Category Archives: Challenging the Status Quo

Mistakes made by Doctors, Educators, Government and what we can do to change it.

The Foundation of Education - Scissors? NACD Blog

The Foundation of Education—Scissors?

I just conducted a Skype evaluation with a parent who has a developmentally delayed, ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) child from our Beijing chapter, one of NACD’s international hubs. This mom made a remark that I have heard probably thousands of times through the years, but realizing that the issue she brought up is international and not just a US issue has compelled me to comment.

This mother of a three-year-old who cannot not dress or undress himself, one of the foundational representations of independence and fine motor skills, commented that she was concerned her child may have a fine motor problem, not because her child couldn’t remove his sock, but because the preschool he attended was waving a red flag since this little three-year-old was not yet cutting with scissors. Really!

I have long wanted to ban scissors from preschools, but if we were to do that what would they do all day? Children can only eat so much paste. What criteria could they use for success, what would they use to validate their existence?

In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that I am a bit biased on this subject. In 1951 I flunked cutting with scissors. Yes, I confess I flunked. It was my first and actually not my last academic disaster. I was shamed and humiliated. I never should have flunked cutting with scissors even though I was five, I really shouldn’t have been encouraged to use scissors. But beyond that, there was actually a reason why I flunked cutting with scissors. I was left-handed and back then they didn’t make left-handed or uni-hand scissors—which don’t really work with either hand.

Cutting with scissors can actually be used as a metaphor for a number of issues with education, that being just because we/they have been using it forever doesn’t make it right, smart or neuro-developmentally correct.

I am genetically predisposed to be left-handed and left-sided and as with many of us lefties, we do not clearly demonstrate which is our dominant hand as early as right-sided children. From the get-go the world encourages us to use our right hand like the majority of the population. Back when I was starting school everyone wrote with their right hand. Right was right and left was wrong. Even though we lefties know that only left-sided people are in their right minds. In countries like China that is still the case—everyone is taught to write with the right hand.

Children typically do not strongly and conclusively demonstrate a dominant hand until they are globally, neuro-developmentally about a 5*. For children with a developmental issue, that point is often not reached until years later than their chronological peers. So, should we really be encouraging and pushing one-hand, dominant-hand activities like writing and cutting before we even know which hand the child should be using?

If children must go to preschool, how about teaching them how to actually start becoming independent. Dressing and undressing themselves might be a good start, making their bed, or even cleaning up after themselves. Montessori schools often do a good job of teaching children how to manage self-help skills and household tasks. But cutting with scissors? I can often go from Christmas to Christmas without ever touching a pair of scissors. Since when was cutting a four-year-old’s survival skill or foundational fine motor function? Perhaps its a four- or five-year-old rite of passage that they need to cut their hair just that one time to see how they look with that bald spot in front.

Ranking right up there with “cutting with scissors” is writing and we really shouldn’t just blame preschool and kindergarten teachers, we need to throw in some occupational therapists as well. Teachers and therapists—please stop trying to make little children develop one-hand dominant skills like writing and cutting before they are neuro-developmentally ready. Not until most children are neuro-developmentally about a 5* can we accurately and safely determine which is their dominant hand. Prior to that time, they can swing back and forth. Besides, what is the rush? You are often not only teaching a child a one-handed skill and pushing them toward that hand, but you are probably doing it before their working memory, attention and motor planning are up to the task. The result being that you are only succeeding in teaching them that they can’t do it properly. Congratulations, they have learned to hate it! Our NACD cardinal rule of education is that step number one is teaching the child to love whatever it is you are trying to teach. Failure doesn’t teach them to love writing or cutting with scissors.

So much of education is based on perpetuating a list of things to teach children in different grades, regardless of whether or not it is meaningful, relevant, neuro-developmentally appropriate or if anyone really expects the student to understand, assimilate or remember it. We often take little children who prior to beginning their “education” love learning anything and spend the next twelve or more years teaching them to hate learning anything—brilliant!

Part of this tragedy is that there is so much that could be and should be done with all children, not the least of which is building a neuro-developmental foundation that actually gives them access to their innate intelligence and really affects not only their education, but their ability to learn, think and communicate—their futures. It’s the 21st Century and it’s about time that the educational system understood that children have these things they carry around between their ears that we call brains and that we have the ability to develop them all, not just try to push things into them. We can build a foundation of auditory and visual processing, short-term memory, working memory, executive function, visualization, and conceptualization and overall neurological efficiency. I would love to see our classrooms and schools receive report cards based on how well they are creating children’s foundations for learning, turning children onto learning and actually educating them. And please, let’s stop making a big deal about little children cutting with scissors.

 – Bob Doman

*We will generally acknowledge a child as being neuro-developmentally 5 when they have short-term and working memory that is commensurate with where we like to see five-year-olds. Specifically having short-term memory (auditory and visual digit spans of 5) and working memory (reverse auditory and visual digit spans of 4). Working memory is the foundation of executive function and determines complexity of thought and relates to global maturity.

Related Blog Articles:

Mila and Avery

Facundo

Making Kids Smart Isn’t Tough

To learn more about how you can work on you or your child’s short-term and working memory, check out the following links:

The Simply Smarter System (Windows/Mac)

NACD Cognition Coach – Toddler to 3 (iPad)

NACD Cognition Coach – Ages 3 to 5 (iPad)

The Road to Independence Starts with Short Journeys

Here is another video from Japan talking about how to help move children along the road to independence and become a successful adult. In my previous post I talked about how children learning to take care of their personal and self-help needs and learning to be responsible for chores is vital to their development and independence. Now let’s look a step further.

From everything I can discover, our country is a much safer place than it was 50 years ago; however, because of national media attention most people feel it’s getting more dangerous every year. We as parents are being pressured to feel and believe that the world is really dangerous and that our children shouldn’t be permitted to play alone in their front yards, let alone walk down the street to a park, or heaven forbid, walk to school by themselves. Times certainly are a-changing.

I grew up right outside of the city limits of Philadelphia in a rather typical 1950’s suburban neighborhood. Our house happened to sit on a highway, US route #1, a very busy road that happened to sit at the intersection of another busy road. I prided myself in my ability to wake in the middle of the night from a deep sleep at the sounds of tires squealing and get to my window in time to see the cars actually crash. My sister and I walked to school along and across that highway for one mile every day, starting with kindergarten, as did every other kid in the area.

At the age of eleven I started a snow removal business, having contracted with many of the families and a few businesses in the area and having hired a couple of my friends to work for me. On school nights if it was supposed to snow, I would stay up and wait for the snow and would hit the streets as soon as it started coming down, often working from two or three am until it was time to go to school. My parents were proud of my initiative, and if they had anxiety over my being out on the streets in the middle of the night, I never knew it. I suspect they might have had a twinge or two of apprehension; but if they did they kept it to themselves.

Before I start getting hate mail, let me say that I’m not suggesting that you let your kids go out by themselves and roam the streets in the middle of the night, or that you have your seven-year-old daughter take a couple of trains by herself though a busy city to get to school. But I am saying that as parents we need to look for opportunities for our kids to do things independently and take some journeys.

I’ve had a number of occasions during my meetings with kids and their parents to challenge and push the parents. When traveling to our chapters, I often do evaluations out of suites in hotels and more often than not, Embassy Suites hotels. Most of these hotels have fewer than ten floors of rooms built around a central atrium, with glass front elevators at one end. Riding the elevators is often the highlight of the child’s trip. While working out of these hotels, I have on many occasions encouraged a parent with a teenage child with perhaps Down syndrome or one on the autism spectrum or even learning or attention problems to let their child go down to the lobby and retrieve the other parent. Often the suggestion is met with shock. The child wasn’t shocked, the parent was. To put this into perspective, because of the layout of the hotel you could watch the child go down the hallway, into and down the elevator, and even look down and watch them in the lobby. It should also be mentioned that during the day when we are doing the evaluations, the hotel is pretty much empty. As many times as I have done this, I’ve never had a child have the least bit of an issue. They listened to the directions, followed the directions, and just did it. The problem wasn’t with the child; it was with the parent.

We need to give our children the opportunity to do things independently to teach them independence. Independence teaches confidence, self-reliance, and initiative, all very important, very necessary lessons for all children, whether typical or special needs.

Lest you think that I just talk the talk and don’t walk the walk, my son, Laird, who now at 27 basically runs daily operations at NACD, was hauling 40-pound bales of hay to our Scottish Highland cattle first thing in the morning, in the dark, through the snow, often at temperatures below zero by himself at the age of 5. He didn’t need to be pushed or prodded or given candy as a reward, it was simply one of his jobs and he was proud to do it. He is better for the experience.

As parents, each of us needs to look at our children and evaluate their capabilities, determine what challenges they can handle, and let them go. It’s part of our job.

Teaching Chores Better Than Teaching Algebra?

Why might teaching your child to clean toilets be more helpful than teaching them algebra?

I love this video. All schools and parents should learn from this school. I have been extolling the importance of teaching chores and giving children responsibilities for decades. Sadly, parents and schools seem to do a poorer job of this every year. Many parents and most schools don’t understand the importance of teaching their children to work and contribute and how to become what I like to call “highly capable.” If I could I would raise every child on a farm or a ranch or around a family business so that there were always plenty of chores and jobs to do–lots of opportunities for growth.

Most of today’s kids don’t have a clue about chores or real “work.” I can ask a parent about what chores their kids do and get blank stares as though the concept is completely foreign, or a reply like he helps clear the table sometimes and will take out the garbage if I ask him. It is extremely rare that I have a parent reel off a list of real chores and responsibilities that their child assumes responsibility for. The norm is more like Mom having to get her children out of bed and on the bus in the morning, and perhaps when pushed they sort of clean up their room or help with dishes. And, sadly, the list tends to get shorter as the kids get older.

Many parents appear to feel that the more they do for their children, the more they are demonstrating their love and support; with the net result that they are teaching their children that they are both dependent and entitled. The outcome is often conflict and negativity and children growing up with the belief that what you give them and what you do for them is the true measure of your love for them. The more they are given, the more they demand. Along with the entitlement comes more and more pushback so it becomes easier and easier to do everything for them and hope that some day they will learn to be responsible and not so self-centered.

I see high school students who can’t be responsible for even getting themselves up in the morning, let alone taking care of their personal space, fixing themselves a meal, assuming responsibility for and contributing to the family and the home–their home–and often even their school assignments. Parents who remind their children that they have assignments that need to be completed, that they have upcoming tests that they need to study for, are assuming the responsibility for their children and are shocked when their children do poorly and that their children don’t feel responsible for their failure. But why should they? They’re not responsible, you are.

Many parents think that what their children need to learn is centered on academics and skills taught in classes and on teams. The children need to learn to read, to do math, science, perhaps play the piano or kick a soccer ball, etc. Are there benefits to these things? Certainly. They’re critical; but it’s not enough–not close to enough. Could learning to clean a toilet and having the responsibility to keep that toilet clean lead to better outcomes than getting artificially good grades in algebra because your mother got you up every morning and helped you with your assignments and hounded you to study for tomorrow’s test and having a teacher who let you take the test over again because you blew it the first time? In the big picture, in the long term, could learning to be responsible for cleaning the toilet produce better outcomes?

Children need to learn how to be independent, to take care of themselves, to be responsible for themselves, to learn that the universe doesn’t revolve around them, and that they need to learn to serve and do things for the family and others.

Children who are given jobs and chores and are held responsible gain tremendous self-respect and self confidence, demonstrate maturity beyond their peers, learn to be independent not dependent, learn to look for what needs to be done, do it, and learn to be responsible.

Irresponsible children tend to become irresponsible adults.

Entitled children tend to become entitled adults.

I love watching children grow and develop into adulthood with a strong sense of who they are, independent, confident, and having the courage to push themselves, think for themselves and to have respect and compassion for others. These things don’t happen by accident. They happen when parents understand that they are raising their children to be adults, not self-centered, dependent, irresponsible, entitled, very large children.

Teaching your child how to do chores correctly and teaching them to assume the responsibility for doing those jobs and chores needs to be seen as a fundamental part of their education.

Many parents and schools have lost the vision. Perhaps this is why we are becoming more and more of an entitled society.

What Develops Changes and That Which Changes Can Be Developed

I’m in LA and I just saw a great little eight-year-old boy who happens to have Down syndrome. He has a wonderful family who are doing all they can to help him in his development. He attends school and is in a special education class with kids with mild problems. He is the best reader in the class, which has everything to do with what he has been doing at home for years and nothing to do with school. If he were in college, he would evidently be a film major, because watching TV appears to be the primary activity in his school day, particularly on Fridays. Every Friday is TV day. Not that they don’t watch TV on other days, which they certainly do; but Friday is all TV. Ten children, four teachers (want to do the math and figure out how much that is costing us?), and what do they do to help these children develop? They watch TV–and not even “educational” TV. They watch movies.

Sadly, a significant chunk of the neuropsychological world and the educational world still doesn’t get that the basis of brain function is neuroplasticity, and that we can change and develop if given the opportunity. Perceive us as limited, and provide “opportunity” based on that perception, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for all of our children and us as well.

You would think that after all these years this nonsense would no longer make me angry; but if anything I just get angrier.

What develops changes, and that which changes can be developed; and that includes working memory and intelligence.

No More One Liners

Yes, I hear you but…senate_photo

I just read a New York Times article about the trauma over passing the spending bill and the “Demise of Compromise.” One of the more telling pieces of the article was the following paragraph:

“With both parties increasingly playing to their base constituencies and their sometimes absolutist positions, many lawmakers are apt to oppose legislation that does not meet their demands in an all-or-nothing approach, making bipartisan measures like the $1.1 trillion spending bill extraordinarily difficult to achieve.”

I see so much of what is happening, be it in politics or the streets, to be a reflection of so many peoples’ inability to really understand and process information. We have reached a point where we have enough people only processing the “one liners” that they are driving what is happening to us socially and politically as a nation. If you cannot or are unwilling to process that incredibly important word “but” we are in big trouble. Very few issues are simple or just black and white; and chances are if you can put it on a bumper sticker or on a placard that it is a gross oversimplification of what is. We cannot build and direct our society or our nation based on gross oversimplification of important and complex issues.

Do our people in office represent us? Sadly, they possibly do; but they don’t represent me very often. They are trying to keep their jobs and represent all the folks that believe the “one liners” that have been created by the advertising folks who come up with them for the political parties in the first place. Unless those running our country are free to process and communicate a “but” and really represent the complexity of issues, there will be very little compromise, progress, or representation of what is.

Perhaps we should pass a new law outlawing “one liners” and create bumper stickers and placards with: “No More One Liners.”

Oh, but what about, “Don’t cross the street without looking both ways”? “Brush your teeth after every meal.” “No taxation without representation.” There are some good ones. Ain’t nothing simple.

We simply need to be smarter.