I just finished THIS ARTICLE from 99u (a great platform from Behance...which is from Adobe - right in our back yard) about the necessary aspects of breaks during the day.
This is more about "adult life work", but I think it applies to you students as well.
If you are go go going all day between classes and practice and work and homework and chores and messaging your friends and social media, well, it is just too much. Where is the balance?
I am guilty of this. Our machines make it way to easy to constantly be connected, and there is always - it seems - so much to do. For example, I've been doing work here at my laptop for the last 25 minutes and couldn't it wait? I worked all the way through last Friday at lunch, but did I need to?
I feel like I did. There was a lot of work to do. But is that going to yield nothing but negative results by the middle of the afternoon?
It reminds me of all the parents and school board members that have voiced feelings of concern and frustration that you students have a 40 minute tutorial in the middle of the school day when "you should be in class", but science just doesn't back that up.
At all.
Which leads to my next points...
At any rate, this sort of couples with what I listened to at Stanford on Friday night. There was another Challenge Success event and the keynote speaker has some interesting research to share.
Teens spend, on average, NINE HOURS on their devices for non-academic purposes each day. See, that 30 seconds or 2 minutes adds up over time.
The other big thing that stood out to me was that the part of our brain that is needed for studying and learning is the same part of our brain that is engaged when we have a screen in front of us.
What this means is that we think we might be zoning out and relaxing by checking a Snapchat Story, or watching Netflix, or scrolling through Instagram, but we aren't. Ultimately we are just adding to the exhausted and fatigue that we get from doing homework and being in class.
Interesting, huh?
Showing posts with label Stanford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stanford. Show all posts
Monday, October 3, 2016
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
The Most Fantastic Ted Talk
I wanna know what you think of this. I have recommended her book to the parents after having read it last year myself, and now I see this pop up on the twitter.
If you actually give yourself the time to watch this I would love to know your thoughts.
Cheers!
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Tony Wagner + The Finland Phenomenon
Last Friday I had the pleasure of attending an event at Stanford which was hosted by Denise Clark Pope and Challenge Success. One of the speakers was Tony Wagner and one of the many things he mentioned was a film he worked on called The Finland Phenomenon.
Finland consistently has the highest ranked educational system in the world, and it is radically different than ours in the states. I am not a big fan of numbers, but because their system is so different than ours it piqued my interest. Enough that I found the documentary on youtube and want to share it with you.
Watch it HERE if your interest is also piqued.
One of the other fun takeaways from the evening is something that is so true but none of us parents really want to acknowledge.
Since I'm not a big fan of reducing our students to a pile of numbers, this is a statistic that kind of made me laugh - because I know you don't want to hear it.
Your kid is average.
That's the blunt and un-sugar-coated version. But statistically speaking, most kids are. That's how statistics/averages work. Some are exceptional, some aren't. Most are "just" average.
My takeaway is that this doesn't comment on the fantastic-ness of your offspring, but in terms of grades, tests, college entrances - you know, those things that too much emphasis is put on and which don't really reveal that much about your kid (our students) - most kids are average. They have to be.
Not warm and fuzzy, but true.
Wow. That makes this end kind of negatively...which isn't my goal.
Working hard and having empathy and challenging yourself are way more important qualities for me to help you instill in your kids, and are much more a determiner of their success and happiness anyway. So there is that.
Finland consistently has the highest ranked educational system in the world, and it is radically different than ours in the states. I am not a big fan of numbers, but because their system is so different than ours it piqued my interest. Enough that I found the documentary on youtube and want to share it with you.
Watch it HERE if your interest is also piqued.
One of the other fun takeaways from the evening is something that is so true but none of us parents really want to acknowledge.
Since I'm not a big fan of reducing our students to a pile of numbers, this is a statistic that kind of made me laugh - because I know you don't want to hear it.
Your kid is average.
That's the blunt and un-sugar-coated version. But statistically speaking, most kids are. That's how statistics/averages work. Some are exceptional, some aren't. Most are "just" average.
My takeaway is that this doesn't comment on the fantastic-ness of your offspring, but in terms of grades, tests, college entrances - you know, those things that too much emphasis is put on and which don't really reveal that much about your kid (our students) - most kids are average. They have to be.
Not warm and fuzzy, but true.
Wow. That makes this end kind of negatively...which isn't my goal.
Working hard and having empathy and challenging yourself are way more important qualities for me to help you instill in your kids, and are much more a determiner of their success and happiness anyway. So there is that.
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