I found this interesting because the very word kindergarten is a German word.

A new government report released Thursday demands reforms to the pre-school education system, among them improving the training of teachers in kindergartens — a situation that’s badly in need of change in Germany.

In recent years, there’s been a growing realization in Germany that kindergarten isn’t just a place for children to romp and play, but also where they begin to learn the ropes of reading, writing and arithmetic– skills that are usually associated with school-age kids.

A slew of international studies have made it clear that the early childhood years are optimal for kids to learn basic skills thanks to their inherent curiosity and help them perform better when they enter primary schools at the age of six.

It’s little wonder then that the new children and youth report issued by the German government on Thursday recommends allowing kids as young as two to enter kindergarten, and changing the way kindergartens and schools are traditionally viewed in Germany.

“In future schools must provide for more supervision and upbringing, while kindergartens and day-care centers should increase their focus on education,” Thomas Rauschenbach, director of the German Youth Institute (DIJ) and head of the seven-member commission that drew up the report for the German government told the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung. “All children profit from it by the time they complete two years,” Rauschenbach added.

Growing awareness of the importance of early childhood education has in turn focused attention on the role of kindergarten teachers — and revealed it to be the weak link in Germany’s education system.

That’s because, unlike in most other EU countries, kindergarten teachers in Germany only need to complete a three-year training program to work as an early child educator, and not the full post-secondary education required from primary school teachers.

Critics point out that the lack of sufficient training leaves kindergarten teachers unequipped to provide children with intellectually-stimulating games and basic playful lessons in natural science, mathematics and reading. “The teachers at our kindergartens still see themselves first and foremost as babysitters,” one Frankfurt mother recently told the weekly Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

The latest children and youth report recommends training kindergarten teachers to university level to ensure better preparation for their twin roles of educators and supervisors.

The training of kindergarten teachers has been a subject of debate and criticism for several years in Germany with several experts, social scientists and even the Green party and the teachers’ union pushing to raise the qualification barriers for hiring new teachers.

There are signs that things are gradually changing thanks to a few initiatives by some universities to offer new specialized study courses on “pre-school education training” that trains teachers to work with children right from birth until the age of six. But there aren’t many takers because the courses are rarely state-funded and thus cost money.

The problem is further complicated by the fact that matters of education in Germany are regulated at state level with different states sometimes pursuing conflicting policies. Education ministers from the 16 federal states did agree on a common framework last year to improve the education levels of kindergarten teachers in order to better promote young children, but so far nothing concrete has come of it.

Even as politicians fail to resolve the problem, a look at other European nations shows that Germany is already a laggard in the field — a fact that explains its disastrous performance on the PISA test.

Children at “nursery schools” in Britain and “ecoles maternelles” in France are already groomed playfully in dealing with numbers and the alphabet, while Belgium, Italy and Holland have clearly defined what children should be able to do at the end of their pre-school period — count and even read.

Even in Hungary and Norway, the curriculum for kindergartens invites children and parents to choose between specializing in different topics, with the emphasis being on music, playing instruments and reading notes.

I just love this. It came from Jeannine Virtue and her blog which is linked on the sidebar – It’s ADHD Blog.

Canada Reinstates Deadly Attention Deficit Drug

Adderall Xr, which was forced off the Canadian market last February, is being reinstated.

The reversal of the Canadian regulator’s decision came after a panel of experts reviewed the drug’s safety data.

Health Canada pulled Adderall XR off the market on Feb. 9 after learning of 20 cases of sudden death and 12 of stroke in people using the drug.

Fourteen of the sudden deaths and two of the strokes were in children. A number of the cases involved children with structural heart defects.

The drug was put back on the market because “there was not enough evidence of an increased harm from Adderall compared to other therapies available.”

Health officials expect to have the product back on pharmacy shelves within the next two to three weeks.

One of the children has come down with pink eye or conjunctivitis twice. Contagious, you say, but that’s not always true. Only some people get pink eye, and in the same breath, only some people respond to the usual cure.

Sulfa drugs are wonderful from a parents’ perspective, but they don’t always work. Sometimes they cover the symptoms, and that’s all. Then the complaint comes back with a vengeance.

My family is allergic to sulfa, and it manifests itself in a large rash, but it also manifests itself in half finished business.

One of my daughters was treated for a bladder infection at age two with a sulfa drug many years ago. She had the same infection several times and finally had to have a kidney ex-ray. It was a horribly traumatic experience because the child was so shy, she fainted at the sight of a stranger. That horrible hospital experience was a double nightmare.

When the tests came out, the medication became the suspect, and she was placed on another drug, and there was no recurrence of the infection ever.

It was said at the time that the drug masked the symptoms and didn’t really cure the infection. Of course I was furious; I’m still furious. Putting a child through that ordeal because better care wasn’t taken is a shame.

It’s something to think about.

Glue is a wonderful discipline tool. On Wednesday a very difficult child decided to anoint himself with glue, spreading it out across his hands like hand cream. “I have to go, go, go, to wash my hands,” said he with his paper undone.

“No,” said the teacher knowing that the child was finding a way to disrupt her class, “You can get a tissue.”

Well everyone knows what a tissue and glue is like, and in a few minutes so did the child. He was entrapped in a mess of glue and tissue which covered his hands like a paper glove. “I have to wash this off,” said the child who still hadn’t looked at his paper.

“It will come off,” said the teacher, “You just have to work at it.”

All during story time, the child worked to get the glue and tissue off his hands. He was quiet, respectful and actually listened for a few minutes to the story. When the story was over, the glue had dried and had pealed off the child’s hands.

The next day, the teacher figured the child would avoid smearing glue all over his hands. But the child did the same thing. “I have to wash this mess off,” insisted the child.

“Just get a tissue,” said the teacher. The child looked at her as if she was crazy. It was a duel to the end. The child spent the next story time pealing glue off his hands.

The consequences of a deliberately disruptive action rested not once but twice on a child. Did he really think that he could do the same thing twice and because he had been duped the first time, would be excused the second time? Not at the Garden School.

If that’s the case, then if he lashes out and hurts someone a first time, should he be excused the second? The responsibilities of someone’s actions count every time, and that’s what the little boy is learning.

I love this story. I love being consistent with the kids. The bigger the rock, the higher the climb, the greater the joy when we reach the top.

I’ve had this report for a couple of months. I thought it was more interesting now than in May because now is when kids go back to school. Actually, I don’t think it’s interesting at all. I know as an educator I’m supposed to find this stuff fascinating, but in all honesty, I think it’s terribly dull. I suppose it’s dull because what this report does is line up statistics so that more money can be poured into an education program that is simply not working, and I find that more of the same.

I have a lot of thoughts on why it’s not working, but that’s not applicable here. The question stated here is are children ready for school? What we find out is that poor undereducated families have a rougher time understanding what schools are supposed to be doing than affluent, educated people. Is that worth millions of dollars to find out? I think it’s a given. But here’s the report:

Ready for school?

As States Grapple with How to Prepare Children to Succeed in School, a Report Last Spring Shows How 17 States are Using Indicators to Track Progress.

Research shows that too many young children enter kindergarten with physical, social, emotional and cognitive deficits that could have been minimized or eliminated through early intervention. This report entitled Getting Ready: Findings from the National SchoolReadiness Indicators Initiative, shows how identifying indicators ofschool readiness and tracking progress on those measures can lead tomore effective policies and investments in early childhood.

The National School Readiness Indicators Initiative provides a set of indicators that policy makers can use to monitor school readiness and early school success,” said Ron Haskins, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies Department, Brookings Institution.

The states participating in the Initiative are: Arizona, Arkansas,California, Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine,Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island,Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.

“State policy makers play a critical role in allocating resources tosupport the school readiness of young children. Increasingly, statepolicy makers are asking for results-based accountability in makingtheir funding decisions.

While policy makers may recognize the importance of early learning and school readiness, they also need measurable indicators that enable them to track progress,” according to Lisbeth Schorr, Director of the Project on Effective Interventions at Harvard University. Each state developed indicators that were based on the child development research and that fit their policy context.

The states formed teams made up of representatives from governors’ offices, state legislators, state school officers, heads of departments of education, health, and social services, child advocates, researchers, and business leaders.

The Initiative’s web site at www.GettingReady.org highlights the individual state reports on school readiness produced by each of the 17 states. In order to share the information widely among key policy makers, the Initiative partnered with five national organizations: the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, the National Conference of State Legislators, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the Education Commission of the States and the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Based on the experience of the 17 states, a core set of commonindicators was identified that can be used to measure progress towards school readiness and early school success. The school readiness indicators that are included in this report were selected because they have the power to inform state policy action on behalf of youngchildren.

They emphasize the importance of physical health, economicwell-being, child development and supports for families. The core set of indicators are attached and address all the domains of child development (physical development, social and emotional, language and literacy, approaches to learning and cognitive development).

Indicators are grouped according to key areas that can be affected by policy action, including:

Ready Children: Describe characteristics of children’s health anddevelopment.

Ready Families: Describe children’s family context and home environment.

Ready Communities: Describe the community resources and supportsavailable to families with young children.

Ready Services: Describe the availability, quality, and affordability of proven programs that influence child development and school readiness, including health and early education services.

Ready Schools: Describe critical elements of schools that influencechild development and school success.

“The regular tracking of school readiness indicators enables policymakers and community leaders to identify areas most in need of intervention, track the results of investments, and monitor trends overtime,” said Elizabeth Burke Bryant, Executive Director of Rhode Island KIDS COUNT.

“The goal of the School Readiness Indicators Initiative was to develop indicators not just for data’s sake, but to inform and influence policy decisions to improve school readiness.”

Well… Mrs. St. Louis and Miss Judy celebrated 40 and 35 years of marriage last Sunday and Monday. Miss Molly and her sister Katy threw a wonderful party for everyone at Franco’s in Newburgh. We had a marvelous time.

We have several new students who we are very proud of. They have come from a variety of places in Evansville, mostly awful, and the children all need to learn how to come to school, and they are making wonderful progress.

It’s always remarkable to note that most places don’t teach children how to wash, sit at a lunch table or play responsibly with a toy. It takes about ten days to re-teach those things, but once they are in the notebook, that’s where they stay.

Washing is an easy process: Because we are so very dirty from the pea gravel playground, we apply liquid soap to dry hands and arms – right to the elbows – like hand cream. Then we stand at the sink with gushing water and remove the soap-dirt combination. When the soap is gone, so’s the dirt. Then we wash the face, dry with a paper towel and THEN we get a drink. If your child suddenly washes to the elbow and has a wet face, you know where he learned it. We instruct children that if you come in from outside -WASH.

Lunch is a hoot. We have one child who has probably never experienced a fork. He holds the fork in his arm joint by the elbow while he pushes food into his mouth with his hands while he tries to wear his cup. Don’t worry, most of his milk is in his lap.

And these kids are eaters – they eat anything. Today they devoured grilled cheese sandwiches, left over ham and hot dogs, pineapple, salad, watermelon, applesauce, cottage cheese, and celery and cucumbers with sour cream dip. Tomorrow we will be having homemade chicken pot pie.

We are also always shocked by how children don’t know how to play outdoors. The initial whine about “I don’t know how to play outside,” really is quite a local disgrace.

In the pet room, we have nine brand new baby guinea pigs born in the last week. They are quite adorable and viewable in the southwest pen.

We have a nest of rabbits in Mrs. St. Louis’s room, and something special in there. There is a runt who is two inches long. His siblings are five inches long. If he makes it, we will probably keep him now that Carl has gone to the vet. He’s a natural which is my favorite rabbit.

We are studying Maps and where I am on the map in Geography, Creation in Religion, and Miss Rachel is doing random science. Miss Stacey is working on lessons on manners which we desperately need.

Speaking of Miss Stacey, we are going to make some changes at the Garden School. We will be building her a little classroom where dress up is. It’s a new idea and needs a lot of work.

One of the things that is beginning to really bother us is the noise. That building is wonderful to teach in when it’s quiet, but the outside noise, the inside noise, the extra noise is sometimes so distracting, it’s hard for teachers to concentrate, so we are going to begin to enclose some of the space. I think everyone will just love it.

Mr. Robbie will be doing the work for us. He’s a marvel – can do anything. First we’re going to do the floors, and add Miss Stacey’s classroom. Then it’s onward and upward. The ceiling’s the limit.

JL

Lots of parents and friends casually ask what our son does for a living. I tell them he is in cancer research and therapy. If they are more interested than that, I tell them that he puts together proton therapy units for a Belgian company. Proton Therapy units treat cancer a new way. His team has worked on tumors where there is little if any hope. Their success rate is excellent.

I’ve put Brendan’s Company’s web page HERE for you to look at. It’s an important thing to know about and share with your doctor because you never know when cancer will strike, and this is available in few places.

We are lucky enough to have one at Indiana University. There is one in Boston at Mass General, one in California, and Brendan’s team is putting a unit together for the University of Florida in Jacksonville.

Last year, his company built a unit in China, and Brendan was the site manager.

Take a look HERE.

New Web page Opens

Elizabeth, the eleven year old daughter of a good friend, has a new web page out, and she is selling books through Amazon.com. She is a very enterprising young woman and you should visit her web page which is called Biever Readers and is a permanent link in the Shopping Links column on this blog.

You’ll be glad you did.

Judy