Are you ready to raise a smart child?

As parents and educators we all want the children in our care to rise to above average and achieve the upper limit on the intelligence bell curve. We need to understand and be able to differentiate the two major perceptions about the BRAIN.

Firstly, the brain is a muscle. And like any other muscle in the body, it need exercise, good diet, lots of rest, basically, to be fit. Secondly, the brain has the executive functions that allow us to communicate, focus, take perspective, memorise / recall, think critically and learn.

Before you proceed to understand any of this, you need to understand if you are ready to raise smart kids. Use these questions below to gauge your knowledge on the meaning of intelligence and your readiness for raising it.

1. I understand that effort is as important as genes in determining IQ.                Yes                 No 

2. I realise that the way I praise the child has an impact on their IQ.                   Yes                 No 

3. I know that talking to my child and including them in adult 
   conversation is important.                                                                                  Yes                 No 

4. I realise how important it is to steer my child to stimulating
    after school activities                                                                                         Yes                 No 

5. I know how important physical exercise is for intelligence                              Yes                 No 

6. I realise that it is more important for my child to wrestle with 
    challenging classes than to just get good grades.                                              Yes                 No 

7. I know how important memory and attention are.                                            Yes                 No 

8. I know SELF discipline is even more important that IQ when it
    comes to success.                                                                                               Yes                 No 

9. I understand teachers and schools do make a difference.                                  Yes                 No 

10. I try to avoid telling my children how smart they are.                                     Yes                 No 

The more YES answers to the questions above, the more likely you are to foster intelligence in the child.

The above questions are an excerpt from the wonderful book 'Smart Parenting, Smarter Kids' by David Walsh. I would definitely recommend a read!

A Decade In Early Childhood Education - My best years!

It has been 10 years since I first entered into this fascinating field called Early Childhood Education. As a rookie, I was spell bound by the new world that was opened up to me. The spell has not yet been broken :) I have been an ardent learner and am sure will continue to do so in the years to come as well. 

As if to commemorate this decade in my life, I was given an opportunity like no other. My paper on 'Humour in Early Childhood' was accepted by NAEYC for presentation at their annual conference in Dallas, Tx. My presentation and the insight I gained at the conference is incomparable to anything I've experienced before. The people I've met have been wonderful; invigorating and all most of all inspiring.

Some of them have left a mark for life.

Learning about Leadership and revitalised with Holly Elissa Bruno

Perfecting my DAP training skills with Luis

With Legendary Dan Gartrell from Guidance Matters Column

Strong-willed Ketra became a dear friend and drive buddy :)

I've come back from the conference enlightened and with a greater ambition to make a difference in every child's life that I can influence.

My faith in Podar Jumbo Kids is reiterated through the conference. I believe that the education and atmosphere that we provide at Jumbo Kids is of international standards and following the latest research. 

Of the many things that have captured my attention, a few that I would like to list down are as below:

• Developmentally Appropriate practice - This is the cornerstone of the NAEYC philosophy. The most important ingredient in DAP is the intentionality of the teacher. As I learnt more about this, I am convinced that the traditional Indian schooling system was one of the best then and now. Such as that of the Gurukula or the system of education followed at schools like Rabindranath Tagore's Shantiniketan. I wonder if we can move away from the 'assembly line' schooling system towards our roots. If we can adopt DAP in the context of our culture, I believe that our children will benefit highly.

• Passion towards Early Childhood Education - My passion has been my driving force. I have also been blessed that I'm surrounded by people who are equally passionate. However, over these years, I've come to understand that teaching young children is not a first choice profession. Many times when I've interviewed people for various roles, I've had people tell that they are engineers and since they have a setback at home they want to teach. I find it appalling that everyone finds it perfectly fine to choose this profession as a compromise. At the conference, I was delighted to see that 30% of the delegates were students. This meant that in  US, as a country, there is awareness and passion for being in this profession. Similarly, I found many matured (don't want to label them as aged) women taking an active part in the proceedings of the conference. Can we work towards creating a better culture for ourselves and our teachers, after all we added the word 'GURU' to the dictionary.

• STREAM Vs STEM - There is huge importance that we give to academics as a culture. Schools have now gone ahead to incorporate STEM, i.e. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. This is all great. We now need to add two more letter R and A to make it STREAM which stand additionally for Relationships and Art. This is a holistic approach to child development. Brain research indicates that without the context of loving relationships, no learning is meaningful. This is gaining momentum worldwide. Once again, I'm awed at how these are already a part of Jumbo Kids since inception and we have the Director of Jumbo Kids Ms. Swati Popat Vats (my mentor) to thank for this.

• Equal Opportunities - I was part of many sessions that delved into creating equal opportunities. This encompassed gender equality, inclusive education, anti-bias education, and more. I have been crusading against portraying of stereotypes to children in their gender roles. I am now armed with more ammunition for this war. In terms of creating equal opportunity to the differently abled, we need to learn a lot and go a long way. The facilities that were made available for them ensured that they were independent and were never pitied upon. This is one culture that we should emulate. Anti-bias is a strong movement taking place with the intention of supporting children's full development in our multicultural, multiracial, multilingual world and to give them the tools to stand up to prejudice, stereotyping, bias and eventually to institutional 'isms'. It's time we lend our support.

• Humour In Early Childhood - This was the topic of my presentation. I do believe strongly that the benefits of humour are worth the effort of conditioning ourselves to use it. The presentation was very well received (even if I say so myself). I am very conscious that I represent a great brand Podar Jumbo Kids, and am glad that I have been able to do justice to this honour bestowed upon me.

I seek all your support to keep this fire within me burning, for it is with all of you that we will be able to see the change one drop at a time.

Humour in Early Childhood

I am fascinated with my son's laughter. He throws his head back and laughs out loud. I can give anything to keep that going.  I'm lucky that my husband has the greatest wit matching my son's sense of humour. I see them together and it warms me inside. This led me to think about humour and it's usage in early childhood. The following is a paper that I presented at the NAEYC annual conference in Dallas, Tx. 

The last decade has seen a rise in the study of impact of emotions to memory and learning. Researchers believe that positive emotions enhance memory. With this knowledge, parents and early childhood care providers, have to better prepare themselves to provide not just a conducive environment but also work on providing opportunities for positive emotions. Using humor effectively in the classroom and at home, plays an important part in reducing the stress in the child. As brain research findings indicate, reduced stress levels increase the ability to learn and retain new information.

Developmental Changes in Children’s Humor

If children were to gain from the obvious benefits of humor, it is important that parents and early childhood care providers understand the development of humor in children.

Taking a cue from Piaget’s cognitive stages, leading humor researcher Paul McGhee, first proposed a comprehensive stage-model of children’s humor in 1979. This model, last revised in 2002, maps the type of humor the child is likely fascinated with to underlying changes in her ability to perceive and make sense of her world.

Adapted from P. McGhee, Understanding and Promoting the Development of Children’s Humor, Published by Kendall/Hunt. 

Table 1 0f 1

Sr. No	Stage	Ages	Description
1	Laughter at the Attachment Figure	6 to 12 or 15 months	By the age of six or seven months, you can find infants laughing at any unusual behavior of a parent.  This might include something like: waddling like a penguin, making silly faces, sticking half a banana out of the mouth, making exaggerated animal sounds (barking, mooing, etc.), sucking on a baby bottle, and so forth.
2	Treating an Object as a Different Object	12 or 15 months to 3, 4 or 5 years	For the first time, they start treating objects as if the objects were something else.  Not all pretend play at this or any other age is humor, but it is this capacity for pretend that paves the way for the earliest humor created by the child.
3	Misnaming Objects or Actions	2 to 3 or 4 years	Once children achieve this insight—that it’s hilarious to call something a name you know is wrong—every object or person is fair game.  Cats will be called dogs, mommy will be called daddy, daddy will be called the child’s own name, and so on.  It’s all just too funny!
4A	Playing with Word Sounds	3 to 5 years	Children become very attuned to the way words sound, and begin playing with the sounds themselves.  This often takes the form of repeating variations of a familiar word over and over, such as “daddy, faddy, paddy,” or “silly, dilly, willy, squilly.”
4B	Nonsense Real-Word Combinations	3 to 5 years	These combinations appear to simply be another way of distorting the known properties of objects.  The following are typical of this kind of humor: “I want more tree milk.”  “I have a mail box flower.”
4C	Distortion of Features of Objects, People or Animals	3 to 5 years	The examples below illustrate the most common forms of humor at this stage, although they are not exhaustive. a)  Adding features that don’t belong: a dog’s head on a man’s body b)  Removing features that do belong: a cat with no tail or legs c)  Changing the shape, size, location, color, length, etc. of familiar things—a person with a square head d)  Exaggerated features such as a long neck, big ears, enormous or very pointy nose—and misplaced features such as eyes and ears in reversed places.  e)  Incongruous or impossible behavior—a cow on roller skates
5	Riddles and Jokes	6yrs onward	Complex riddles and jokes capture the interest of the children and they are ready to explore books and other content containing these.

Role of Humor in the Learning Process

Research suggests that humorous episodes enjoyed or created by children are not simply a source of entertainment but are also a means of cognitive stimulation. The origins and development of humor depend on the development of general thought processes. The role that humor plays in the process of development is receiving increased research attention, and is of special interest to early childhood educators.

This material was adapted from Klein, Amelia J. (1987). Children's Humor: A Cognitive-Developmental Perspective. In L. Katz (Ed.), Current Topics in Early Childhood Education, Vol. VII.

a.     Humor is a form of play and is a natural medium through which young children can expand their understanding of the world.

b.     Humor is highly pleasurable and is associated with cognitive mastery.

c.     Humor provides children with problems to solve. In a joke, riddle, funny story, or cartoon, children must resolve incongruity in order to establish the joke.

d.     Humor promotes divergent thinking, a characteristic of creativity; in order to establish a joking relationship, the child must discover or create unique associations among ideas.

e.     Humor provides the child with an opportunity to learn rules. Humor has a basic structure that children discover when "playing jokes" on others (humor based on the element of surprise) or telling riddles (a punch line logically related to the body of the joke).

Role of Humor in Social and Emotional Development

Under the premise that humor does play an important role in the development of social skills, McGhee outlines four general functions of humor in social interaction. Briefly, they are:

a.     Facilitation of social interaction - Among both children and adults, humor is now understood to be one component of interpersonal competence. 

b.     Popularity and friendship - Kids who initiate humor more often are also seen by other children as being more likeable. 

c.     Socially acceptable expression of aggression - humor provides children with a socially acceptable means of expressing anger.  This will facilitate the handling of conflicts in social situations throughout the developmental years. 

d.     Softening an assertive/dominating style of interaction - mastery of humor in social situations is related to social competence.

Having read about humor, it’s time to ‘Walk the Talk’

WALK THE TALK – Bring humor into your home and classroom with these simple yet fun ways.

Silly Vanilly is my name!

Try making up silly sounding rhymes to crack up the toddlers.

Comedian of the month!

Feature different comedians each month, those that children can enjoy watching and learning about.

Try tongue twisters!

She sells sea shells on the sea shore

Shake up the routine!

‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Car’

Be absurd!!

‘What time is it?’ ‘It is 10 past spaceship’

Dramatic play area!

Wear a funny hat or a shirt on backward, pretend to order ice cream pizza!

Reading time can be hilarious!

Let’s watch B.J. Novak’s The book with no pictures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cREyQJO9EPs

Silly face contest

The aim is to get the other one to laugh while making silly faces.

Have JOKE FRIDAY

Have children look forward to being the ‘JOKESTER’

Mismatch Day!

Have children dress up in mismatched socks or shoes or hats or just about anything that is out there.

Let the children see you laughing!

- And remember to laugh at yourself

Humor is no laughing matter! The silliness and the gaiety in the classroom can prove to be beneficial to the children to develop multiple skills sub-consciously and to retain them better. Mr. Paul McGhee suggests that humor in children's literature may be a pale substitute for the jokes children tell each other, and points out the need for definitive studies in this field of research.

Acknowledgement

Reprinted with permission of the Center for Early Education and Development (CEED), College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota, 1954 Buford Avenue, Suite 425, St. Paul, MN, 55108; phone: 612-625-2898; fax: 612-625-2093; http://cehd.umn.edu/ceed/.

References

Humor Development in Children by Alice Honig in Young Children, May 1988

Humor and Children's Development: A Guide to Practical Applications, 1989

This material was adapted from Klein, Amelia J. (1987). Children's Humor: A Cognitive-Developmental Perspective. In L. Katz (Ed.), Current Topics in Early Childhood Education, Vol. VII.

Gender Equality - Time for a paradigm shift

I often turn to Calvin for getting his views on many of the important things in life. 
But he doesn't seem to get girls.... Do we?

Yesterday, a dear friend and a fellow early childhood educator wanted my inputs on a paper that she was presenting on gender bias. This blog from 2014 came to my mind and I wanted to update it with thoughts that I've had since then.

We have all been victims of gender inequality. We are subject to gender stereotypes from the get-go. These stereotypes have bound all of us irrespective of which gender we belong to. They define us, everything that we do from walk, eat to the career that we choose. 

Let girls be girls….

‘Princess’ or ‘Angel’ are the words used by most parents to describe their little girls. From the time they are born, they are treasured and loved and cuddled. They are dressed in pink bows and pretty frocks and adorned with accessories. As these baby girls grow up, they find themselves looking for ‘pretty and pink’ whether it is dolls, toys marked separately for girls, books with glitter. They are more and more aware of the way they look and by age four have understood that being pretty really matters to being a girl. For life, she is left struggling to bridge the gap from what she is to being the so-called perfect woman.

Don’t get me wrong; I have nothing against pretty or beautiful looking women. I strongly feel that we are not giving the right role models for our girls. We are not giving them the aspirations for greatness. We are limiting our girls to defined gender biased roles. If we think about some of the stereotypes that we as a culture imbibe in our children, they include the likes of 'Run like a girl, throw like a girl' cry like a girl' to be derogatory remarks. Statistics shows that girls out perform boys in studies right through school and college. However, women are expected to give up their careers when they start a family and are never considered the bread winners of the family.

Why is there no voice against Barbie being a girl’s best friend, to Chutki (from the Chota Bheem fame) being reduced to a silly sidekick with rosy cheeks and a supplier of laddoos, or  ads that feature fair looking girls getting better jobs? Where are the female superheroes (or heroines)? 

What then, is our role as parents, educators and society at large, to ensure that we help our girls, the female human species to never feel as the weaker sex? A monumental task as it may seem, we can each make a small change in our thinking that will have a rippling effect to cause a huge wave of change.

Well here are 5 pointers to begin with while raising girls:

1.     Use the words ‘princess’ and ‘angel’ along with the likes of, Braveheart, Champion, Mighty, Brilliant, Smart, Strong, etc. Let us give our daughters more aspirations.

2.     Pick up books that depict girls in varied roles, carrying on all kinds of work. Ensure that your library is stocked with books that have a balance of male and female protagonists. Refuse to give into the marketing gurus’ strategies that trick you into buying what THEY think is right for your girl. Refuse to pick up toys based on what girls ‘should’ play with and steer toward ‘ what is best for my girl’s brain development.’ A good reading list can be found here http://www.amightygirl.com/books.

3.     Choose birthday party themes that enable girls. We need to move away from the Disney
princess series into more interesting themes. This is what you find if you Google party themes for girls. I for one, refuse to put up with so much of pink in the name of being a girl!

4.     Give your girl varied role models to choose from. Ensure that you, as a mother, often tell stories of your own childhood, the women you’ve known who have made a difference, stories from your culture where women are revered.

5.     Help your girl develop a positive body image. Ensure that she lives in a ridicule free environment. It is also important to never let your own misgivings about your body image affect your daughters’. A casual ‘Look how fat mommy is…’ or ‘I hate the way I look…’ to a friend or a spouse could go a long way in affecting our daughters. Nip it in the bud.

That doesn’t seem too hard to do, does it?

Let boys be boys....

It's not just our girls that are subjected to this bias, the boys are not spared either. 

As gender bias affects girls by robbing certain privileges in the society, it affects boys by putting too much pressure on them. Boys are expected to be stone hearted, able to withstand pain and hurt. Society demands that boys are physically fit and love sports. There is tremendous pressure to earn and achieve in order to provide for the family. 

I recently came across this new TV campaign, that I absolutely love. An excerpt from the campaign 'We teach our “tough boys” not to cry, but instead we should teach them not to make women in their lives cry. 'Start With The Boys', a short film directed by Vinil Mathew and produced by Alex Kuruvilla, Managing Director, Conde Nast India, makes a powerful point about domestic violence.' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Nj99epLFqg

(Update: I love this new ad by Whisper. #likeagirl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KuIo7FXcJg )

We need more such campaigns, by you and me.