The Toy Problem
A good article illustrating the probable impact of marketing on children’s play preferences.
Researchers say noise can hinder children’s learning
Kids need quiet! This article focuses on early childhood but noise is distracting for all.
Diversity Is One Thing, Inclusion Another
Schools are pushing diversity but are they including and integrating these students into their entire programs? Our 100+ campus visits demonstrate that this may not be norm.
Wood Shop Enters the Age of High-Tech
The director of Rutgers University’s maker space simplifies it well. “U.S. schools are very good at finding the brain-smart people…They are also very good at finding the best athletes…But they are not so good at finding and nurturing people, who think with their fingers. The next Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak are more likely to emerge from a maker space than a garage.”
How to Raise a Creative Child
“Child prodigies rarely become adult geniuses who change the world…..What holds them back is that they don’t learn to be original…Creativity may be hard to nurture, but it’s easy to thwart….You can’t program a child to become creative. Try to engineer a certain kind of success and the best you’ll bet is an ambitious robot. If you want your children to bring original ideas into the world, you need to let them pursue their passion, not yours.”
Is the Drive for Success Making our Children Sick
A MUST READ ARTICLE – especially for families pursuing highly competitive schools. American schools and colleges do an excellent job in most things with the glaring exception of mental health. Students “compete” with one another to see who got the least sleep and/or who studied the longest. Sleep deprivation for adolescents is the norm, especially at competitive independent schools. We know that driving fatigued is as dangerous as drunk driving; will we recognize that academic performance suffers greatly from sleep deprivation? Will piling on hours of homework no longer be the norm?
A New Coalition of Elite Colleges Tries to Reshape Admissions
A topic to be discussed….a “new common application” is in the works.
The Test-Optional Surge
Imagine a world with no SAT/ACT scores, no test preparation, no time spent studying for an exam that has little predicative power of future achievement…it actually exists! Don’t want to take the SAT/ACT exam? This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. build an application list for you!