\">stronger interpersonal connections\u003c/a> and are more eager to collaborate, effectively negotiate, demonstrate compassion, and offer support. They’re team players, and employers recognize this. So important has this skill become that a research team in England, after engaging in a six-month review of its schools, submitted a \u003ca href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/education-25881774\">report\u003c/a> that placed empathy in the top three of important outcomes for its students. Similarly, employers, when asked to compile a list of the “\u003ca href=\"http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/11/15/the-20-people-skills-you-need-to-succeed-at-work/\">20 People Skills You Need to Succeed at Work\u003c/a>,” placed it fifth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Empathy drives thoughtful problem solving. Empathic problem solvers put themselves in others’ shoes in a way that allows them to design life-saving \u003ca href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/business-23817127\">baby warmers\u003c/a>, easily collapsible \u003ca href=\"http://www.thebus.org/howtoride/RulesReg.asp\">baby strollers\u003c/a>, and energy-saving \u003ca href=\"http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2014/0203/Shareable-economy-Sharing-cars-means-saving-energy\">car sharing services\u003c/a>. In addition, they’re often willing to work with others to solve persistent and, at times, larger problems. Rather than hoarding their knowledge and expertise, they open themselves up to what Greg Satell calls \u003ca href=\"http://www.digitaltonto.com/2013/the-new-era-of-cognitive-collaboration/\">cognitive collaboration\u003c/a>, in order to serve patients, clients, students, and even their respective fields, more effectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s clear we need to cultivate empathy in all children, but gender stereotypes -- often reinforced in playrooms -- risk leaving boys, in particular, with a social deficit.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>What Parents Can Do\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Play with dolls. \u003c/strong>Parents will find that boys can be just as interested as girls in playing with dolls. Just watch little boys when they interact with an infant: they want to pat the baby's head and see the little toes, and their faces show distress when that baby starts to cry. Recognizing the importance of young children’s interactions with babies for building social skills, organizations like \u003ca href=\"http://www.rootsofempathy.org/en.html\">Roots of Empathy\u003c/a> do just that. They bring babies into elementary school classrooms as part of their empathy building, evidence-based programs. Don’t have a baby at hand? Dolls allow young children to simulate dressing, feeding, calming and caring for babies – particularly if adults participate and model this care. For parents of boys, it’s worth a trip to the pink aisles to find one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pretend play\u003c/strong> helps children self-regulate, develop a strong “theory of mind,” and integrate positive and negative emotions. When kids adopt different personas, they face dilemmas and solve problems “in character” – in essence, they’re taking empathy for a test drive. Play researcher \u003ca href=\"http://medicine.yale.edu/childstudy/zigler/people/dsinger.aspx\">Dorothy Singer\u003c/a>, Senior Researcher at \u003ca href=\"http://medicine.yale.edu/index.aspx\">Yale University’s School of Medicine\u003c/a>, contends that make believe helps children “be anyone they wish.” Through it, they “learn how to cope with feelings, how to bring the large, confusing world into a small, manageable size; and how to become socially adept as they share, take turns and cooperate with each other.” Parents can expand boy’s empathic skills through pretend play by blurring the traditional pink-blue boundary lines. Toy kitchens should co-exist with trucks, doll houses with action figures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Read together. \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/377.abstract\">Researchers\u003c/a> have shown that reading fiction promotes empathy. Children’s book author and illustrator, \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/08/07/why-reading-to-children-is-crucial-not-just-for-literacy/\">Anne Dewdney\u003c/a>, echoes that finding when she argues that, “When we open a book, and share our voice and imagination with a child, that child learns to see the world through someone else’s eyes.” Sadly, \u003ca href=\"http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/05/there-are-plenty-of-reasons-why-parents-may-read-more-with-their-daughters/276054/\">studies\u003c/a> reveal that parents in the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain spend less time reading and telling stories to their sons than to their daughters. In fact, in as early as nine months, researchers found a gender gap in literary activities. To address this, turn to picture books as empathy primers. Together parents and boys can look at a character’s body language and facial expressions and then identify corresponding emotions. Parents can pause while reading to ask: How do you think that make her feel? How would that make you feel? What would help him feel better?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Empathy, “\u003ca href=\"http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/08/07/why-reading-to-children-is-crucial-not-just-for-literacy/\">an understanding that other people have feelings, and that those feelings count,\u003c/a>” is a learned behavior. For boys, as for girls, that learning begins in infancy. As University of Wisconsin’s\u003ca href=\"http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/understanding-how-children-develop-empathy/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0\"> Carolyn Zahn-Waxler\u003c/a> aptly notes, “There is no gene for empathy.” Parents play a key role in nurturing empathy, from explaining others’ feelings to encouraging prosocial behaviors with friends and siblings. Playroom toys and forms of play are equally important. Given all the benefits associated with empathy for success in life and work, it seems like now, more than ever, we need to mind the gap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Gayle Allen spent nearly two decades as a teacher, school leader, and founder of two professional development institutes. She holds an Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University, where she focused her research on teacher learning. Gayle currently serves on the advisory board for \u003ca href=\"http://biobuilder.org/\">BioBuilder Educational Foundation\u003c/a>. She blogs at \u003ca href=\"http://www.gayleallen.net/\">Connecting the Thoughts\u003c/a> and tweets \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/GAllenTC\">@GAllenTC\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Deborah Farmer Kris has taught elementary, middle, and high school and served as a charter school administrator. She spent a decade as an associate at Boston University's \u003ca href=\"http://www.bu.edu/ccsr/about-us/\">Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character\u003c/a> researching, writing, and consulting with schools. She is the mother of two young children.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36450\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36450\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/2708811013_284b9f0f5c_z.jpg\" alt=\"David Robert Bliwas\" width=\"640\" height=\"388\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/2708811013_284b9f0f5c_z.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/2708811013_284b9f0f5c_z-400x243.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/2708811013_284b9f0f5c_z-320x194.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Robert Bliwas\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Gayle Allen and Deborah Farmer Kris \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">When searching for toys for their kids at chain toy stores, parents typically encounter the following scenario: toy aisles are color-coded pink and blue. They shouldn't bother looking for LEGOS, blocks, and trucks in the pink aisle, and they certainly won't find baby dolls in the blue aisle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While parents, researchers, and educators decry the lack of STEM toys for girls -- and rightly so -- what often goes unnoticed is that assigning genders to toys harms boys, as well. Too often children’s playrooms reinforce gender stereotypes that put boys at risk of failing to gain skills critical for success in life and work. The most important of these? Empathy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140424221331-1407199-why-empathy-is-the-critical-21st-century-skill\">Meg Bear\u003c/a>, Group Vice President of Oracle’s Social Cloud, calls empathy “the critical 21st century skill.” She believes it’s the “difference between good and great” when it comes to personal and professional success. Researchers at \u003ca href=\"http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/\">Greater Good Science Center\u003c/a> out of the \u003ca href=\"http://berkeley.edu/index.html\">University of California, Berkeley\u003c/a>, echo Bear’s assertion. They define empathy as “the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why is empathy important? First, empathy breeds courage. In a recent study of nearly 900 youth, ages 11-13, \u003ca href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/josi.12053/abstract\">Nicola \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fonlinelibrary.wiley.com%2Fdoi%2F10.1111%2Fjosi.12053%2Fabstract&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGEY0Gui6TUWuqkZXWPzkJzZbsd8A\">Abbott\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/josi.12053/abstract\"> and Lindsey Cameron’s, psychology researchers at University of Kent,\u003c/a> found that participants with higher levels of empathy were more likely to engage in “assertive bystander behavior.” In other words, they were willing to stand up to a bully on behalf of someone outside their peer group. This kind of courage can be life changing for a victim of bullying and prevent the damaging effects of social isolation and exclusion that often lead to anxiety and depression.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">It’s clear we need to cultivate empathy in all children, but gender stereotypes -- often reinforced in playrooms -- risk leaving boys, in particular, with a social deficit.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Empathy also yields happiness. People with empathy have \u003ca href=\"http://switchandshift.com/empathy-and-good-managers\">stronger interpersonal connections\u003c/a> and are more eager to collaborate, effectively negotiate, demonstrate compassion, and offer support. They’re team players, and employers recognize this. So important has this skill become that a research team in England, after engaging in a six-month review of its schools, submitted a \u003ca href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/education-25881774\">report\u003c/a> that placed empathy in the top three of important outcomes for its students. Similarly, employers, when asked to compile a list of the “\u003ca href=\"http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/11/15/the-20-people-skills-you-need-to-succeed-at-work/\">20 People Skills You Need to Succeed at Work\u003c/a>,” placed it fifth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Empathy drives thoughtful problem solving. Empathic problem solvers put themselves in others’ shoes in a way that allows them to design life-saving \u003ca href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/business-23817127\">baby warmers\u003c/a>, easily collapsible \u003ca href=\"http://www.thebus.org/howtoride/RulesReg.asp\">baby strollers\u003c/a>, and energy-saving \u003ca href=\"http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2014/0203/Shareable-economy-Sharing-cars-means-saving-energy\">car sharing services\u003c/a>. In addition, they’re often willing to work with others to solve persistent and, at times, larger problems. Rather than hoarding their knowledge and expertise, they open themselves up to what Greg Satell calls \u003ca href=\"http://www.digitaltonto.com/2013/the-new-era-of-cognitive-collaboration/\">cognitive collaboration\u003c/a>, in order to serve patients, clients, students, and even their respective fields, more effectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s clear we need to cultivate empathy in all children, but gender stereotypes -- often reinforced in playrooms -- risk leaving boys, in particular, with a social deficit.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>What Parents Can Do\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Play with dolls. \u003c/strong>Parents will find that boys can be just as interested as girls in playing with dolls. Just watch little boys when they interact with an infant: they want to pat the baby's head and see the little toes, and their faces show distress when that baby starts to cry. Recognizing the importance of young children’s interactions with babies for building social skills, organizations like \u003ca href=\"http://www.rootsofempathy.org/en.html\">Roots of Empathy\u003c/a> do just that. They bring babies into elementary school classrooms as part of their empathy building, evidence-based programs. Don’t have a baby at hand? Dolls allow young children to simulate dressing, feeding, calming and caring for babies – particularly if adults participate and model this care. For parents of boys, it’s worth a trip to the pink aisles to find one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pretend play\u003c/strong> helps children self-regulate, develop a strong “theory of mind,” and integrate positive and negative emotions. When kids adopt different personas, they face dilemmas and solve problems “in character” – in essence, they’re taking empathy for a test drive. Play researcher \u003ca href=\"http://medicine.yale.edu/childstudy/zigler/people/dsinger.aspx\">Dorothy Singer\u003c/a>, Senior Researcher at \u003ca href=\"http://medicine.yale.edu/index.aspx\">Yale University’s School of Medicine\u003c/a>, contends that make believe helps children “be anyone they wish.” Through it, they “learn how to cope with feelings, how to bring the large, confusing world into a small, manageable size; and how to become socially adept as they share, take turns and cooperate with each other.” Parents can expand boy’s empathic skills through pretend play by blurring the traditional pink-blue boundary lines. Toy kitchens should co-exist with trucks, doll houses with action figures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Read together. \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/377.abstract\">Researchers\u003c/a> have shown that reading fiction promotes empathy. Children’s book author and illustrator, \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/08/07/why-reading-to-children-is-crucial-not-just-for-literacy/\">Anne Dewdney\u003c/a>, echoes that finding when she argues that, “When we open a book, and share our voice and imagination with a child, that child learns to see the world through someone else’s eyes.” Sadly, \u003ca href=\"http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/05/there-are-plenty-of-reasons-why-parents-may-read-more-with-their-daughters/276054/\">studies\u003c/a> reveal that parents in the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain spend less time reading and telling stories to their sons than to their daughters. In fact, in as early as nine months, researchers found a gender gap in literary activities. To address this, turn to picture books as empathy primers. Together parents and boys can look at a character’s body language and facial expressions and then identify corresponding emotions. Parents can pause while reading to ask: How do you think that make her feel? How would that make you feel? What would help him feel better?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Empathy, “\u003ca href=\"http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/08/07/why-reading-to-children-is-crucial-not-just-for-literacy/\">an understanding that other people have feelings, and that those feelings count,\u003c/a>” is a learned behavior. For boys, as for girls, that learning begins in infancy. As University of Wisconsin’s\u003ca href=\"http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/understanding-how-children-develop-empathy/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0\"> Carolyn Zahn-Waxler\u003c/a> aptly notes, “There is no gene for empathy.” Parents play a key role in nurturing empathy, from explaining others’ feelings to encouraging prosocial behaviors with friends and siblings. Playroom toys and forms of play are equally important. Given all the benefits associated with empathy for success in life and work, it seems like now, more than ever, we need to mind the gap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Gayle Allen spent nearly two decades as a teacher, school leader, and founder of two professional development institutes. She holds an Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University, where she focused her research on teacher learning. Gayle currently serves on the advisory board for \u003ca href=\"http://biobuilder.org/\">BioBuilder Educational Foundation\u003c/a>. She blogs at \u003ca href=\"http://www.gayleallen.net/\">Connecting the Thoughts\u003c/a> and tweets \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/GAllenTC\">@GAllenTC\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Deborah Farmer Kris has taught elementary, middle, and high school and served as a charter school administrator. She spent a decade as an associate at Boston University's \u003ca href=\"http://www.bu.edu/ccsr/about-us/\">Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character\u003c/a> researching, writing, and consulting with schools. She is the mother of two young children.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Predicting Dyslexia -- Even Before Children Learn to Read",
"title": "Predicting Dyslexia -- Even Before Children Learn to Read",
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"content": "\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36465\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36465\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia.jpg\" alt=\"Getty Images\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Getty Images\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2014/06/dyslexia-brain\" target=\"_blank\">By Rachel Zimmerman, WBUR CommonHealth Blog\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Sixth-grader Josh Thibeau has been struggling to read for as long as he can remember. He has yet to complete a single Harry Potter book, his personal goal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he was in first grade, Josh’s parents enrolled him in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.childrenshospital.org/research-and-innovation/research-labs/gaab-laboratory\" target=\"_blank\">research study\u003c/a> at Boston Children’s Hospital investigating the genetics of dyslexia. Since then, Josh has completed regular MRI scans of his brain. Initially, it seemed daunting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we first started, I’m like, ‘Oh no, you’re sending me to like some strange, like, science lab where I’m going to be injected with needles and it’s going to hurt,’ I’m like, ‘I’m never going to see my family again,’ ” says Josh, who lives in West Newbury, Mass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"0c2d6b85b37814158c8ece383e6763f1\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Josh and his three biological siblings all have dyslexia to varying degrees. Pretty much every day he confronts the reality that his brain works differently than his peers’. He’s even shared scans of his brain with classmates to try to show those differences. Some kids still don’t get it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was a student that said, ‘Are you stupid?’ Because my brain was working in a different way,” Josh says. “And I’m just like, ‘No, I am not stupid…I’m just dyslexic.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>THE PRE-READING BRAIN\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On average, one or two kids in every U.S. classroom has \u003ca href=\"http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/dyslexia/dyslexia.htm\" target=\"_blank\">dyslexia\u003c/a>, a brain-based learning disability that often runs in families and makes reading difficult, sometimes painfully so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compared to other neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD or autism, research into dyslexia has advanced further, experts say. That’s partly because dyslexia presents itself around a specific behavior: reading — which, as they say, is fundamental.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23946384\" target=\"_blank\">new research\u003c/a> shows it’s possible to pick up some of the signs of dyslexia in the brain even before kids learn to read. And this earlier identification may start to substantially influence how parents, educators and clinicians tackle the disorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">\u003ca class=\"pull-quote half right\">\u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">\"Maybe the most surprising aspect of the research so far is how clear a signal we see in the brains of children who are likely to go on to be poor readers.\"\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until recently (and sometimes even today) kids who struggled to read were thought to lack motivation or smarts. Now it’s clear that’s not true: Dyslexia stems from physiological differences in the brain circuitry. Those differences can make it harder, and less efficient, for children to process the tiny components of language, called phonemes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s much more complicated than just flipping your “b’s and “d’s.” To read, children need to learn to map the sounds of spoken language — the “KUH”, the “AH”, the “TUH” — to their corresponding letters. And then they must grasp how those letter symbols, the “C” “A” and “T”, create words with meaning. Kids with dyslexia have far more trouble mastering these steps automatically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For these children, the path toward reading is often marked by struggle, anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. In general, a diagnosis of dyslexia usually means that a child has experienced multiple failures at school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But collaborations currently underway between neuroscientists at MIT and Children’s Hospital may mark a fundamental shift in addressing dyslexia, and might someday eliminate the anguish of repeated failure. In preliminary findings, researchers report that brain measures taken in kindergartners — even before the kids can read — can “significantly” improve predictions of how well, or poorly, the children can master reading later on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PINPOINTING THE WHITE MATTER CULPRIT\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using cutting-edge MRI technology, the researchers are able to pinpoint a specific neural pathway, a white matter tract in the brain’s left hemisphere that appears to be related to dyslexia: It’s called the arcuate fasciculus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s an arch-shaped bundle of fibers that connects the frontal language areas of the brain to the areas in the temporal lobe that are important for language,” Elizabeth Norton, a neuroscientist at MIT’s McGovern Institute of Brain Research, explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36464\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia-brain.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-36464\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia-brain-300x196.jpg\" alt=\"Researchers found that kindergarten children with strong pre-reading scores have a bigger, more robust and well-organized arcuate fasciculus (bottom right) while children with very low scores have a small and not particularly well-organized arcuate fasciculus (top right). (Zeynep Saygin/MIT)\" width=\"300\" height=\"196\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Researchers found that kindergarten children with strong pre-reading scores have a bigger, more robust and well-organized arcuate fasciculus (bottom right) while children with very low scores have a small and not particularly well-organized arcuate fasciculus (top right). (Zeynep Saygin/MIT)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In her lab, Norton shows me brain images from the NIH-funded kindergartner study, called READ (for Researching Early Attributes of Dyslexia).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We see that in children who in kindergarten already have strong pre-reading scores, their arcuate fasciculus is both bigger and more well organized,” she says. On the other hand: “A child with a score of zero has a very small and not particularly organized arcuate fasciculus.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says we’re not quite ready to simply take a picture of your child’s brain and say “Aha, this kid is going to have dyslexia,” but we’re getting closer to that point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norton’s colleague, neuroscientist and assistant professor of pediatrics \u003ca href=\"http://www.childrenshospital.org/research-and-innovation/research-labs/gaab-laboratory/meet-the-lab-members\" target=\"_blank\">Nadine Gaab\u003c/a> of Children’s Hospital, studies the brains of infants as young as 4 months old. She theorizes that even at birth, or shortly after, children’s brain structures can show signs of developing the disorder. Her hope is that, ultimately, the current research will trickle down to classrooms and help eliminate what she calls “the dyslexia paradox.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Several studies have suggested that intervention is most effective in kindergarten or first grade,” she says. “However, you have to have several years of reading failure before you can get a diagnosis of dyslexia — end of second grade, beginning of third grade. So we have this paradox.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A YEAR TO LEARN THE WORD 'THE'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meghan Estrada, of Watertown, Mass., enrolled her son Tomas in the MIT study at age 6, after seeing him struggle with the basics of reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When he was in kindergarten, you know, he was having some serious trouble,” she says. “It took him about a year to learn the word ‘the.’ I could see that he needed more help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">\u003ca class=\"pull-quote half left\">\u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">\"These children who struggle to read are very aware of where they stand relative to their peers and this is their first major experience in school.\"\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tomas, now 8, continues to experience difficulty with reading at the end of second grade. He requires more individualized support and intervention both at home and in the classroom. Now he’s being evaluated to determine if he does, indeed, have dyslexia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MIT neuroscientist \u003ca href=\"http://bcs.mit.edu/people/gabrieli.html\" target=\"_blank\">Professor John Gabrieli\u003c/a> is one of the lead investigators of the study Tomas is participating in. “Maybe the most surprising aspect of the research so far is how clear a signal we see in the brains of children who are likely to go on to be poor readers,” Gabrieli says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of the READ study, the kids wear colorful electrode caps to measure electrical activity in their brains; they complete a slew of cognitive, behavioral, memory and language tests; and get MRIs to evaluate both the structure and function of their brains. Researchers published findings based on the first 40 kids last summer in the Journal of Neuroscience; the plan is to follow all 186 kids in the study from kindergarten through second grade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gabrieli says if these early brain scans and other metrics prove to be predictive, new questions will arise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The bigger challenges for us now soon will be…to figure out what kind of interventions can be done in a 4-year-old or a 3-year-old that might put her or him on a different pathway altogether,” he says. “You know, can we have a child arrive at school who will be ready to read and not wait for failure at all but have intervened so early that the child never experiences that failure?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the key goals of early identification, Gabrieli says, is to help kids avoid the stigma of dyslexia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The social downsides to late identification are quite severe,” he says. “These children who struggle to read are very aware of where they stand relative to their peers and this is their first major experience in school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://kellylowery.com/about.html\" target=\"_blank\">Kelly Lowery\u003c/a>, a Cambridge, Mass., pediatric neuropsychologist, treats kids who have anxiety related to their learning problems, mostly dyslexia. “I have students, you ask them to read and they start to cry — it’s a trauma experience,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A TOUGH THING TO HIDE\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Carroll School in Lincoln, Mass., which specializes in language-based learning disabilities, eighth-graders Katelyn, Lily, Sarah and Aysha (their parents asked that their last names not be used) no longer have to keep their dyslexia a secret. But they recently told me about some of the strategies they used to employ — like pretending they couldn’t see words without their glasses, or asking friends to read for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s what they said:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“Oh, I used to just like mumble over the word or say it really quietly — and pretend like I said it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would be chased down the hallway… it was mostly just one boy, and he’d be yelling at me, chasing me, and the teachers would just watch, and he’s like ‘You can’t read, like you should know how to read by now, you’re in seventh grade,’ but so, yeah, it was not very fun to go to school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I remember that I used to pretend to be sick every day…and it was like most people say, ‘Oh, eighth grade, seventh grade, sixth grade, best years of your life.’ Not really. Like for some — a lot of dyslexic kids…it was torture.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Dr. Eric Falke, director of cognitive interventions and research at the Carroll School, says children with dyslexia typically find alternate strategies to develop language skills. “Workarounds,” he says. “What they do is they use a lot of their intelligence to compensate for little bottlenecks, little quirky things about the way their brain processes information.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But these workarounds aren’t always efficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you talk to an eighth-grader who struggled for nine years in a general educational environment…trying to figure out how to do something that was really difficult for her, [it] isn’t actually a good use of her time…” He adds: “If you could intervene earlier…a small intervention earlier on could potentially have a huge impact on a person’s life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, he says, the Carroll School is ready to act on the new brain science now: “Here’s the bottom line: It’s like we’ve wanted to do this for many years, and we are ready to start a kindergarten if there’s enough interest from the community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>NOT ALL SCHOOLS ON BOARD\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So wouldn’t it be great if all kids — not just those lucky enough to attend a special private school — could get a diagnosis, and targeted intervention like one-on-one, daily tutoring and language-based reading support in small classes, much earlier? It seems like a no-brainer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Nadine Gaab, the other lead investigator on the kindergartner study, told me she was surprised to discover that not all schools were on board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of these schools were really open and happy that we want to come and test every incoming kindergartener,” Gaab says. “However we also had districts who said, ‘I’m sorry, but we don’t want you…because if MIT and Harvard diagnoses or identifies children at risk in kindergarten and we don’t have the resources to do anything about this, then parents will get really upset with us, and we would feel very guilty as well.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When this research becomes more definitive, it remains an open question whether more schools will take advantage of the brain science to test and offer intervention to kids much earlier. The researchers aren’t suggesting MRIs for every single kindergartner. But they say someday, if a child has a family history of dyslexia, and is showing early signs of reading trouble, a diagnostic brain scan may prove less costly than playing catch up after years of academic failure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA - UPSIDE DOWN \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers already know early intervention can help many kids with dyslexia overcome some of their reading challenges. (Of course there’s a huge range of “dyslexia” and severity varies widely.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One effective approach, called RAVE-O, was developed by \u003ca href=\"http://ase.tufts.edu/crlr/team/wolf.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Maryanne Wolf\u003c/a>, director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University. In her office, Wolf picks up a plastic model of a brain and explains that many children with dyslexia appear to be processing reading information in the right hemisphere, which may be less effective for language tasks, whereas typical readers rely on brain circuitry in the left hemisphere for these functions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAVE-O seeks to work around this, and help kids gain “automaticity” in all aspects of language. It’s a toolkit of strategies to make explicit the critical connections between sounds, symbols, syntax and meaning while also infusing some levity in the process. Kids learn about the “am” family, for instance, with pictures of jelly “jam,” a guitarist “jamming” and a traffic “jam.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for Wolf, this topic isn’t just academic, it’s personal: Her first son has dyslexia. She recalls a moment, when, as a junior high-schooler, he returned from a trip to Italy. “[A]nd he said, ‘Mom, I just want you to see what I just drew from memory.’ I looked. It was a perfect picture of the leaning tower of Pisa — upside down. And I said, ‘Why did you do that?’ And he said, ‘It’s just easier for me to draw that way.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wolf’s son is now a successful artist and sometimes she wonders whether that’s despite his dyslexia — or because of it. Indeed, a national movement has emerged to spotlight the unique attributes of the dyslexic brain. Writers like \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/David-Goliath-Underdogs-Misfits-Battling/dp/0316204366\" target=\"_blank\">Malcolm Gladwell\u003c/a> and others have explored the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/the-upside-of-dyslexia.html\" target=\"_blank\">“upside of dyslexia”\u003c/a>, which can be marked by unusual problem-solving skills and outside-the-box thinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few years back, for example, a widely reported study found that \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/business/worldbusiness/05iht-dyslexia.4.8602036.html\" target=\"_blank\">35 percent of U.S. entrepreneurs\u003c/a> identified themselves as dyslexic. Lists of celebrities with dyslexia, like Whoopi Goldberg and Henry Winkler, are becoming ubiquitous. And researchers, notably Sally and Bennett Shaywitz at the \u003ca href=\"http://dyslexia.yale.edu/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Yale Center For Dyslexia and Creativity\u003c/a>, seek to emphasize the “sea of strengths” around dyslexia. (But even they write about the importance of accurate, precise diagnosis and early, evidence-based intervention.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A MOTHER'S VIEW\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, as a research subject — and a kid who’s changed schools many times to find teachers who “get” how he learns — Josh Thibeau, now at the\u003ca href=\"http://www.landmarkschool.org/\" target=\"_blank\"> Landmark School\u003c/a> in Pride’s Crossing, Mass., has a unique appreciation of his own brain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been described to me as a library, and now I think of it as a maze that’s like constantly changing,” he says, “and hopefully, it’ll be just one straight line, that’s where I need to go, that’s the place I need, that’s the information that I need to extract.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, for Josh’s mother, Janet Thibeau, there remains a sadness knowing her kids will never share her love of reading, and there’s no getting around the severe challenges that come with a learning disability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You see kids struggle and not get their needs met and you see them turning into teenagers who make bad or unsafe choices,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thibeau says she certainly appreciates the resilience that can come from overcoming adversity. But, she says, the prospect of earlier intervention for far more children with dyslexia is also encouraging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It gives the entire community… parents, schools, an opportunity to just keep kids away from seeing themselves as not smart or worthless, and seeing them really reaching amazing potential,” she says. “These are really bright kids who are capable of a lot once those underlying weaknesses are met.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A note on terminology:\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>One problem that arises in talking about dyslexia is that not everyone uses the term “dyslexia,” and there is no one, standard definition. For instance, Elizabeth Norton of MIT explains: “The terms used to define reading difficulties are inconsistent. The state of Massachusetts and even federal education laws don’t use the term ‘dyslexia;’ instead, they use terms such as ‘specific learning disability in reading’ or ‘specific learning impairment.’ Some students may receive a more specific diagnosis of ‘dyslexia’ or “language-based learning disability” from an independent clinician. Further, the DSM 5 doesn’t include a definition of “dyslexia.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Carroll School uses “language-based reading disability” and also dyslexia. The NIH refers to “developmental reading disorder” and “dyslexia” interchangeably.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This post originally appeared on \u003ca href=\"http://commonhealth.wbur.org/\" target=\"_blank\">WBUR's CommonHealth blog\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36465\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36465\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia.jpg\" alt=\"Getty Images\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Getty Images\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2014/06/dyslexia-brain\" target=\"_blank\">By Rachel Zimmerman, WBUR CommonHealth Blog\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Sixth-grader Josh Thibeau has been struggling to read for as long as he can remember. He has yet to complete a single Harry Potter book, his personal goal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he was in first grade, Josh’s parents enrolled him in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.childrenshospital.org/research-and-innovation/research-labs/gaab-laboratory\" target=\"_blank\">research study\u003c/a> at Boston Children’s Hospital investigating the genetics of dyslexia. Since then, Josh has completed regular MRI scans of his brain. Initially, it seemed daunting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we first started, I’m like, ‘Oh no, you’re sending me to like some strange, like, science lab where I’m going to be injected with needles and it’s going to hurt,’ I’m like, ‘I’m never going to see my family again,’ ” says Josh, who lives in West Newbury, Mass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Josh and his three biological siblings all have dyslexia to varying degrees. Pretty much every day he confronts the reality that his brain works differently than his peers’. He’s even shared scans of his brain with classmates to try to show those differences. Some kids still don’t get it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was a student that said, ‘Are you stupid?’ Because my brain was working in a different way,” Josh says. “And I’m just like, ‘No, I am not stupid…I’m just dyslexic.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>THE PRE-READING BRAIN\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On average, one or two kids in every U.S. classroom has \u003ca href=\"http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/dyslexia/dyslexia.htm\" target=\"_blank\">dyslexia\u003c/a>, a brain-based learning disability that often runs in families and makes reading difficult, sometimes painfully so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compared to other neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD or autism, research into dyslexia has advanced further, experts say. That’s partly because dyslexia presents itself around a specific behavior: reading — which, as they say, is fundamental.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23946384\" target=\"_blank\">new research\u003c/a> shows it’s possible to pick up some of the signs of dyslexia in the brain even before kids learn to read. And this earlier identification may start to substantially influence how parents, educators and clinicians tackle the disorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">\u003ca class=\"pull-quote half right\">\u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">\"Maybe the most surprising aspect of the research so far is how clear a signal we see in the brains of children who are likely to go on to be poor readers.\"\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until recently (and sometimes even today) kids who struggled to read were thought to lack motivation or smarts. Now it’s clear that’s not true: Dyslexia stems from physiological differences in the brain circuitry. Those differences can make it harder, and less efficient, for children to process the tiny components of language, called phonemes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s much more complicated than just flipping your “b’s and “d’s.” To read, children need to learn to map the sounds of spoken language — the “KUH”, the “AH”, the “TUH” — to their corresponding letters. And then they must grasp how those letter symbols, the “C” “A” and “T”, create words with meaning. Kids with dyslexia have far more trouble mastering these steps automatically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For these children, the path toward reading is often marked by struggle, anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. In general, a diagnosis of dyslexia usually means that a child has experienced multiple failures at school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But collaborations currently underway between neuroscientists at MIT and Children’s Hospital may mark a fundamental shift in addressing dyslexia, and might someday eliminate the anguish of repeated failure. In preliminary findings, researchers report that brain measures taken in kindergartners — even before the kids can read — can “significantly” improve predictions of how well, or poorly, the children can master reading later on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PINPOINTING THE WHITE MATTER CULPRIT\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using cutting-edge MRI technology, the researchers are able to pinpoint a specific neural pathway, a white matter tract in the brain’s left hemisphere that appears to be related to dyslexia: It’s called the arcuate fasciculus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s an arch-shaped bundle of fibers that connects the frontal language areas of the brain to the areas in the temporal lobe that are important for language,” Elizabeth Norton, a neuroscientist at MIT’s McGovern Institute of Brain Research, explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36464\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia-brain.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-36464\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia-brain-300x196.jpg\" alt=\"Researchers found that kindergarten children with strong pre-reading scores have a bigger, more robust and well-organized arcuate fasciculus (bottom right) while children with very low scores have a small and not particularly well-organized arcuate fasciculus (top right). (Zeynep Saygin/MIT)\" width=\"300\" height=\"196\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Researchers found that kindergarten children with strong pre-reading scores have a bigger, more robust and well-organized arcuate fasciculus (bottom right) while children with very low scores have a small and not particularly well-organized arcuate fasciculus (top right). (Zeynep Saygin/MIT)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In her lab, Norton shows me brain images from the NIH-funded kindergartner study, called READ (for Researching Early Attributes of Dyslexia).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We see that in children who in kindergarten already have strong pre-reading scores, their arcuate fasciculus is both bigger and more well organized,” she says. On the other hand: “A child with a score of zero has a very small and not particularly organized arcuate fasciculus.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says we’re not quite ready to simply take a picture of your child’s brain and say “Aha, this kid is going to have dyslexia,” but we’re getting closer to that point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norton’s colleague, neuroscientist and assistant professor of pediatrics \u003ca href=\"http://www.childrenshospital.org/research-and-innovation/research-labs/gaab-laboratory/meet-the-lab-members\" target=\"_blank\">Nadine Gaab\u003c/a> of Children’s Hospital, studies the brains of infants as young as 4 months old. She theorizes that even at birth, or shortly after, children’s brain structures can show signs of developing the disorder. Her hope is that, ultimately, the current research will trickle down to classrooms and help eliminate what she calls “the dyslexia paradox.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Several studies have suggested that intervention is most effective in kindergarten or first grade,” she says. “However, you have to have several years of reading failure before you can get a diagnosis of dyslexia — end of second grade, beginning of third grade. So we have this paradox.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A YEAR TO LEARN THE WORD 'THE'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meghan Estrada, of Watertown, Mass., enrolled her son Tomas in the MIT study at age 6, after seeing him struggle with the basics of reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When he was in kindergarten, you know, he was having some serious trouble,” she says. “It took him about a year to learn the word ‘the.’ I could see that he needed more help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">\u003ca class=\"pull-quote half left\">\u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">\"These children who struggle to read are very aware of where they stand relative to their peers and this is their first major experience in school.\"\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tomas, now 8, continues to experience difficulty with reading at the end of second grade. He requires more individualized support and intervention both at home and in the classroom. Now he’s being evaluated to determine if he does, indeed, have dyslexia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MIT neuroscientist \u003ca href=\"http://bcs.mit.edu/people/gabrieli.html\" target=\"_blank\">Professor John Gabrieli\u003c/a> is one of the lead investigators of the study Tomas is participating in. “Maybe the most surprising aspect of the research so far is how clear a signal we see in the brains of children who are likely to go on to be poor readers,” Gabrieli says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of the READ study, the kids wear colorful electrode caps to measure electrical activity in their brains; they complete a slew of cognitive, behavioral, memory and language tests; and get MRIs to evaluate both the structure and function of their brains. Researchers published findings based on the first 40 kids last summer in the Journal of Neuroscience; the plan is to follow all 186 kids in the study from kindergarten through second grade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gabrieli says if these early brain scans and other metrics prove to be predictive, new questions will arise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The bigger challenges for us now soon will be…to figure out what kind of interventions can be done in a 4-year-old or a 3-year-old that might put her or him on a different pathway altogether,” he says. “You know, can we have a child arrive at school who will be ready to read and not wait for failure at all but have intervened so early that the child never experiences that failure?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the key goals of early identification, Gabrieli says, is to help kids avoid the stigma of dyslexia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The social downsides to late identification are quite severe,” he says. “These children who struggle to read are very aware of where they stand relative to their peers and this is their first major experience in school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://kellylowery.com/about.html\" target=\"_blank\">Kelly Lowery\u003c/a>, a Cambridge, Mass., pediatric neuropsychologist, treats kids who have anxiety related to their learning problems, mostly dyslexia. “I have students, you ask them to read and they start to cry — it’s a trauma experience,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A TOUGH THING TO HIDE\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Carroll School in Lincoln, Mass., which specializes in language-based learning disabilities, eighth-graders Katelyn, Lily, Sarah and Aysha (their parents asked that their last names not be used) no longer have to keep their dyslexia a secret. But they recently told me about some of the strategies they used to employ — like pretending they couldn’t see words without their glasses, or asking friends to read for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s what they said:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“Oh, I used to just like mumble over the word or say it really quietly — and pretend like I said it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would be chased down the hallway… it was mostly just one boy, and he’d be yelling at me, chasing me, and the teachers would just watch, and he’s like ‘You can’t read, like you should know how to read by now, you’re in seventh grade,’ but so, yeah, it was not very fun to go to school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I remember that I used to pretend to be sick every day…and it was like most people say, ‘Oh, eighth grade, seventh grade, sixth grade, best years of your life.’ Not really. Like for some — a lot of dyslexic kids…it was torture.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Dr. Eric Falke, director of cognitive interventions and research at the Carroll School, says children with dyslexia typically find alternate strategies to develop language skills. “Workarounds,” he says. “What they do is they use a lot of their intelligence to compensate for little bottlenecks, little quirky things about the way their brain processes information.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But these workarounds aren’t always efficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you talk to an eighth-grader who struggled for nine years in a general educational environment…trying to figure out how to do something that was really difficult for her, [it] isn’t actually a good use of her time…” He adds: “If you could intervene earlier…a small intervention earlier on could potentially have a huge impact on a person’s life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, he says, the Carroll School is ready to act on the new brain science now: “Here’s the bottom line: It’s like we’ve wanted to do this for many years, and we are ready to start a kindergarten if there’s enough interest from the community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>NOT ALL SCHOOLS ON BOARD\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So wouldn’t it be great if all kids — not just those lucky enough to attend a special private school — could get a diagnosis, and targeted intervention like one-on-one, daily tutoring and language-based reading support in small classes, much earlier? It seems like a no-brainer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Nadine Gaab, the other lead investigator on the kindergartner study, told me she was surprised to discover that not all schools were on board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of these schools were really open and happy that we want to come and test every incoming kindergartener,” Gaab says. “However we also had districts who said, ‘I’m sorry, but we don’t want you…because if MIT and Harvard diagnoses or identifies children at risk in kindergarten and we don’t have the resources to do anything about this, then parents will get really upset with us, and we would feel very guilty as well.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When this research becomes more definitive, it remains an open question whether more schools will take advantage of the brain science to test and offer intervention to kids much earlier. The researchers aren’t suggesting MRIs for every single kindergartner. But they say someday, if a child has a family history of dyslexia, and is showing early signs of reading trouble, a diagnostic brain scan may prove less costly than playing catch up after years of academic failure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA - UPSIDE DOWN \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers already know early intervention can help many kids with dyslexia overcome some of their reading challenges. (Of course there’s a huge range of “dyslexia” and severity varies widely.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One effective approach, called RAVE-O, was developed by \u003ca href=\"http://ase.tufts.edu/crlr/team/wolf.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Maryanne Wolf\u003c/a>, director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University. In her office, Wolf picks up a plastic model of a brain and explains that many children with dyslexia appear to be processing reading information in the right hemisphere, which may be less effective for language tasks, whereas typical readers rely on brain circuitry in the left hemisphere for these functions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAVE-O seeks to work around this, and help kids gain “automaticity” in all aspects of language. It’s a toolkit of strategies to make explicit the critical connections between sounds, symbols, syntax and meaning while also infusing some levity in the process. Kids learn about the “am” family, for instance, with pictures of jelly “jam,” a guitarist “jamming” and a traffic “jam.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for Wolf, this topic isn’t just academic, it’s personal: Her first son has dyslexia. She recalls a moment, when, as a junior high-schooler, he returned from a trip to Italy. “[A]nd he said, ‘Mom, I just want you to see what I just drew from memory.’ I looked. It was a perfect picture of the leaning tower of Pisa — upside down. And I said, ‘Why did you do that?’ And he said, ‘It’s just easier for me to draw that way.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wolf’s son is now a successful artist and sometimes she wonders whether that’s despite his dyslexia — or because of it. Indeed, a national movement has emerged to spotlight the unique attributes of the dyslexic brain. Writers like \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/David-Goliath-Underdogs-Misfits-Battling/dp/0316204366\" target=\"_blank\">Malcolm Gladwell\u003c/a> and others have explored the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/the-upside-of-dyslexia.html\" target=\"_blank\">“upside of dyslexia”\u003c/a>, which can be marked by unusual problem-solving skills and outside-the-box thinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few years back, for example, a widely reported study found that \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/business/worldbusiness/05iht-dyslexia.4.8602036.html\" target=\"_blank\">35 percent of U.S. entrepreneurs\u003c/a> identified themselves as dyslexic. Lists of celebrities with dyslexia, like Whoopi Goldberg and Henry Winkler, are becoming ubiquitous. And researchers, notably Sally and Bennett Shaywitz at the \u003ca href=\"http://dyslexia.yale.edu/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Yale Center For Dyslexia and Creativity\u003c/a>, seek to emphasize the “sea of strengths” around dyslexia. (But even they write about the importance of accurate, precise diagnosis and early, evidence-based intervention.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A MOTHER'S VIEW\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, as a research subject — and a kid who’s changed schools many times to find teachers who “get” how he learns — Josh Thibeau, now at the\u003ca href=\"http://www.landmarkschool.org/\" target=\"_blank\"> Landmark School\u003c/a> in Pride’s Crossing, Mass., has a unique appreciation of his own brain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been described to me as a library, and now I think of it as a maze that’s like constantly changing,” he says, “and hopefully, it’ll be just one straight line, that’s where I need to go, that’s the place I need, that’s the information that I need to extract.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, for Josh’s mother, Janet Thibeau, there remains a sadness knowing her kids will never share her love of reading, and there’s no getting around the severe challenges that come with a learning disability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You see kids struggle and not get their needs met and you see them turning into teenagers who make bad or unsafe choices,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thibeau says she certainly appreciates the resilience that can come from overcoming adversity. But, she says, the prospect of earlier intervention for far more children with dyslexia is also encouraging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It gives the entire community… parents, schools, an opportunity to just keep kids away from seeing themselves as not smart or worthless, and seeing them really reaching amazing potential,” she says. “These are really bright kids who are capable of a lot once those underlying weaknesses are met.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A note on terminology:\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>One problem that arises in talking about dyslexia is that not everyone uses the term “dyslexia,” and there is no one, standard definition. For instance, Elizabeth Norton of MIT explains: “The terms used to define reading difficulties are inconsistent. The state of Massachusetts and even federal education laws don’t use the term ‘dyslexia;’ instead, they use terms such as ‘specific learning disability in reading’ or ‘specific learning impairment.’ Some students may receive a more specific diagnosis of ‘dyslexia’ or “language-based learning disability” from an independent clinician. Further, the DSM 5 doesn’t include a definition of “dyslexia.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Carroll School uses “language-based reading disability” and also dyslexia. The NIH refers to “developmental reading disorder” and “dyslexia” interchangeably.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36432\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/96dpi/4032198061\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36432\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/trend-line.jpg\" alt=\"Andreas Levers/Flickr\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/trend-line.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/trend-line-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/trend-line-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Andreas Levers/Flickr\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cdiv class=\"div_for_spokenlayer_player\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Business leaders and economic thinkers are worried that today's students aren't leaving school with the skills they’ll need to succeed in the workplace. Representatives from tech companies and hiring experts are looking for applicants who show individuality, confidence in their abilities, ability to identify and communicate their strengths, and who are capable of thinking on their feet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytfriedmanforum.com/\" target=\"_blank\">recent Next New World conference\u003c/a> hosted by \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> columnist \u003ca href=\"http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/thomaslfriedman/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Tom Friedman,\u003c/a> panelists addressed the question of how the American education system can better prepare students to meet the evolving challenges of the 21st century economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every panelist agreed that right now, the U.S. does not have a system that produces students that meet those needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The problem is not to get incrementally better with our current education system,” said \u003ca href=\"http://www.tonywagner.com/about-tony\" target=\"_blank\">Tony Wagner\u003c/a>, expert in residence at Harvard’s Innovation Lab. “The problem is to reimagine it.” Wagner is not the first to call for a make-over of the education system, and he certainly isn’t the first to advocate for content that connects with students in authentic ways or that teaches real world skills. His voice joins with the countless educators clamoring for the freedom to pursue those same goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"cd1c23cc36e2b9e67fd01dacd32d3218\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Content knowledge has to be engaging to kids,” Wagner said. “If kids aren’t motivated, you can pour content knowledge in their heads and it comes right out the other ear.” And while critical thinking and communication are important, Wagner said schools are in danger if they stop there. “Above all, they need to be creative problem solvers,” Wagner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wagner highlighted schools in the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/tag/deeper-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">deeper learning network\u003c/a> like New Tech Network, Expeditionary Learning, High Tech High and Big Picture as school models that are aiming to fulfill many of these qualities. “Students are learning many more real world skills, as well as content knowledge, through projects,” Wagner said. “They're doing work worth doing. They’re doing work that’s interesting, and engaging.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When these factors are woven throughout the school experience, students develop intrinsic motivation to take initiative and find their place in the world. They develop hope for what their future might hold. “Most kids are not low on goals and they’re not low on agency,” said Brandon Busteed, executive director of \u003ca href=\"http://www.gallup.com/strategicconsulting/en-us/education.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Gallup Education\u003c/a>. “It’s that they don’t see pathways.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why Wagner half-jokingly advocated for “Dream Directors” in schools, whose job it would be to help students identify their dreams and scaffold tasks to help students obtain the skills needed for that dream. Over time attention to the needs of individuals would transform the content and delivery methods in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\"Students are the power tools of change in education. They are the most ignored and they have the most at stake.\"\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>To transform education in ways that have impact, a bottom-up and top-down strategy should be implemented, Wagner said. If parents, students and teachers make their voices heard about what true accountability would look like, they could change the conversation. But the bottom-up strategy will only work, Wagner said, if it’s accompanied by business leaders clearly articulating the outcomes they’d like to see and helping align accountability to those outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need teachers and parents to advocate for a better system,” Wagner said. And perhaps most importantly, students need a voice as education goes through major changes. “We’re not asking students at all about what they think about the quality of their own learning and about what they aspire to learn,” Wagner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ALIGNING WITH COLLEGE\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes and trends in K-12 education often seem \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/01/do-rigid-college-admissions-leave-room-for-creative-thinkers/\" target=\"_blank\">completely divorced from higher education \u003c/a>and the grueling college application process that lands students at colleges all over the country. But that might be changing. Recently, College Board officials announced they are \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/06/education/major-changes-in-sat-announced-by-college-board.html\" target=\"_blank\">changing the SAT to better reflect\u003c/a> what students learn in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The SAT used to be like studying infinity, said David Coleman, President and CEO of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.collegeboard.org/\" target=\"_blank\">College Board\u003c/a>. The new test is meant to focus on fewer standards, but reflect the most important ones more deeply. “Honoring those few things that have disproportionate power is the way through,” Coleman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The SAT has been \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/06/will-more-porminent-colleges-abandon-the-sat/\" target=\"_blank\">criticized as an unfair measure\u003c/a> of what students have learned or know because of the large tutoring industry that has sprung up around it, ensuring that wealthy kids get top scores. But that's also changing. Recently elite liberal arts colleges like Hampshire and Bard have \u003ca href=\"http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/06/19/hampshire-becomes-only-competitive-college-country-wont-look-sat-act-scores\" target=\"_blank\">announced they won’t consider SAT or ACT scores \u003c/a>if they're submitted with an application, because admissions officers don’t believe the tests are a good measure of students' potential.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The College Board is trying to push back against some of the negative press by partnering with Khan Academy to offer free test prep materials that all students can access. They’re also doing more to reach out to the many qualified students in the lower quartile of income who never apply to university with specialized packets detailing how they can apply for assistance to pay for application fees and tuition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>IS WORK IN COLLEGE MEANINGFUL?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many educators would argue that even once students make it to college -- the stated goal of many high schools -- the education they receive there isn’t preparing them to become innovative thinkers and engaged citizens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36437\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Friedman-Miller-Wagner.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-36437\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Friedman-Miller-Wagner-300x177.jpg\" alt=\"Thomas Friedman, Richard Miller and Tony Wagner discuss education at the Next New World Conference in San Francisco. (Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)\" width=\"300\" height=\"177\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thomas Friedman, Richard Miller and Tony Wagner discuss education at the Next New World Conference in San Francisco. (Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gallup recently did a \u003ca href=\"http://products.gallup.com/168857/gallup-purdue-index-inaugural-national-report.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">study of college graduates\u003c/a> to gauge how engaged they are with their work and whether they are thriving in the world. In the past, the most studies centered around on how much college graduates earned compared to peers without degrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The survey found that student who felt supported -- that their professors cared about them as individuals, that professors made them want to learn, that they had a mentor -- were three times more likely to thrive as those who did not feel supported. Only 14 percent of college graduates answered that all three of those qualities were present in their college experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even fewer college graduates found their higher education experience to be relevant to life and work after college. Only six percent reported with strong affirmatives that they worked on a long term project (at least a semester), had an internship where they could apply skills, and were very engaged in an extracurricular. If a graduate answered “strongly agree” to all three of these qualities he or she was three times as likely to be engaged at work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These numbers show that colleges, like K-12 institutions, need to care for individual learners. Feeling connected and mentored makes a difference, just as understanding how learning is relevant and applicable makes students feel prepared for life after college. Without a move in that direction, the U.S. risks continuing to educate young people who go into the workplace disengaged and less likely to thrive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>OLIN COLLEGE TRIES NEW MODEL\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The founders of \u003ca href=\"http://www.olin.edu/\" target=\"_blank\">Olin College\u003c/a> identified the gap in skilled workers ready for jobs in science, technology, engineering and math and decided to start over with a completely different kind of university. To apply, students visit the college and work in groups on projects. College staff are evaluating them for how they will fit in at the university, primarily looking for strong problem solvers and people who know how to make things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Its purpose is to produce education innovators,” said Richard Miller, president and professor at Olin College. The Massachusetts college is an education laboratory. There are no departments, no tenure, no tuition and the curriculum has an expiration date so that it stays relevant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Olin is essentially a 'maker' university,” Miller said. In one class, students are asked to identify a group of people whose lives they want to change. Through research and interviews they develop a sociological profile of the group that is used to come up with two to three systems, devices or technologies that don’t already exist and that the group says would make a difference in their lives. Students then develop the specifications for the product and show how to build it. By the end of the course they have the outline for a patent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By the time they graduate a significant fraction of them already have companies they are working on,” Miller said. While the school focuses on STEM, students learn about business too. Miller hopes these students leave school thinking about how they can change the world, not about what job they will get. “We are taking too narrow of a view of what the sciences are and trying to make them too technical,” Miller said. In his mind, an innovator is someone who changes something so profoundly people can’t remember how it was before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Students are the power tools of change in education,” Miller said. “They are the most ignored and they have the most at stake.” But, as Olin has found, when they are given free range to design, make and innovate they can be very powerful examples of what a great education can produce.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36432\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/96dpi/4032198061\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36432\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/trend-line.jpg\" alt=\"Andreas Levers/Flickr\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/trend-line.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/trend-line-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/trend-line-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Andreas Levers/Flickr\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cdiv class=\"div_for_spokenlayer_player\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Business leaders and economic thinkers are worried that today's students aren't leaving school with the skills they’ll need to succeed in the workplace. Representatives from tech companies and hiring experts are looking for applicants who show individuality, confidence in their abilities, ability to identify and communicate their strengths, and who are capable of thinking on their feet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytfriedmanforum.com/\" target=\"_blank\">recent Next New World conference\u003c/a> hosted by \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> columnist \u003ca href=\"http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/thomaslfriedman/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Tom Friedman,\u003c/a> panelists addressed the question of how the American education system can better prepare students to meet the evolving challenges of the 21st century economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every panelist agreed that right now, the U.S. does not have a system that produces students that meet those needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The problem is not to get incrementally better with our current education system,” said \u003ca href=\"http://www.tonywagner.com/about-tony\" target=\"_blank\">Tony Wagner\u003c/a>, expert in residence at Harvard’s Innovation Lab. “The problem is to reimagine it.” Wagner is not the first to call for a make-over of the education system, and he certainly isn’t the first to advocate for content that connects with students in authentic ways or that teaches real world skills. His voice joins with the countless educators clamoring for the freedom to pursue those same goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Content knowledge has to be engaging to kids,” Wagner said. “If kids aren’t motivated, you can pour content knowledge in their heads and it comes right out the other ear.” And while critical thinking and communication are important, Wagner said schools are in danger if they stop there. “Above all, they need to be creative problem solvers,” Wagner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wagner highlighted schools in the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/tag/deeper-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">deeper learning network\u003c/a> like New Tech Network, Expeditionary Learning, High Tech High and Big Picture as school models that are aiming to fulfill many of these qualities. “Students are learning many more real world skills, as well as content knowledge, through projects,” Wagner said. “They're doing work worth doing. They’re doing work that’s interesting, and engaging.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When these factors are woven throughout the school experience, students develop intrinsic motivation to take initiative and find their place in the world. They develop hope for what their future might hold. “Most kids are not low on goals and they’re not low on agency,” said Brandon Busteed, executive director of \u003ca href=\"http://www.gallup.com/strategicconsulting/en-us/education.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Gallup Education\u003c/a>. “It’s that they don’t see pathways.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why Wagner half-jokingly advocated for “Dream Directors” in schools, whose job it would be to help students identify their dreams and scaffold tasks to help students obtain the skills needed for that dream. Over time attention to the needs of individuals would transform the content and delivery methods in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\"Students are the power tools of change in education. They are the most ignored and they have the most at stake.\"\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>To transform education in ways that have impact, a bottom-up and top-down strategy should be implemented, Wagner said. If parents, students and teachers make their voices heard about what true accountability would look like, they could change the conversation. But the bottom-up strategy will only work, Wagner said, if it’s accompanied by business leaders clearly articulating the outcomes they’d like to see and helping align accountability to those outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need teachers and parents to advocate for a better system,” Wagner said. And perhaps most importantly, students need a voice as education goes through major changes. “We’re not asking students at all about what they think about the quality of their own learning and about what they aspire to learn,” Wagner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ALIGNING WITH COLLEGE\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes and trends in K-12 education often seem \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/01/do-rigid-college-admissions-leave-room-for-creative-thinkers/\" target=\"_blank\">completely divorced from higher education \u003c/a>and the grueling college application process that lands students at colleges all over the country. But that might be changing. Recently, College Board officials announced they are \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/06/education/major-changes-in-sat-announced-by-college-board.html\" target=\"_blank\">changing the SAT to better reflect\u003c/a> what students learn in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The SAT used to be like studying infinity, said David Coleman, President and CEO of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.collegeboard.org/\" target=\"_blank\">College Board\u003c/a>. The new test is meant to focus on fewer standards, but reflect the most important ones more deeply. “Honoring those few things that have disproportionate power is the way through,” Coleman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The SAT has been \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/06/will-more-porminent-colleges-abandon-the-sat/\" target=\"_blank\">criticized as an unfair measure\u003c/a> of what students have learned or know because of the large tutoring industry that has sprung up around it, ensuring that wealthy kids get top scores. But that's also changing. Recently elite liberal arts colleges like Hampshire and Bard have \u003ca href=\"http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/06/19/hampshire-becomes-only-competitive-college-country-wont-look-sat-act-scores\" target=\"_blank\">announced they won’t consider SAT or ACT scores \u003c/a>if they're submitted with an application, because admissions officers don’t believe the tests are a good measure of students' potential.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The College Board is trying to push back against some of the negative press by partnering with Khan Academy to offer free test prep materials that all students can access. They’re also doing more to reach out to the many qualified students in the lower quartile of income who never apply to university with specialized packets detailing how they can apply for assistance to pay for application fees and tuition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>IS WORK IN COLLEGE MEANINGFUL?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many educators would argue that even once students make it to college -- the stated goal of many high schools -- the education they receive there isn’t preparing them to become innovative thinkers and engaged citizens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36437\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Friedman-Miller-Wagner.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-36437\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Friedman-Miller-Wagner-300x177.jpg\" alt=\"Thomas Friedman, Richard Miller and Tony Wagner discuss education at the Next New World Conference in San Francisco. (Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)\" width=\"300\" height=\"177\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thomas Friedman, Richard Miller and Tony Wagner discuss education at the Next New World Conference in San Francisco. (Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gallup recently did a \u003ca href=\"http://products.gallup.com/168857/gallup-purdue-index-inaugural-national-report.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">study of college graduates\u003c/a> to gauge how engaged they are with their work and whether they are thriving in the world. In the past, the most studies centered around on how much college graduates earned compared to peers without degrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The survey found that student who felt supported -- that their professors cared about them as individuals, that professors made them want to learn, that they had a mentor -- were three times more likely to thrive as those who did not feel supported. Only 14 percent of college graduates answered that all three of those qualities were present in their college experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even fewer college graduates found their higher education experience to be relevant to life and work after college. Only six percent reported with strong affirmatives that they worked on a long term project (at least a semester), had an internship where they could apply skills, and were very engaged in an extracurricular. If a graduate answered “strongly agree” to all three of these qualities he or she was three times as likely to be engaged at work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These numbers show that colleges, like K-12 institutions, need to care for individual learners. Feeling connected and mentored makes a difference, just as understanding how learning is relevant and applicable makes students feel prepared for life after college. Without a move in that direction, the U.S. risks continuing to educate young people who go into the workplace disengaged and less likely to thrive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>OLIN COLLEGE TRIES NEW MODEL\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The founders of \u003ca href=\"http://www.olin.edu/\" target=\"_blank\">Olin College\u003c/a> identified the gap in skilled workers ready for jobs in science, technology, engineering and math and decided to start over with a completely different kind of university. To apply, students visit the college and work in groups on projects. College staff are evaluating them for how they will fit in at the university, primarily looking for strong problem solvers and people who know how to make things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Its purpose is to produce education innovators,” said Richard Miller, president and professor at Olin College. The Massachusetts college is an education laboratory. There are no departments, no tenure, no tuition and the curriculum has an expiration date so that it stays relevant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Olin is essentially a 'maker' university,” Miller said. In one class, students are asked to identify a group of people whose lives they want to change. Through research and interviews they develop a sociological profile of the group that is used to come up with two to three systems, devices or technologies that don’t already exist and that the group says would make a difference in their lives. Students then develop the specifications for the product and show how to build it. By the end of the course they have the outline for a patent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By the time they graduate a significant fraction of them already have companies they are working on,” Miller said. While the school focuses on STEM, students learn about business too. Miller hopes these students leave school thinking about how they can change the world, not about what job they will get. “We are taking too narrow of a view of what the sciences are and trying to make them too technical,” Miller said. In his mind, an innovator is someone who changes something so profoundly people can’t remember how it was before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Students are the power tools of change in education,” Miller said. “They are the most ignored and they have the most at stake.” But, as Olin has found, when they are given free range to design, make and innovate they can be very powerful examples of what a great education can produce.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"soldout": {
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"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
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