How People Learn

Curious about what psychologists and educators have learned about learning?

The National Academy of Sciences assembled a group* to pull together the best information about learning. It's all in a book that you can download as a PDF (free!): How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (expanded edition, 2000)

This popular trade book, originally released in hardcover in the Spring of 1999, has been newly expanded to show how the theories and insights from the original book can translate into actions and practice, now making a real connection between classroom activities and learning behavior. This paperback edition includes far-reaching suggestions for research that could increase the impact that classroom teaching has on actual learning.

Like the original hardcover edition, this book offers exciting new research about the mind and the brain that provides answers to a number of compelling questions. When do infants begin to learn? How do experts learn and how is this different from non-experts? What can teachers and schools do-with curricula, classroom settings, and teaching methods--to help children learn most effectively? New evidence from many branches of science has significantly added to our understanding of what it means to know, from the neural processes that occur during learning to the influence of culture on what people see and absorb.

How People Learn examines these findings and their implications for what we teach, how we teach it, and how we assess what our children learn. The book uses exemplary teaching to illustrate how approaches based on what we now know result in in-depth learning. This new knowledge calls into question concepts and practices firmly entrenched in our current education system.

Topics include:

• How learning actually changes the physical structure of the brain.
• How existing knowledge affects what people notice and how they learn.
• What the thought processes of experts tell us about how to teach.
• The amazing learning potential of infants.
• The relationship of classroom learning and everyday settings of community and workplace.
• Learning needs and opportunities for teachers.
• A realistic look at the role of technology in education.

* Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning with additional material from the Committee on Learning Research and Educational Practice, National Research Council

People of Color Missing from Kids' Books

Shockingly few children's books published in the United States are by or about people of color.

The Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin's School of Education has been counting since 1985. The Center studied 3200 children's books published in the U.S. in 2013. Only 253 were about people of color. That's, um, just under 8%. Let's combine those numbers with this data from the Census Bureau about the population in 2010.

Children's Books in 2013
	Africans or African Americans	American Indians	Asian Pacifics or Asian Pacific Americans	Latinos
Children's books about someone from this group	93	34	69	57
Percent of the total books studied (3200)	2.9%	1.5%	2.2%	1.8%
Children's books written by or illustrated by someone from this group	68	18	90	48
Percent of the total books studied (3200)	2.1%	0.6%	2.8%	1.5%

Population in 2010
	Black or African American	American Indian or Alaska Native	Asian, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander	Two or more races or another race other than white)	Hispanic or Latino (of any race)
Percent of total population	12.6%	0.9%	5.0%	9.1%	16.3%

It's not quite as bad as the numbers look. Some of the books that are not about people of color are not about white people either: they're about dinosaurs or trucks or trains or penguins or something else. Not all children's books are about people at all. Still, the imbalance in the numbers is disturbing.

The Cooperative Children's Book Center offers Multicultural Literature lists to help people find some of the good children's books that are about people of color.

Constitution Videos

Last night I helped a student with an assignment to answer questions about amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Meanwhile, in my day job, one of our students wrote a post about Bill of Rights Day. So now I'm inspired to add online videos about the Constitution to the list of U.S. History Videos. (You can always get to this list by using the tab at the top of the screen.)


Here's a 1963 cartoon (dedicated to President Kennedy) about the Bill of Rights:

Education News: Poverty Hurts, Showing Up Helps

Two interesting education stories yesterday:

• Eric Westervelt, Unrelenting Poverty Leads To 'Desperation' In Philly Schools, NPR, Nov. 21, 2013. 
• Claudia Rowe, 2 Seattle middle schools focus on attendance, see scores climb, Seattle Times, Nov. 21, 2013. The schools that are emphasizing attendance also provide tutors.

Neither point is all that surprising, really, if you think about it.

• Poverty: Do you think children can learn well if they don't have good nutrition, health care, support, housing, stability, and pencils? Answer: no.
• Attendance: Do you think kids who miss a lot of school might get behind, get discouraged, and drop out? Answer: Yes. The amazing thing here is how it was possible to turn it around in just a couple of years by adding caring adults who encouraged the kids and helped them when they had trouble with their work.

Fun Video Advertises Building Game for Girls

3 Girls Smash Gender Roles to Smithereens in Toy Company's Glorious Debut Ad: GoldieBlox flips Beastie Boys' 'Girls', Adfreak, Nov. 19, 2013.

Extracurricular Activities and College Applications

A lot of students have heard that extracurricular activities are important for college applications, but they might not know why, or what the admissions people are looking for. This month's Alaska Airlines Magazine has a very good article on the topic: Scott Driscoll, Extracurricular Activity. (The magazine's site uses Flash, so it will take a moment for the magazine to load. The bookmark should take you to the article, which starts on p. 155.)

The author is based in Seattle, so many of the students and admissions officers he interviewed are in the Northwest: WSU, Whitworth, UW, U of Oregon, Seattle U, Trinity Western University (Langley,
BC).

Letters About Literature

Writing to an author (even an author who is no longer alive!) is a good way to explore how a book has affected you. Kids can also enter a contest with their letters.

The Washington State Library hosts Letters About Literature for students in grades 4-12.

Letter writers compete at three levels: Level 1 is grades 4-6; Level 2 is grades 7-8 and Level 3 is grades 9-12. State judges select the top letter writer in each level and the three winning letters advance to the national competition.

This year, entries for Grades 9-12 must be postmarked by Dec. 10, 2013. Entries from children in grades 4-8 must be postmarked by Jan. 10, 2014.

Whether or not students enter the contest, looking through previous year's winning entries might give tutors and students something to talk about. Have you read this book? Do you feel the same way about it as the letter writer? Is there a book that means a lot to you? How would you describe your feelings?

Here, cut and pasted from the website, are links to past winners:

From 2013:

• Cora Tessaro, a fifth grade student at Daniel Bagley Elementary School in Seattle, is the Level 1 state champion.  She won $125 from the State Library.  Cora wrote her letter to Eric Schlosser about his book Chew on This.
• Julia Batson, a seventh grade student at Woodward Middle School on Bainbridge Island, is the Level 2 state champion.  She won $125 from the State Library.  Julia wrote her letter to Randa Abdel-Fattah about her book Ten Things I Hate About Me.
• Jordyn Tonkinson, a ninth grade student at Hockinson High School in Brush Prairie, is the Level 3 state champion.  She won $125 from the State Library.  Jordyn wrote her letter to Garth Stein about his book The Art of Racing in the Rain.

From 2012:

• Clare Doran, a sixth grade student at The Bush School in Seattle, is the Level 1 state champion and one of four national honor award winners. She won $125 from the State Library, a $150 gift card from Target, and a $1000 Reading Promotion grant which Clare has given to the Montlake Elementary Scho0l Library in Seattle.  Clare wrote her letter to Jamie Ford about his book Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.
• Samantha Smith, an eighth grade student at Blue Heron Middle School in Port Townsend, is the Level 2 state champion and one of four national honor award winners.  She won $125 from the State Library, a $150 gift card from Target, and a $1000 Reading Promotion grant which Samantha has given to the Blue Heron Middle School Library.  Samantha wrote her letter to Julie Anne Peters about her book Keeping You a Secret.
• Oliver Reed III, a tenth grader at North Central High School in Spokane, is the Level 3 state champion and one of four national honor award winners.  He won $125 from the State Library, a $150 gift card from Target, and a $1000 Reading Promotion grant which Oliver has given the North Central High School Library.  Oliver wrote his letter to William Ernest Henley about his poem “Invictus”.

From 2011:

• McKenna Conlin, a sixth grader at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School in Kirkland, is the Level 1 champion. She won $125 from the State Library and a $50 gift card from Target. McKenna wrote her letter to Sherman Alexie about his book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. 

• Abby Bateman, a seventh grader at Snoqualmie Middle School in Snoqualmie, is the Level 2 state champion and one of four national honor award winners. She won $125 from the State Library, a $150 gift card from Target, and a $1,000 Reading Promotion grant which Abby has given to the Mount Si High School Library. Abby wrote her letter to Katherine Paterson about her book Bridge to Terabithia. 

• John Kang, an eleventh grader at Lakeside School in Seattle, is the Level 3 champion. John won $125 from the State Library and a $50 gift card from Target. John wrote his letter to Mary Paik Lee about her book Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America.

From 2010:

• Reagan Nelson, a 6th grader at Hutton Elementary School in Spokane, has been selected as the state champion and one of two national award winners at Level I. . . . She wins $150 from the Washington State Library, a $550 dollar gift card from Target, and a $10,000 grant for Hutton Elementary School library. Reagan wrote her letter to Laura Ingalls Wilder about her book Little House on the Prairie.

• Stephen Hitchcock, an 8th grader at Overlake School in Redmond, has been selected as the state champion and one of four national honor award winners at Level II. . . . He wins $150 from the Washington State Library, a $150 dollar gift card from Target, and a $1,000 grant for The Overlake School library. Stephen wrote his letter to Jules Verne about his book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. 

• Tyler Christensen, a 12th grader at Mount Si High School in Snoqualmie, is the Level III state champion. Tyler will receive his award of $150 from the Washington State Library, and a $50 gift card from Target at the awards ceremony in Olympia in May. Tyler wrote his letter to Brian Greene about his book The Elegant Universe.

And the website has more, going back to 2006.

The national program website is here. And you can read lots of great letters there too. A couple of weeks ago, I visited the site with a student and saw this great letter by Alessandra Selassie, a sixth-grade girl who explained how Laura Ingalls Wilder's books helped her understand her father's childhood in Eritrea. Pretty cool!