Articles

Young Children's Exposure to Audible Television has Implications for Language Acquisition and Brain Development
In a new study, young children and their adult caregivers uttered fewer vocalizations, used fewer words and engaged in fewer conversations when in the presence of audible television. The population-based study is the first of its kind completed in the home environment, guided by lead researcher Dimitri A. Christakis, MD, MPH, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Research Institute and professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. The full article is here (PDF).

Television and the Worlds of Today’s Children: A Mounting Cultural Controversy
This commentary by Richard House, Senior Lecturer in Psychotherapy and Counselling at the Research Centre for Therapeutic Education at Roehampton University, critically reviews current controversies concerning the effects of television in the lives of today's children, and locates the place of ‘televisual culture’ within current debates about so-called 'toxic childhood,' and more generally, within wider discussions that question the place of technology in our time. The full article is here (PDF).

IMPORTANT PUBLICATION!
Crisis in the Kindergarten - US Alliance for Childhood
March 2009 sees the release of the deep and comprehensive 70 page report from the US Alliance for Childhood on play in schools and kindergartens. It is authored by Edward Miller and Joan Almon, has an introduction by David Elkind and an afterword by Vivian Gussin Paley. It extensively discusses the significance and potential of play, and how it is under threat even where it should most be cultivated. This document is unquestionably worth spending some time with, and it is available in its entirely here (PDF).

The effects of infant media usage: what do we know and what should we learn?
This brilliant review of existing research, from Acta Paediatrica, suggests that TV and DVD viewing is harmful for infants and very young children, despite claims made by marketers of so-called educational media aimed at infants. Earlier exposure to TV is associated with decreased parent-child interaction, overstimulation of the senses, delayed language development, lower scores on cognitive tests, increased boredom and, by age 7, increased attentional problems. Such evidence has led France recently to ban programming directed at infants. The American Academy of Pediatrics strongly discourages TV viewing for children under two, but according to this study, only 6% of American parents are aware of this advice, and most children under two watch 3- 4 hours of television each day. The compete article here may be helpful in raising consciousness.

Media Bombardment and Childrens's Health
In a major review of 173 studies over 30 years on how television, music, movies, and other media affect the lives of children and adolescents, researchers from the National Institutes of Health and Yale University found an array of negative health effects linked to greater use. About 80 percent of the studies showed a link between a negative health outcome and media hours or content. Read an article from the Washington Post on these findings  here.

Watch out for 'Baby DVDs!'
Australian ABC National radio 'Health Report' discusses compelling findings about the dangerous effects of currently marketed DVDs aimed at infant audiences. The perceptual stimulation and 'hyper-alertness' that these encourage may actually disadvantage children, leading them toward subsequent behaviors resembling those found in diagnoses of ADHD. For a full transcript of this provocative discussion, click  here.

Lack of Sleep May Expose Infants to Obesity
Mothers should be very careful at the amount of sleep their newborn babies are getting, according to new research from the Harvard Medical School. You can read the findings in the article here.

Video of Sir Ken Robinson on Creativity and Education
Susan Howard drew our attention to a tremendously entertaining and inspiring short talk given by Sir Ken Robinson on creativity and education. We are delighted to be able to make it available here as a video!

Turn Off TV To Teach Toddlers New Words
Recent research from Wake Forest University confirms the vital role that human beings play in the young child's learning of language. Read the  full article here (pdf)..

The Significance of the Child Study
Laurie Clarke illuminates the importance and depth of the relation between teacher and student as it is revealed in the 'Child Study' that is practiced in Steiner Education. Read the full article here.

Kids behaving badly after just two hours TV
Young children who watch more than two hours of television a day show clear signs of bad behaviour, lower social skills, and disrupted sleep patterns, a study, reported in the UK Sunday Times, has found. The researchers, from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, questioned almost 3,000 parents about their children's television viewing and behaviour when they were 2½ and 5½ years old. They concluded that the evidence against sustained television viewing was now so strong that parents should ration viewing for younger children. They also warned that having televisions in bedrooms posed particular risks. Read the full article here..

Unplugged Schools
Susan Howard let us know about the article "Unplugged Schools" in ORION magazine. Lowell Monke, an associate professor of education at Wittenberg University, emphasises the role of education in acting to compensate for extremes that manifest in the wider culture. He addresses the importance of schools and education today for "combating the alienation bred by a technology-obsessed culture". He pays tribute to Waldorf schools as an example of an "un-plugged school" that "directly and comprehensively links children's over-mediated lives to spiritual health", and also mentions the Alliance for Childhood. A good article for working with parents! Read the entire article here

Hi-Tech Turmoil
A parliamentary inquiry has been set up to look at the scientific evidence for how computer technology and modern life may be changing children's brains. An article in the UK Independent gives a comprehensive perspective on the work of a growing number of specialists who feel that tomorrow's classrooms are likely to be filled with pupils who will think more episodically, have shorter attention spans, communicate through pictures rather than words, have more learning difficulties, and be less able to control their impulses and emotions than the children of today. To learn more about the important research that points to these areas of concern for our children and our future read the complete article (PDF)

Health, Wholeness, and Learning through the Flow of the Natural Breath
by Nell Smyth
Rudolf Steiner tells us that "in breathing there dwells already the whole threefold system of physical man." How can we work with children to harmonize these physical foundations for supporting the continuity of development, and joy in language and participation? Nell's article, from the Autumn/Winter 2006 issue of Kindling summarizes some of the approaches in her new book The Breathing Circle, that have emerged over many years of working with children. Read complete article (PDF)

Toxic Childhood
In a letter to the London Daily Telegraph, 110 teachers, psychologists, children's authors and other experts call on the Government to act to prevent the death of childhood. The front page article entitled 'Junk culture is poisoning our children,' summarizes that "A sinister cocktail of junk food, marketing, over-competitive schooling, and electronic entertainment is poisoning childhood" and leading "to more depression among children." The BBC and the Daily Mail also reported on the letter's contents. Read complete article (PDF)

Just Say No To Baby Einstein
by Michael Mendizza, founder of Touch The Future and the Nurturing Project
Einstein didn't watch videos as a baby. His genius did not come from knowing lots of information. In fact, baby Einstein spoke very little before the age of four. So much for early reading programs and pre-school examinations. Einstein's genius was not based in what he knew. His genius grew from his capacity to wonder and imagine. Read complete article (PDF)...

Kindergarten Readiness
by Dr. Elisabeth Jacobi, Stuttgart
The question of whether there is a time of "kindergarten readiness" has become an urgent question in Europe only in the last few years. Not long ago, in our experience, a child came into the kindergarten before the end of its fourth year. There was no room. With the decline of the birth rate, however, an increasing number of kindergarten spaces became available, and the younger children entered to fill them. The kindergartens want to fill their places, and the mothers are glad to be able to bring their children into the kindergarten early. Thus, the age of the children who come into the kindergarten is now lowered to such a point that it is necessary to become clear about what constitutes kindergarten readiness in a child. Read complete article...

Further Considerations About Kindergarten Readiness
by Joan Almon, Acorn Hill In talking with kindergarten teachers from all parts of North America, it has become clear that many schools are wrestling with the question of what age children ought to be when they enter our nurseries or kindergartens. Some schools have resolved the question by allowing young threes to enter into a nursery class where they are separate from the fours and fives, while others integrate them into a mixed age group. Read complete article...

Articles from Renewal
Sample some articles from Renewal, the Journal of the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America.

A Different Way of Knowing
by Pearse O'Shiel M.A. in Ed.
Our experience of time is generally associated with rhythm. The daily rhythm of day and night or the yearly rhythm of the seasons are familiar to us and in the process of human development there are rhythms associated with the various changes that take place over time. Rudolf Steiner described how the seven-year phases of development have particular significance for the development of human consciousness and how the world is meaningful to us in ways that are qualitatively distinct from phase to phase. Read complete article...

Steiner and Wholeness
by Pearse O'Shiel M.A. in Ed.
There is no doubt that all our lives are being transformed by technology and there is a generally expressed sense that "things" are speeding up. We all seem so busy, too busy perhaps to realise fully the extent to which our lives and the lives of our children have changed over the past few years. Children, of course, appear to be well able to adapt to change but there is a danger that some essential elements of the developing child and of our own adult development are not being addressed in a world transformed by economic and technological forces. Read complete article...

A Visit to the Cork Steiner Kindergarten, Quaker Meeting House, Cork
by Máire Corbet, NCNA Regional Support Worker
On June fourth last I spent a very pleasant morning at the Cork Steiner Kindergarten, in the company of Nicole Grünewald and her children and staff. I had no previous experience of the Steiner Approach, apart from some reading and discussion. Now I want to learn more!! Read complete article...