I was pretty excited yesterday with my part of the testing. We gave several tests and were able to see that the results of what we do at the Garden School have really worked. I’m so pleased for the children who have achieved so much.

About a week ago, I received a terrible nasty gram from a young woman who tried to denigrate what we do at the school as not age appropriate. She has no idea of what we do nor has she ever been at our school. What I would tell her if she visited us is that all our activities are eagerly awaited by our student body. Our children ask to be educated, and they reach for the sky. Every child is eager to build on his individual knowledge simply because we make it challenging and fun, and the children love being put to the measure, succeeding and then being rewarded. It makes them feel great. They want to know what other people know. They are aware that there is knowledge out there and they want it.

So I’m proud of the results of the 3 math tests we gave. The results define a child’s ordinary knowledge of sequential numbers from one to one hundred. Here are the results:

(PS) means returnee from Public School
(K-4) means they were in my kindergarten class
(K-1) means they were in Kelly’s Kindergarten- First grade

Faultless: Jack S (K-1), Hadley(K-1), Mayli (K-1), Peyton (K-1), Jack H (PS-1), Briauna C (PS-1), Kaito (K-4), Alexis (PS-K).

Missing 1: Dhezmond (PS-1)

Missing 2: Austin(K-1) and Morgen (PS-1)

Missing 3: Ty(K-1), Justin (K-4), Dawson(K-4)

Missing 6: Alan (PS-K)

Missing 8: Aidan (K-4)

Missing 11: Faith (K-4)

Missing 13: MJ (k-4)

Missing 14: Madison (k-4)

Missing 19: Caleb (PS-1)

There were 2 children who missed 29, 39,

The preschool who attempted a 1-25 test were

David, Alex and Triston and they did fine.

Those who were absent yesterday will take the test as we can give it.

One of the things to remember is that even missing 19 out of over 200 questions is an achievement and something a child can be proud of.

Reading results were even better. We have a couple of children who tested out at a second grade reading level. Results will be posted.

Today is the Freedom Festival field trip. It is supposed to be in the mid eighties which will be a relief. Yesterday it was so hot we couldn’t bear outside for more than 30 minutes at a time.

Pizza from Angelo’s!

It was another swimming festival at the pool yesterday. One by one they are really swimming. We got Dawson and Taylor and Justin to jump off the edge in the lanes and swim way out to an adult. Dawson went off the board. He was hesitant at first and then the second time, he flew off the board with great joy. It was pretty funny.

Taylor went off the board as well. He was more hesitant than Dawson, but more determined than anyone because when the board closed and the slides opened, he stood by the board with a mad face until it opened again. Dawson, on the other hand, went down the slide.

Jackie was the first swimmer to jump repeatedly into the deep end and then swim back to the side of the pool, but when he took a look at the distance between the pool and the board, he froze and wouldn’t do it.

Daymon and Caleb are the next upcoming swimmers. These guys want to swim straight up and down.

The difference between the fun the swimmers have and the non swimmers is really a difference. We have four girls to work on next.

First step – the desire to put your whole body into the water including your face. (Too often a child will want to swim, but he will avoid his face getting wet, and that’s not swimming)

Second step – kicking with a strong even straight legged style. ( Children think they can do this without foot power. When they discover foot power – they are nearly swimming.)

Third step – moving arms so that there is a complimentary power and direction added to the movement. ( The greater the reach, the faster we go. It takes a lot of children time to figure this out and coordinate this.)

Swimming builds a kind of confidence that no one can remove. It helps with school work, general achievement, personality development and independence. A child who can swim well knows that it was something he accomplished himself. Someone can show you how to swim but he can’t swim for you. A strong swimmer is usually strong in other areas.

Today is a class day. We are testing today for class rank. Should be interesting. Test papers will go home. Rank will be tallied as soon as possible.

Tomorrow is the Freedom Festival. We are still wavering on certain things. I have 5 pizzas ordered from Angelo’s. If it’s nice, we will eat at Kids Kingdom. If it’s too hot, we don’t know what we’ll do.

Yesterday was one of “those” days. With a storm approaching, the regular classroom time that would have taken the edge off the anxiety produced by an impending storm was hit and miss because we had subs. As the noise level rose, the whole room seemed to be about to take off about like a 747.

We have great subs, but substitute teachers have no continuity. That’s the point – they are subs, so instead of trying to do regular classroom activities, the idea is to raise above the ordinary classroom time and do something special. Special is hard when you have really high temperatures.

We had a lesson about transportation and how it’s come along all these years. We’ve made paper airplanes and the kids got a charge out of flying them in the school.

We are talking about flight, airplanes and things that go. This Friday we will watch the air show and then go over to the airport.

We read a few chapters of My Father’s Dragon and had an art contest. The winners got big candy bars.

We dunked for apples in the back yard – man it was hot. Mostly the children just wanted to explore toys. But they did like the apple dunking.

It’s going to be hot today too. We’re going to to the pool and the park. The water should be very warm today. It will be a good day to get the non swimmers swimming.

I’m delighted with Hadley, Peyton and Briauna who are going to win the puzzle race. They work on their puzzle every day and the results are wonderful.

More pictures from Hadley’s mom.

It was a glorious day at the park yesterday. It was hot, but the temperature was much better for swimming. We had some great efforts at the pool. Jackie passed his swimming test, Dhezmond passed his, Alan went off the board and so did Austin. These are huge milestones for these children.

Swimming allows children a certain independence that cannot be duplicated in any other activity. It’s an activity that allows the child to see danger and conquer fears as well as manage his body in a potentially hazardous situation. It means adult thinking and coordinated doing. It means learning absolute rules and complying with them.

Several children opted out of swimming to play in the park. There were also some non swimmers because of behavior on the field trip. This left a low number of kids in the pool so some serious work could be done. I was proud of all the children yesterday.

The lunch focus was on egg salad. We’ve been going for 10 eggs, now we’re up to 12. That’s including 4 cans of tuna, a 1/2 pound of ham, cheese and bologna, a whole jar of peanut butter and a whole jar of jelly, 1/2 a jar of honey, a double batch of cookies, three things of potato chips and a 1/2 dozen apples. We come home empty every day. That’s a good thing.

Today is a school day and we will focus on reading about airplanes. We are doing a little musical chairs in the classroom today. It will be interesting to see the progress.

The pictures come from Hadley’s mom.

The trip last Friday was wonderful. We visited the Lincoln farm and the kids got to see sheep, goats, a cow and chickens. They were not impressed with the house nor were they impressed with the long mile trek through the woods. I suppose it will be years before they appreciate the woods – if ever. They were making pot cheese, but few of the kids took the time to look into the bowls which were ripe with natural yeast. There were two fires going, but the kids managed to stay out of them.

They were, however, impressed with the outhouses and thought they were a really neat place to play.

After visiting the farm and enjoying climbing the split rail fences to watch the train in the distance, we settled down to a really big lunch. Then it was off for the twelve stone hike. Some of our readers were really thrilled with all the rocks collected at various sites across the country like the rock where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address.

This week we will be enjoying the Freedom Festival. We will try to go to the museum, then off to the opening ceremonies where the Golden Knights will parachute down to the pagoda, then down to Kid’s Kingdom for a different kind of lunch – Angelo’s pizza. Then we’re going out to the air port to see the planes close up.

The weather says not so hot on Friday, so it should be fun.

Lots of the kids earned their own water bottles this week for their magnificent behavior at the park on Friday. It’s a present from admiring teachers. We were very proud of them. We thought for the absolutely wonderful behavior we would buy each brilliantly behaved child a water bottle to enjoy on the bus for the long return trips because they get so thirsty on the bus. It’s not a really big deal, but children who sit without hitting, without moving from one seat to another, without screaming at the top of their lungs, without thumping to the floor and crawling around on the floor, without opening the safety door guards, without kneeling backwards on the seat and pulling someone’s hair deserves to be treated with a reward, and that’s the reward. Names are posted.

Two children actually thanked me for the trip. Briana and Aidan. They were the first to receive water bottles.

Problems like these continue to plague an un-free world. I remember growing up with a tremendous cloud of fear that the opposite side of the Iron Curtain would someday take over and we would no longer be free. One day I looked at a magazine published in Russia. I studied the pages as a child does who is curious about things, and when I had looked a long time I said quite innocently that this country would never be able to take over ours “Because look, they can’t even feed, cloth or house their own families, how do they think they are going to come over here?” I must have thought that the homes and clothes and details about food was very lacking. I still remember an image of a very old tractor with the paint peeling, a pile of rotting potatoes, and some child with holes in her teeth. From that day until the demise of the Iron Curtain, I was never fearful again. I’ve always prayed for the people of un-free places because I believe that freedom allows us to conquer all odds, and through freedom – not license – people achieve unbelievable things. Here’s a story about Cambodia that makes me sick.

People’s Daily on Line
Bejing China

Ending Child Labour to Expand Education and Reduce Poverty

Child labour is still widespread in Cambodia constituting a key obstacle to universal primary education, human resources development and the elimination of poverty, said a report released on Monday.

According to the report on children’s work by the International Labour Organization, UNICEF (United Nations International Children Emergency Fund) and the World Bank, “children forced out of school and into labour to help their families make ends meet are denied the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills needed for gainful employments, thereby perpetuating the cycle of poverty.”

“Children with little or no schooling will be in a weak position in the labour market, at much greater risk of joining the ranks of unemployed and the poor,” the report said, adding that child labour not only harms the welfare of individual children, but also slows broader national poverty reduction and development efforts.

The proportion of working children has decreased in recent times, but remains an issue of concern. Over 50 percent of 7-14 year olds in Cambodia are still engaged in economic activities, which is very high compared to other countries with similar levels of income, according to the report.

The Cambodian Labour Law sets a general minimum working age at 15 years, but allows children aged 12-14 to perform “light” work that is not hazardous to their health or does not interfere with their schooling.

Most child laborers are engaged in subsistence agriculture with their families. About 90 percent of economically active children work for their families as unpaid labour, the report says.

The Government has significantly increased education opportunities for all children and made a number of legal commitments in the area of child labour. It has also taken important steps to reduce household poverty and vulnerability, which are typically behind child labour.

However, the government admitted that it does not currently have the capacity to properly enforce and monitor laws relating to child labour. The Cambodian Labour Law has not been extended to informal sector enterprise (including family-based agriculture and domestic service) where the overwhelming majority of child laborers are concentrated.

The report provides specific guidance on policies and interventions that should be promoted such as early childhood education, preventing school dropout through school attendance incentives and child labour legislation as well as policies aim at protecting working children who have already experienced the deleterious effects of work on education and health.

As part of a joint initiative of the International Labour Organization, UNICEF and the World Bank, called the Understanding Children’s Work (UCW) project, the report is the product of a collaborative effort involving the National Institute of Statistics, concerned government ministries, and local research institutes.

This is an excellent argument for 4K going into day care.

The Free Lance Star
Fredericksburg, VA

RICHMOND–

I recently had the pleasure of visiting prekindergarten classes at Surry County Elementary School, and it was inspiring to see the eagerness and excitement on the faces of those children as they learned the alphabet, shapes, and numbers.

Research tells us that during the first three to five years of life, 85 percent to 90 percent of the brain’s “wiring” takes place, forever impacting a child’s ability to learn. The simple skills learned through play and exploration in a high-quality early-childhood program form the foundation upon which additional skills are built.

Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman sums up the trajectory this way: “Skills beget skills.”

Child’s play, then, is important and serious business for the rest of us.

The research is clear: Greater investment in the early development of a child increases the potential to create a much more productive citizen. The payoff? More highly educated individuals, a stronger competitive work force, safer and more prosperous communities, and a vital economy for the commonwealth.

I am compelled by powerful research, by my own experience and observations, and by hearing from stakeholders who reap a strong yield from investments in early childhood education.

I am committed to increasing opportunities for the growth and learning for young children of the commonwealth. This commitment is visible through two initiatives.

First, I have launched the Smart Beginnings initiative, in partnership with the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation, to highlight the importance of the health and development of children beginning at birth and extending to kindergarten. Smart Beginnings emphasizes collaboration and partnership to maximize the investments that families and local communities make in their youngest citizens.

The Web site smartbeginnings .org serves as a forum for communication–and provides information about how individuals and organizations across Virginia can participate in the important responsibility of nurturing the highest potential of each child.

Second, I have named a task force, the Start Strong Council, to examine strategies for increasing prekindergarten opportunities for 4-year-olds. My goal is to build toward a system that will provide pre-K to every 4-year-old child in Virginia whose parents choose to enroll them.

The work of the Start Strong Council over the next year and a half will help us design a thoughtful, effective plan for gradually implementing an affordable, voluntary, universally available program–one that addresses the needs and resources of each community by building upon successful programs and partnerships that already exist.

Some will argue it’s too costly to provide pre-K to every 4-year-old, but a host of economic research rejects that notion. Economist Art Rolnick at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank reports up to a 16 percent annualized rate of return from high-quality programs. That return is based on savings from increased high school graduation, increased employment, greater rates of home-ownership, and lower rates of crime, drug use, and dependence on public assistance.

Some have argued that dollars for preschool programs might dilute K-12 funding or programs.

Education research, like that of Clive Belfield at Columbia University, indicates strong cost savings to the K-12 system through smart investments in pre-K, since quality programs reduce the need for grade repetition and special-education costs.

Last year in Virginia, more than 10,000 students between kindergarten and third grade repeated a grade, often because they had not mastered the foundation of simple skills by age 5, at an average annual cost of more than $8,000 per student. We cannot afford not to prepare children better.

I hear those who say that we shouldn’t provide pre-K for the children of parents who can afford to pay. Equality of educational opportunity is not questioned for kindergarten children at age 5; why should we question the opportunity for children at age 4?

I am compelled by university administrators who tell me that they support early childhood education because they believe that higher quality early learning will result in a higher caliber of students in their institutions of higher learning.

I am motivated by corporate executives who tell me that they support investments in early childhood education because they will benefit from a greater pool of educated, critical thinkers for their work force, a necessity to meet increasing global competition.

I listen to law enforcement officers who support early childhood education because they see the strong correlation between successful students, productive citizens, and decreased crime in our communities.

Most of all, I hear kindergarten teachers and school superintendents, and they tell me that they are concerned about the number of children who come to school without the skills they need to be successful. All of us should be troubled that 25,000 Virginia children fail the third grade reading test each year. These students have a much greater chance of failing key subjects in later years. Strong early childhood programs can cut the failure rate dramatically.

By making smart investments today, we can lay a foundation–a foundation that will enhance the health of our communities, the vitality of our work force, and the strength of our economy.
We all win.

Interesting outcome.

InsideBayArea.com

Californians Cast Votes for Fixing K-12

THE message implicit in Tuesday’s drubbing of Proposition 82, the universal preschool proposal, was simple and direct: fix K-12 first.

If we can’t lift our basic public school system out of the doldrums, we have no business adding another year of education and creating another bureaucracy to maintain it.

By most measures of quality, California’s school system continues to rank near the bottom among the 50 states. Adding a year of preschool at a cost of $2.4 billion per annum isn’t going to help much if K-12 remains broken. Fix it first and then we can consider a public preschool system.

After all, the existing preschool network, including private as well as publicly funded schools, isn’t broken, opponents of Proposition 82 say.

What that means for the vision of actor/director Rob Reiner and supporters of Proposition 82 remains to be seen. About 65 percent of California’s youngest children already attend day care or preschools.

While conceding defeat, Reiner called on opponents to support the idea of public preschool. But the loss was resounding. Sixty-one percent of California voters opposed the initiative. Yet, most local ballot measures funneling money into building or renovating K-12 schools passed, so it wasn’t an anti-tax turnout.

Some say 82 lost because it raised taxes and didn’t channel benefits to the neediest Californians. The latter may have turned off some liberals, while conservatives hate talk of more taxes — even if aimed only at the wealthiest among us — or a new state bureaucracy.

After all, the rationale went, $2.4 billion a year wouldn’t significantly bump up preschool attendance, and a formal system would be hard to scrap once established.

Of the victors we ask: Would the same measure pass if the money went to secondary education, as opponents said they would prefer? And, would it pass if the money was aimed at preschool for low-income children, who studies say would benefit most from it?

Some voters were turned off by families who already pay for preschool getting it free. Proposition 82 also required preschool teachers to get bachelor’s degrees and made them part of organized labor.

Private and public preschools already exist in California, with federal and state funds helping children from lower-income households to attend. Hope for advancement is tied to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger earmarking $100 million in next year’s budget for preschools, and advocates in 13 counties, including San Mateo and San Francisco, implementing publicly funded programs.
Advocates argue that studies show preschools are a good way to help students from marginal backgrounds start on a level playing field, stay in school and graduate.

But if the K-12 school system that comes afterward doesn’t measure up, it may not matter.

Today we’re off to Lincoln National Park. It’s about an hour from the school by school bus. It will be hot today, but under the wonderful canopy of trees, I think we’ll enjoy the whole woods experience.

Yesterday, the children chinked their cabins with salt clay. It was an experience. Salt clay can be made at home: 1 cup salt, 1 cup warm water, 1 tablespoon oil, 2 cups flour. The clay lasts weeks in the fridge.

We spent about half an hour talking about what kind of things we would take out to the wilderness if we were going to set up a home. The children have learned their lessons well over the years. Austin decided that an ax and a saw and a milk cow would be good things to take. When I asked why they would take a milk cow, one of the children said for eggs, but most said for milk. Some of the children were surprised at all the food you can get from a cow.

Hadley said a chicken, but soon added to her flock. We decided on several chickens and rooster to take care of the chickens!

We talked about clothing, light – candles and kerosene, and lanterns.

We talked about sewing, and other household chores we would have to do because stores would not be available.

The children were all interested and gave wonderful thoughtful answers. The whole idea is to show them the limited space of a wagon and think about all the things they need in their daily lives and figure out what is most important and then fill the wagon.

We also had an academic bowl at school today. The first round included a number dot to dot from one to one hundred. About half the kids completed this project. Then we moved on to a crossword puzzle. All but five of the half completed this, then we moved to a word find and that was successful. We thought there would only be one winner, but we had eleven who finished all the work successfully so there were a lot of prizes.

Thinking is a skill we try hard to encourage children to develop.

At the conclusion of the day we saw one of the old silent cartoons. Does anyone remember Flip the Frog? It’s a silent, black and white cartoon, and the children really did laugh out loud.

We’ll be back to EVV about 2:00.

Summer at the Garden School is like giant vacation weeks with the kids. It’s go, go, go while you fill in those stop, stop, stop hours at the hotel. The only difference is a small one. Few families take 40 kids on a vacation.

Aside from two who are hitting, we’ve had some real discovery points. I’m really proud of the swimmers. Gage passed his test for the big pool, but is still a little light on the wing for the diving area. Now there’s a reason we love Tom so much. He sees that a child really wants it, is smart enough not to get himself into trouble, and yet needs just a bit more practice before he can swim enough to get from the plunge to the side of the pool, so instead of saying, “Nope,” Tom says, “Practice in the deeper end, but don’t go off the board.” Gage was delighted.

Most of the time, swimming is a matter of kicking feet. Lots of children get the arm action, but don’t coordinate that with the kicking of the feet. It doesn’t seem to go together; it seems too hard to do, but once they become pool kickers, then all actions go with kicking, and the child can swim.

Lots of parents who don’t really swim don’t understand that swimming is not just one kind of stroke that’s stylish and nice to look at. Swimming is knowing how to move your body in the water for the greatest strength. As an island child, I know that sometimes you can put your face into the water, and sometimes it’s best not to – boat near, fin near, jelly fish near, waves too high, island disappearing in the sunset. At the pool, sometimes you are looking for someone and you move in the water quietly so you can hear or see them.

Moving quietly in the water could mean several strokes – breast, side, paddle, elementary back or long turtle like underwater strokes. Making your way quickly usually means free style.

Diving is also another way of increasing water strength. There is shore diving, board diving and water surface diving. There is deep diving where you are down and you go further down.

Some children are underwater creatures only coming up for air twice a minute, and then there are the “it’s wet; couldn’t possibly; you splashed me!” kids who really struggle with water on the face.

By the end of the summer, we hope that all the kids know how to really move in the water. It’s a safety thing. I hope every child will jump off the board, and if not the board, the deep end of the pool.

Tuesday, we made log houses -he, he, he – if you had to live in a big one like they built you’d be living down at the river in a beaver dam. But today we will chink them with salt clay. This should be a lark. Actually, the kids did a pretty decent job.

Yesterday we had to buy a new refrigerator and had the air conditioning fixed and the drinking fountain re plumbed. There goes the budget! When we told the man at the store that we needed to buy a fridge that could hold 48 lbs of milk on each shelf, his whole demeanor changed. Not everyone has one need. I hate glass shelves because in a school they don’t work. Glass shelves collapse and are constantly in need of cleaning.

Today will be an academic race to the finish line. We will give several paper tests and those children who do all the work, get it right and put their name on their paper will advance to the next most difficult task until we have a winner. Two dollars on….

Speaking of such – anyone want to go out to the races this year? Kids love the races.