I spy...future gamblers in your kindergarten class?

It’s one month into the school year and as I look out at my kindergarten class I can tell you the ones that have trouble sitting in their desks and whose attention is sixty percent of the time on anything but me. These are the kids that are in need of some extra attention in the form of direction, discipline, or medication. According to researchers from the Université de Montréal and the Saint-Justine University Research Center these are also the kids that we should be monitoring for a possible gambling addiction. Wait! Did I hear that right? We are monitoring kids for gambling addictions in Kindergarten!
This study presented links between children who showed impulsive behavior in Kindergarten, and then were later checked on in six years later to be found spending time playing cards for money, placing bets on sports, among other things. The study however did not say if the children where participating in any other negative behaviors such as drinking, drugs, sex, or vandalism. The main stressed point was that the five year olds with impulsivity problems had a twenty five percent increased risk of a gambling addiction later in life.
Don’t break down and start panic just yet if your child is making impulsive decisions. You can still save them. The intervention needs to take place before they turn seven when their frontal lobe is growing. The frontal lobe is responsible for cognitive behavior so their future problems need to be fixed now. Researchers suggest teaching your impulsive child the, “Stop, Look, and Listen” routine. This can help your child stop what they are doing, look around their environment, and listen in order to calm themselves into making a more intelligible decision. Also modeling good intelligible decision making will help your child.
Personally, I laughed when I read this article. I envisioned myself calling a parent in for a special meeting and then telling them that I am fearful that their child might develop a possible gambling addiction and that we need to take action now. Yes, I agree that children in Kindergarten are developing and we need to be modeling appropriate behaviors and trying to correct their impulsive behavior now so that it does not become a problem for them in the future but we are not doctors and some kids no matter what we do are going to have attention issues down the road. I don’t believe just because a child can not pay attention and is easily distracted they will be a future gambler. I do believe they might have a more likely chance to dabble in a variety of negative behaviors but not just gambling.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/dailydose/03/03/children.kindergartners.gambling/index.html#cnnSTCText

Economy Forces 2009 Grads to Dump Dream Colleges

Of the nation’s 3.3 million 2009 high school graduates, many parents are pushing their children to go to state universities instead of their “dream college" states USA Today. This does not come as a shock to anyone who was read a paper or listened to the news in the past year but our economy is making an impact on every aspect of our lives. The National Association for College Admission Counseling conducted a survey to see where students would be going to school in the fall in response to our economy. Their findings were not surprising. Many parents are finding that they do not have the money to send their child to the dream college they always wanted to. Parents who had their child’s college education fund in the stock market have seen that money cut in half, if not more. Students are still applying to these “dream schools,” but are waiting to find out what type of financial aid packages they will receive before they make their final decision. One fact that I thought was positive in all of this economic sadness was that of the 658 high schools nationally that responded to this survey, nearly 85 % of the students did not plan to delay college because of the economy. For now students are not forgetting about their dream schools. They are just planning on making them their “graduate dream schools.”
Over the past year it is no lie that it has been hard to watch friends & family lose jobs, make cut backs, and put some of their dreams on hold. It is not always fair but something that we all have to do. Personally I don’t feel that these students are giving up something that is going to drastically impact their lives. I went to Fargo South High School, in Fargo ND, and while I was growing up and many of the students graduating stated they were going to University of Nevada Las Vegas or Texas Christian University. I was going to Valley City State University and I was not upset about it one bit. First of all it was a ton cheaper and my parents were willing to pay for it. I received scholarships and worked my entire college career to help with it but in the end I received a great education and I landed a great job out of college. I think once these graduates step out into the “real world” and see that it is not all about name recondition they will realize they made the right choice for both them and their wallets.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-06-09-college-economy_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Personal Comments on Planning in Reflection from Textbook Teaching Strategies: A Guide to Effective Instruction

“If you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail.” I will always remember this quote that a teacher stated to me in college when we were learning about planning. To me planning is something with teaching that I have not got the hang of yet. In college it seems like we had to do these in-depth lesson plans that stated our objectives, standards, review, lesson, and post lesson questions. It looked great when it was done but in the real world of teaching never did I use this. Sure, I think it was good that I knew what a good lesson should look like even if I shorten it down in the classroom but it is hard to really think about doing that every day for three or four subjects. While reading this week’s chapters in our textbook Teaching Strategies: A Guide to Effective Instruction I started to think about how this material would be used my classroom. Although I don’t think I do a very good job of laying out my lesson on paper everyday I think I have a very good idea of what my goals and objectives are, I try to review and present new material in different ways to reach all types of learners, and I keep a copy of the state standards by my desk and refer to my standardized report card to make sure I am covering all the bases. I do find it difficult when I am looking at my teachers manual to find time to do the activities that they want me to fit into the curriculum while still bringing in some personal material to make my lessons fun and engaging. One comment from our textbook that I really liked was that planning should be looked at as a guide and a requirement.
At a Kindergarten level planning for me was difficult because my lesson depended on so many different things. First of all I would only be able to keep their attention on something for a maximum of twenty minutes and it would have to be during a time of day where they would be willing to listen. As weird as this may sound if the weather pattern was different such as rain, storm, or snow then the kids would be wild so it would not be quality teaching time. I found myself writing down plans in my lesson plan book and never opening it because I would either remember what I wanted to teach or I would have my materials ready and I would just grab them and go into action. At the start of the week I thought of everything I wanted to do but I would not write it down since my principal does not require it. It always felt like a waste of my time to do that when it changed if the students did not understand the material or I could tell they were not ready for something. Our curriculum flows so nicely that once I got the hang of it it was not hard to figure out what would be coming next. The only times I really sat down and wrote nice plans was when I knew that I was going to be observed for an entire lesson. I think as I become a more experienced teacher this will become easier and I will feel more benefits to planning. If anyone has any advice about planning I would love to hear it.

More higher-income families are home schooling their children

While considering different topics to write about I came across a topic that immediately caught my attention. It was posted in the May 28th edition of the USA TODAY newspaper entitled More higher-income families are home schooling their children. The article talks about how home schooling has nearly doubled in the past decade and the majority of the people who are choosing to home school their children come from white, wealthy, and well-educated families. Also the number of girls compared to boys has also increased. What are the reasons that parents are now deciding to home school their children? The U.S. Department of Education was questioning that same topic and they found that, “36% of parents said their most important reason for home schooling was to provide “religious or moral instruction”; 21% cited concerns about school environment, and 17% cited “dissatisfaction with academic instruction.” The article also commented that ten years ago the majority of home school children came from families that earned an average of less than $50,000 a year. Today the trend has reversed stating that the majority are from families who earn more than $50,000 a year.
Personally, I get a little defensive when I hear that people home school their children. As a teacher I take pride in giving children a quality education and when someone does not feel satisfied with our environment or academic instruction it upsets me. I consider myself a Christian and I do attend a church but I don’t feel the need to keep certain children away from other children because they do not come a Christian background. I don’t feel like you can shelter a child their whole life and expect that they are going to have the perfect childhood. I don’t want the perfect childhood for my kids. I want them to be prepared for things that will happen in the “real world” and if that means having your juice box stolen at lunch then so be it. My main point in why I feel this way is because I don’t feel like the child has the opportunity to make lots of new friends and interact with them in an environment that is outside of the home where the child can feel a little independent. Rarely, have I seen a child that has been home schooled be brought into the school system and they are just willing to talk and be a part of school sports and academic teams and just really caught on to the social scene. They are the kids that get good grades but never speak up because they are afraid of what others might think of them. Some home school environments work well and parents have their children involved in many outside activities to help socialize them. I just hope that if a child says to their parents that they want to attend a regular or private school they would allow them to.

Toppo, G. (May 28th, 2009). More higher-income families are home schooling their children. USA TODAY. Retrieved June 4, 2009, from http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-05-28-homeschooling-report_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Greta Delparte