Creative ways to get kids to thrive in Schools-A Review

This is a review of a talk given by one of the Speakers at Ted.com

You can view the Complete talk at this Link, Ted.com

Reason for the review is to bring clarity to many of the false educational methodologies presented by the Speaker. Speaker went about making the entire presentation without citing any data based Research to back her results.

The Speaker Randomly mentions the works of Dr. Bruce Perry and his Research on Effects on different childhood experiences. Dr. Bruce Perry has multiple works on Childhood experiences and brain cognition to his credits. Every childhood experience has or contributes to different Brain experiences.

To broadly say, “we studied the research of Dr. Bruce Perry and the effects of different childhood experiences on child’s brain”, is rather vaguely used.

The Speaker should quote in specific the work of Dr. Bruce Perry that pertains or strikes the most to her school’s challenge and more so isolate that one Parameter that weighs the most towards contributing the most impact on a Child’s brain.

Instead, the Speaker uses vague terms such as “We“, are we supposed to understand, that a team of teachers were involved in this Research? If so, what are the findings and what are the recommendations for challenges such as this.

Few Points to Consider

Learning occurs when there is focused attention. Of course, the attention span with a 6 year old is between 10-15 minutes, on topics that interests them.

After this time, generally kids become restless. The attention span also depends on the activities given to the child. If the child enjoys the act, he or she would give the attention required, if not, it’s an absolute no.

The Proverbial words, “what you Sow, so shall you Reap”, cannot be more true when it comes with a child than it does in the literal sense.

That is to say, as a teacher, you ought to put in creativity and inquisitive learning into Content delivery.

Curriculum and the School system

All School systems adhere to an organized Curriculum. And all Curriculum are structured around the following pillar. For learning to occur, a task ought to be performed, repetitively and for learning to be quantified, the learned task ought to be tested [Test taking].

If you give a 6 year old Child the most expensive Barbie doll, the Child will easily spend the next 60 minutes in pealing and ripping every part of the doll, experts call this as one form of scientific learning, but School system thinks otherwise and may call on the parents to report what they call as destructive behavior. Thus there is a difference between Scientific learning and Established curriculum based learning.

How to keep a Child well Behaved

To keep a Child well behaved in schools is a two way process, we call it 50% + 50%. Teachers alone cannot be held accountable for a child’s behavior, plus it is just asking too much from teachers for the pay that they get.

In other words, already, Teachers are working long hours, completing more paper work than ever before, giving more value to the compensation that they take home, and not to mention the stress they are involved in.

Parents Part

The other half should come from parents. Children need love, care and constant validation. A wavelength of parents should harmonize with the wavelength of a child and not expect the child to behave as grownups, That is just not going to happen.

The 50% from parents will be very crucial, if parents are frequently involved in fights, quarrels and abusive behavior, the child would eventually take it on.

No matter what remedial effect the school does.  Research reveals, if the father of a child is abusive, the likelihood of a child becoming abusive has 90% probability.

There is 95% probability that kids from broken families will not complete high school. These are hard facts and data. Research also suggests that Parents who generally spent 3 to 4 hours every day as family with the Child, often resulted in the Child’s high performance in Academics.

Dangers of Television

Television also has a greater negative Impact on a Child. Research suggests, children below the age of 10, exposed to violence, murder, rape, and other life threatening sequences will portray same or similar intensities when opportunities are offered.

This does not mean, Cartoons are good, Research also suggests, exposure to Cartoons such as Tom and Jerry, where violence is portrayed in a subtle  manner also has impact on the Child’s brain, especially during the Rapid Growth period of the Brain.

Speaker’s claim and lack of Research evidence

The Speaker talks about as to how “ Our teachers actually took time during the lesson plan to teach kids how to identify their feelings and appropriate, healthy coping strategies for dealing with them, such as counting to 10, grabbing a fidget spinner or taking a quick walk.”

Based on available Research the Speaker’s claim is False, one for the fact, to teach anything to a Child, especially with regard to identifying a feeling needs more than a fidget spinner.

Plus, suggestions such as, counting to 10 and quick walks, as adopted mechanisms, prompts us to question, have you really implemented these? What data based Research have you got to back these claims.

Apparently the Speaker may not be aware, if you ask a child to count to 10, the child would treat this as a learning assignment, you have already lost him or her on that.

Secondly, actions such as fidget spinner can be involving to a 15 year old, but not to a 6 year old, and so is taking a quick walk.

Brain Breaks-Shorter lesson plan-destroys learning

The Speaker talks about Brain breaks and lists varied activities. The question to ask here would be, when is the time to teach and achieve the objectives of the set curriculum?

The suggestion provided by the Speaker to prevent disruptive class behavior would be to have teachers work on shorter lesson plan.

The moment you curtail the lesson plan, it would just mean, knowledge delivery is curtailed. This would destroy the very purpose of systematized learning.

ADHD-why not mentioned?

In all of the talk, the Speaker failed to take note of the Child’s, impulsive acts, over-activity, inattentiveness can often mean an underlying problem of ADHD.

This would mean, Parents should have to seek the assistance of qualified mental health professional to assist the child and teachers are not qualified to deal with these situations.

Flawed Association

Towards the end, the Speaker makes a flawed association, the behavior of teenagers to 6 year old. The mental health associated with adolescent psychology and that of a child are leagues apart. To even strike a similarity would only show lack of experience in both fields.

Concluding Remark

The talk is too vague and lacks Research based validations. Many of the suggested approaches cannot be applied to the School curriculum. Narrating one such case of D, will not mean that the experience can be scientifically repeated.