The Human Odyssey

Early Puberty Raises Risk of Later Breast Cancer

According to a new report commissioned by the Breast Cancer Fund, a California group that uses cigarette tax money to support research on the environmental causes of breast cancer, the average age of puberty has fallen steadily in the past several decades, bringing with it greater risks for later breast cancer, as well as a host of other social and emotional difficulties for girls who reach menarche (age of first menstruation) before age 12.  The average age of menarche in the United States is 12.6 years (for U.S. black girls 12.1).  Early maturation of the ovaries means that a girl will produce more estradiol (a form of estrogen) over her lifetime than average.  Research shows a clear relationship between estrogen and breast cancer development.  In addition, early puberty can bring with it other problems such as depression, eating disorders, attempted suicide, drug abuse, and conduct disorders.  The causes of early puberty in girls are still unclear but may involve several factors including low birth weight, formula feeding, low physical activity, childhood obesity, hormones in meat and milk, family emotional dysfunction, and second-hand tobacco smoke. The author of the report, biologist Sandra Steingraber, writes: "because it arises from a combination of many different stressors in different aspects of the environment--psychosocial, nutritional, behavioral, chemical--early puberty is not an event that will be reversed by single actions by single-purpose agencies. It is a multi-causal threat to the well-being of girls and women that ultimately requires a comprehensive, integrated, unified response."  To download the entire 73-page report, click here.

Hypertension in Children and Adolescents on the Rise

A study that appeared in the August 22/29, 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), reports that pediatric hypertension is increasing as a result of the obesity epidemic in the United States, and that in most cases, high blood pressure in children goes undiagnosed.  The study observed over time 14,000 children aged 3 to 18 at outpatient clinics in a large academic urban medical care system in Ohio.  Of these, over 500 had hypertension (3.6%). Almost three-quarters of these cases had been up to that point undiagnosed.  One of the problems is that doctors do not routinely take children's blood pressure, assuming that hypertension is an adult problem. If one extrapolates from these findings, then nationwide, roughly 2 million children have high blood pressure, and 1.5 million of those cases are undiagnosed. Left untreated, high blood pressure can lead to a variety of health problems including heart disease, stroke, artery damage, and kidney disease, which are problems that often take years to develop after the first onset of hypertension.  There is concern that this increase in undiagnosed hypertension in children and adolescents could be a warning sign that the nation's obesity epidemic is predisposing many youngster to developing serious health problems later on in life.  (see April 2, 2007 post in The Human Odyssey blog:  "TV Food Ads Contribute to Child Obesity." 

Eating Disorders Among Boys On the Rise

I was alarmed to read that a recent study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders suggested that eating disorders and other weight control methods such as dieting, diet product use, and vigorous exercise, have risen among male adolescents between 1995 and 2005.   In a November 26, 2007 press release, the Academy for Eating Disorders (which publishes the International Journal of Eating Disorders), writing about the study, noted: "The increase in weight control behaviors among males indicates that the social pressure for men to achieve unrealistic body ideals is growing, putting young males at an increased risk of body dissatisfaction and developing an eating disorder, according to the authors." It seems, then, that the ultra-thin super-models that drive adolescent girls toward anorexia and bulemia, have their counterpart for males in ultra-fit/ultra-muscular boxers, soccer stars, basketball players, martial arts movie stars, and infomercial fitness gurus.  While eating disorder prevalence among females still outstrips that of males (the study, for example, revealed that 53.8% of adolescent females dieted, compared to 23.8% males), the rise of eating disorders among males is particularly problematic, according to the authors of the study, since males are less likely to seek treatment, and since preventative measures have up until now largely ignored males.  Yet males go through puberty, experience rapid shifts in body image, become acutely self-conscious, and look to their peer groups (who look to mass media) for cues as to how they need to physically appear in order to be cool.  The rise in nutritional supplements, weight training programs, fitness centers, and even well-publicized steroid use among sports heroes, all represent social influences that combine with these biological and psychological developments in young male teens to create the kinds of eating and weight problems we're seeing on the rise.  For information about teen body image and self-esteem, go to the Nemours Foundation website. For information about steroid use among boys, see an article in the March 11, 2007 issue of Science Daily, and a journal article in the March 3, 2007 issue of Pediatrics

ADHD as a Developmental Issue (Not a Medical One)

I was very glad to see the research report this week (November 16, 2007) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), concluding that children labeled ADHD have normal brains that simply develop later than their peers.  This study compared brain scans over a period of years between a group of  223 children diagnosed as having ADHD and a group of 223 children in a control group. Typically, brain growth in the cerebral cortex goes through a developmental process of thickening for the first few years of life, then a peak, after which there is a "thinning down" or "pruning" of cortical tissue as the brain becomes more efficient in its adaptation to the surrounding environment (e.g. connections that are not required for adaptation are eliminated).  The study revealed that the average age for this peaking of cortical development was 7.5 years old in "normal kids", but that in children labeled ADHD it was 10.5 years old, three years later. This research strongly suggests that kids identified as having ADHD are really latebloomers after all.

I've argued this case in my books The Myth of the A.D.D. Child, and  ADD/ADHD Alternatives in the Classroom.  In my own work with kids with this label, I noticed that they acted younger than their peers.  I remember one seventh grade student in my special education class who would see something that interested him on the other side of the classroom, and simply get up and walk toward it, like a toddler would do.  Some people might call this "immaturity," but there is a much better word to use that captures the vitality and freshness of these kids:  neoteny.  Neoteny is a Latin word meaning "holding youth."  In an April 8, 2007 post in this blog, I wrote a piece called "Neoteny: The Lost Fountain of Youth Rediscovered," where I explained that neoteny is essentially the retaining of childlike characteristics into adulthood.  There appears to be a tendency, as species evolve, for more of "the child" to be retained into adulthood.  This has obvious survival value, inasmuch as retaining the "plasticity" of the child's brain later on in development, gives the human species more flexibility in adapting to changing circumstances.  It's curious in this regard to note that many of the most advanced creators and thinkers in civilization have had more than a little of the child in them.  Einstein said "I never grew up."  Newton compared what he did to child's play on the beach.  Picasso said it took him his whole life to learn how to paint like a child. In my book Awakening Genius in the Classroom, I've argued that it's these neotenous characteristics of childhood--playfulness, creativity, imagination, vitality, curiosity, flexibility--that need to be retained into adulthood if our society is going to continue to transform and evolve.  It appears from this week's study in PNAS, that kids labeled ADHD are slower to grow up, and as a result, they have more of their childhood available to them than the average person as they move into adulthood.  This is why they're constantly moving, imagining, making associations, and playing around when they're supposed to be "serious."  We should admire these qualities in them.  We need to stop using negative terms to describe these kids.  Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, after all, has three negative words in it:  deficit, hyperactive, and disorder.  If by retaining more of their youth into later development these kids are the vanguard, so to speak, in the evolution of our species, then I think it would be more appropriate to give them positive labels:  "evolutionarily gifted," comes to mind.  And yet the scientific community continues to use the disease-based "medical model" term that doesn't at all speak to the true nature of these kids. 

Some will argue, "but these kids are troubled and troublesome to themselves and to others.  Research shows it."  Yes, this is true.  If you're evolutionarily advanced, and you have to function in an environment of Neanderthals, then, yes, this is a problem.  And that's what it is like for so many of these kids, who come into school in kindergarten brimming with enthusiasm, vitality, creativity, and spark, and have to sit for hours every day doing meaningless tasks in boring workbooks overseen by teachers who care far more about following rules than exploring exciting ideas.  Now we're even seeing a new development that can only make things worse:  the societal tendency to push developmental timetables backwards (again, toward the prehistoric).  We're increasingly expecting kindergarteners to do the work that second graders used to do and creating even less opportunity for the "child" in these kids to express itself (see my January 4, 2007 post "Preschoolers Need Play, Not Academics!"). 

So, here you have the situation:  evolutionarily advanced human beings bringing more of the child into later development, on the one hand, and evolutionarily regressive societal forces pushing more of the adult back into early development, on the other.  Is it any wonder that kids labeled ADHD have problems?  Their so-called "symptoms" (again, to use the medical model), are really the mismatch, the incredible disjunction, between the way in which evolution has fashioned them (as the cutting edge of the species), and the way in which an ignorant society has tried to push them back into the Stone Age.  It's this incapacity (this "deficit deficiency") of the ADHD community of researchers, psychiatrists, psychologists, special education teachers, parents, and others to understand these gifts (and to create environments where these gifts are allowed to flourish), that gives rise to most of the "problems" and "symptoms" you see among kids labeled ADHD:  poor self-esteem, negative social relationships, distractibility (which is just a "divergent mind" operating in a boring environment), and impulsivity (which is called "spontaneity" when that environment is open to new discoveries).  I hope that this new study in the prestigeous Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, will prompt people who work with children labeled ADHD, to be open to a few new discoveries of their own, and to start thinking of this matter as a developmental (and evolutionary) issue, and not a medical one.

15 Reasons Why Standardized Tests Are Worthless

It seems that everybody is talking about test results these days.  The No Child Left Behind Law (NCLB) requires schools to make "adequate yearly progress" on standardized tests in reading and math (next year in science as well).  Local newspapers regularly post the standardized test scores of area schools.  Property values are sometimes tied to these test results.  Parents are doubtful of any innovations in schooling that do not in some way boost test scores.  But folks, the truth of the matter is that standardized tests are worthless, utterly worthless!   Here are 15 reasons why:

1. Because students know that test scores may affect their future lives, they do whatever they can to pass them, including cheating and taking performance drugs (e.g. psychostimulants like Ritalin "borrowed" from their friends).

2. Because teachers know that test scores may affect their salaries and job security, they also cheat (see the best-seller Freakonomics for some interesting statistics on this).

3. Standardized tests don't provide any feedback on how to perform better.  The results aren't even given back to the teachers and students until months later, and there are no instructions provided  by test companies on how to improve these test scores.

4. Standardized tests don't value creativity.  A student who writes a more creative answer in the margins of such a test, doesn't realize that a human being won't even see this creative response; that machines grade these tests, and a creative response that doesn't follow the format is a wrong response.

5. Standardized tests don't value diversity.  There are a wide range of differences in the people who take standardized tests:  they have different cultural backgrounds, different levels of proficiency in the English language, different learning and thinking styles, different family backgrounds, different past experiences.  And yet the standardized test treats them as if they were all identical; identical to the group that took the test several years ago, and to which the test has been "normed" (e.g. this original group is the "norm group" against which any future test-takers are to be compared). 

6. Standardized tests favor those who have socio-economic advantages.  Test companies (a multi-billion dollar a year industry) not only manufacture the tests, they also manufacture the courses and programs that can be taken to "prepare for the test."  If you have the money, you can even get special tutors that will help you do well on a test.  If you don't have the money, and your school is in a low socio-economic area that gets less funding than rich suburban schools, then you're not getting the same preparation for the test as those at the higher socio-economic levels do.

7. Because so much emphasis is placed on standardized test results these days, teachers are spending more and more time "teaching to the test."  If there is something that is interesting, compelling, useful, or otherwise favorable to the development of a student's understanding of the world, but it is not going to be on the standardized test, then there really isn't any incentive to cover this material.  Instead, most of classroom time consists of either taking the tests or preparing for the tests, and this shuts out the possibility of learning anything new or important.  For example, because the No Child Left Behind Law (NCLB) only tests reading and math (and next year science), that means that art, social studies, physical education, history, and other subjects are given far less attention than used to be the case.

8.  Standardized tests occur in an artificial learning environment:  they're timed, you can't talk to a fellow student, you can't ask questions, you can't use references or learning devices, you can't get up and move around.  How often does the real world look like this?  Prisons come to mind.  And yet, even the most hard-headed conservative will say that education must prepare students for "the real world." Clearly standardized testing doesn't do this.

9.  Standardized tests create stress.  Some kids do well with a certain level of stress.  Other students fold.  So, again, there isn't a level playing field.  Brain research suggests that too much stress is psychologically and physically harmful.  And when stress becomes overwhelming, the brain shifts into a "fight or flight" response, where it is impossible to engage in the higher-order thinking processes that are necessary to respond correctly to the standardized test questions.

10.  Standardized tests reduce the richness of human experience and human learning to a number or set of numbers.  This is dehumanizing.  A student may have a deep knowledge of a particular subject, but receive no acknowledgement for it because his or her test score may have been low.  If the student were able to draw a picture, lead a group discussion, or create a hands-on project, he/she could show that knowledge.  But not in a standardized testing room.  Tough luck.

11. Standardized tests weren't developed by geniuses. They were developed by mediocre minds.  One of the pioneers of standardized testing in this country, Lewis Terman, was a racist (the book to read is The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould).  Another pioneer, Edward Thorndike, was a specialist in rats and mazes.  Just the kind of mind you want your kid to have, right?  Albert Einstein never created a standardized test (although he failed a number of them), and neither did any of the great thinkers of our age or any age.  Standardized tests are usually developed by pedantic researchers with Ph.Ds in educational testing or educational psychology.  If that's the kind of mind you want your child to have, then go for it!

12. Standardized tests provide parents and teachers with a false sense of security.  If a student scores well on a test, then it is assumed that they know the material.  However, this may not be true at all.  The student may have simply memorized the fact or formula or trick necessary to do well on the test (some students are naturally gifted in taking standardized tests, others are not).  A group of Harvard graduates were asked why it is colder in the winter and warmer in the summer.  Most of them got the question wrong.  They were good test-takers but didn't understand fundamental principles that required a deeper comprehension (the book to read is The Disciplined Mind: Beyond Facts and Standardized Tests; the K-12 Education that Every Child Deserves by Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner, named in a recent poll one of the 100 greatest intellectuals in the world).

13. Standardized tests exist for administrative, political, and financial purposes, not for educational ones.  Test companies make billions.  Politicians get elected by promising better test results.  Administrators get funding and avoid harsh penalties by boosting test scores.  Everyone benefits except the children.  For them, standardized testing is worthless and worse.

14. Standardized testing creates "winners" and losers."  The losers are those who get labeled as "my low students" "my learning disabled kids," "my reluctant learners."  Even the winners are trapped by being caught up on a tread mill of achievement that they must stay on at all costs through at least sixteen years of schooling, and more often twenty years.  The losers suffer loss of self-esteem, and the damage of "low expectations" (which research shows actually negatively influences performance - the book to read is Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher Expectation and Pupils' Intellectual Development by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson).  The winners suffer loss of soul, since most of them are performing penguins for fast-track parents and may reach midlife on a pinnacle of power and achievement, yet lack any connection to their deeper selves, to ethical principles, to aesthetic feelings, to spiritual aspirations, to compassion, creativity, and/or commitment to life.

15.  Finally, my most important reason that standardized tests are worthless:  During the time that a child is taking a test, he/she could be doing something far more valuable:  actually learning something new and interesting!

So, folks, the next time you have that conversation about testing at your child's school, or pick up the newspaper to read where your district ranks on the latest state-wide tests, or plan your child's future around a program that has the highest test results, think on these things.

Also posted at:  Free Agent U  and The Karl Frank Jr. Communicator 

Teen Suicide Rate Soars

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates a big increase in the percentage of teenage suicides from 2003 to 2004 (the most current years for which comprehensive statistics are available).  For all young people between the ages of 10 and 24, the suicide rate rose 8 percent.  This is the biggest single year increase in fifteen years.  The largest increase was in the suicide rate for girls aged 10-14, where it went up 78 percent in one year, from 56 suicides in 2003 to 94 suicides in 2004.  Suicide rates for girls 15-19 increased 32 percent, and for boys in that age bracket, the rate went up 9 percent.  Another dramatic development is in the method that older children and adolescents are now using to kill themselves;  the use of firearms has declined, while the use of hanging or suffocation has increased substantially, now accounting for 71 percent of all the suicides in girls aged 10-14. 

Experts are puzzled by the rise in the number of teen suicides.  Some have suggested that the increase may be related to a decline in the use of antidepressants with teenagers ever since public attention was focused on the suicide risk that antidepressants might hold for depressed adolescents just beginning antidepressant (SSRI) drug theapy.  Others point to the increasingly turbulent lives of teenagers in the 21st century.  Richard Lieberman, the coordinator of the suicide prevention program in the L.A. Public School System noted in an Associated Press release:    "There's a lot of pressure in and around middle school kids. They're kind of all transition kids. They're turbulent times to begin with . . . The hotline's been ringing off the hook with middle school kids experimenting with a wide variety of self-injurious behavior, exploring different ways to hurt themselves."

Risk factors associated with teen suicide or suicide attempts include:  a previous suicide attempt, depression, alcohol/drug abuse, a family history of mental disorders, substance abuse, stressful life experiences, and/or access to firearms, poisons, or other methods of committing suicide (including hanging and suffocation).

Warning signs of suicide in a young person may include, a sudden change in personality, relationship problems with peers, chronic boredom or difficulty concentrating, comments or writings about suicide, substance abuse problems, major traumas or life transitions, psychosomatic complaints, change in eating or sleeping patterns, deteriorating performance in school, giving away highly-prized personal possessions, negative self-statements, self-destructive behavior, and/or chronic sadness or anxiety.

If you know an adolescent who is considering suicide, or if you are a young person considering suicide, get help immediately by calling 1-800-SUICIDE or by looking up in your local phone book a suicide hotline or crisis center, or find a trusted friend, relative, or mental health professional that you can talk to about what's bothering you so that you can get help right away.

For more information (including screening programs, list of warning signs, and treatment options), go to these resources:

SafeYouth.org

SOS Signs of Suicide Prevention Programs

Teen Suicide.us

Yellow Ribbon International Suicide Prevention Program

SaferChild.org

This article is syndicated on Reuters via Basil & Spice

The Curriculum Superhighway

I have an article in this month's (May, 2007) issue of Educational Leadership (a publication of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development or ASCD), criticizing the educational establishment for trying to hook-up or, as they say, "align", the curriculum all the way from pre-kindergarten to the fourth year of college.  In educationese this is called "PreK-16," that is, going all the way from pre-kindergarten to grade 16 or the fourth year of college (see, for example, the PreK-16 Educational Collaboration in Texas).  This aligning of the curriculum from PreK to grade 16 is considered by most educators to be a very wonderful thing.  But I regard it with much alarm.  I know that the purpose of this new initiative is not so that all the good stuff from preschool (fingerpainting, dress-up, nap time) can be brought up into the higher grades, but rather the reverse:  so that all the educational practices of the fourth year of college (lectures, exams, pressure), can be sent down to the preschool level.  This is the last thing that young kids need (see my blog post "Preschoolers Need Play, not Academics").  In fact, the real purpose of the PreK-16 initiative is so that the rigorous academics of the university can be threaded all the way through the curriculum, regardless of what the specific developmental needs of kids happen to be in high school, middle school, elementary school, kindergarten, or preschool.  In my book The Best Schools:  How Human Development Research Should Inform Educational Practice (also published by ASCD), I make the case that kids at different grade levels have distinct developmental needs, which this current No Child Left Behind law, and the preK-16 initiative completely ignore.  Preschoolers need play.  Elementary schoolers need to learn about the real world through rich interactive experiences.  Middle schoolers need to learn through social, emotional, and metacognitive strategies.  High schoolers need to learn how to live independently in the real world, since they will shortly begin doing so.  The PreK-16 "Superhighway" just blasts a concrete path right through these sensitive developmental ecologies with their textbooks, standardized testing, and overemphasis on reading and math.   To read my article "The Curriculum Superhighway," click here.  To see the entire May, 2007 issue of Educational Leadership, which has at its theme "Educating the Whole Child," click here.  To read excerpts from my book The Best Schools, click here.  To listen to an interview about my book The Best Schools, click here.

Adolescent Medicine Given Short Shrift by MDs

When I was doing research for my book The Human Odyssey, I was surprised at how few organizations there were out there actively working to meet the developmental needs of adolescents.  With all the problems of adolescence -- gang violence, eating disorders, unwanted pregnancies, STDs, depression and suicide, school drop-out, and substance abuse among others -- it seemed to me that there should be lots of local and national organizations with the word "adolescence" in them.  There aren't (check the Internet and find out for yourself).  Now I read in The New York Times, that adolescent medicine is not a hot ticket item for physicians, either.  In an article entitled "Treating the Awkward Years," staff writer Jan Hoffman points out that while there are 40 million people aged 10 to 19 in the U.S., and adolescent medicine has been a sub-specialty for the past decade, few doctors seem to be signing up.   From 1996 to 2005, only 446 certificates were issued in adolescent medicine (compared with 2,839 for geriatric medicine).  The article points out that although there are many medical problems specific to this age group, few pediatricians (who are the ones that usually end up treating adolescents) feel adequately prepared to address most of these issues.  This situation is compounded by the fact that adolescents are often reluctant to seek treatment (since that involves submitting to yet another adult authority figure).  Reasons for doctors not seeking to train in adolescent medicine usually have to do with the fact that they can make more money in other specialties.  Although doing a work-up for a 16- year-old may take twice as long as a 6-year old, managed care companies treat them as identical as far as reimbursement is concerned.  Also, in a field where high-tech specialties earn higher incomes and greater prestige for MDs, the low-tech dimensions of adolescent medicine (which often include careful observation), do not garner much esteem in the medical community.  Finally, adolescents are often difficult to work with: noncompliant, sulking, morose.  “American society is not particularly fond of its teenagers,” according to Dr. John Santelli, a professor of pediatrics and public health at Columbia University. “The 2-year-olds, everyone fawns over them. But the guy with the pin through his nose is not cute.” (a 1999 American Academy of Pediatrics poll revealed that 75% of pediatricians did not want more adolescents in their practice).   All of this is very disconcerting, given the fact that adolescence represents the bridge from childhood to adulthood.  Adolescents in particular need to have responsible adults in their lives who can help them across that often dangerous chasm, and a trusted physician with expertise in adolescent medicine could be a vital part of that support system.  We need to expand our efforts to provide services -- medical, psychological, educational, social, moral, spiritual -- that assist adolescents in their slippery journey to maturity.   To read The New York Times article, click here.  To access an adolescent health website run by Atlantic Health, click here.

College Drinking May Lead to Later Heart Disease

A new report presented at the American Heart Association's 8th Annual Conference on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology in Chicago last week, suggests that college students who drink heavily may be setting themselves up for heart problems later on in life.  The research measured levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) in college students who had different drinking patterns (CRP is a blood marker for inflammation that can increase the risk of heart disease). Those who drank heavily (defined as having three or more drinks at least three days per week, or five or more drinks at least two days per week) had significantly higher levels of CRP than those who drank moderately (two to five drinks of alcohol one to two days a week).  A drink was defined as:  12 oz. of beer, 5 oz. of wine, or 1.5 oz of hard alcohol. "If students are drinking heavily, they probably are going to progress to heart disease much more rapidly," said co-author Amy Olson, a professor of nutrition at the College of Saint Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota.  At the same time, the study noted that non-drinkers (those who consume no more than one drink a week), had higher CRP levels than moderate drinkers, suggesting that some alcohol may actually lower inflammation in the circulatory system.  While the study only looked at 25 college students, and CRP levels can fluctuate due to a number of factors (having a cold, smoking, being overweight etc.), it still serves as a red flag to college students, warning them that binge drinking or heavy drinking may not only cause immediate problems (vomiting, blackouts, accidents), but may continue to haunt them for years, and even decades to come.  To read Dr. Sanjay Gupta's article on this research at Time.com, click here.  To read about it on WebMD, click here.  To contact the co-author of the study, Dr. Amy Olson, click here.

The Best Schools Are Not Test Factories but Places for Developing Whole Human Beings

I've written a new book for educators called The Best Schools:  How Human Development Research Should Inform Educational Practice (publisher:  The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, December, 2006).  In this book I suggest that our educational climate has become totally overwhelmed by what I call an "academic achievement discourse."  This discourse concentrates on accountability, rubrics, benchmarks, "closing the achievement gap', a "rigorous curriculum," "tougher standards," and standardized testing.  The epitome of this discourse is the No Child Left Behind Act, which demands that schools make yearly progress on test scores or face tough sanctions.  What is missing from this conversation is any real discussion of human beings.  In my book I suggest that we need to start speaking (again, because we used to talk this way) "human development discourse."  That is, we need to focus on helping children develop their cognitive, social, emotional, creative, and spiritual potentials.  We need to measure student progress, not through "normative" evaluation (comparing a child to an ideal group), but through "ipsative" measures (comparing a child to his or her own past performance).  We need to stop spending so much time focusing on basic reading and science and math skills, and provide more time in the curriculum for social studies, history, the arts, physical education, vocational education, wellness education, character education, and other fields that taken together make for educating whole human beings.  In The Best Schools,  I suggest that educators need to take seriously the unique needs of children at each stage of development, instead of creating developmentally inappropriate instruction to raise test scores at all age levels.  I recommend that schools focus on specific developmental issues at each level of instruction. 

• In early childhood education (ages 3-6) play should be the center of the curriculum, with no formal instruction (teaching reading and writing at this early age is developmentally inappropriate according to early childhood expert David Elkind, a leading advocate of Jean Piaget's work in the United States). 
• At the elementary school level (ages 7-10), learning how the world works should be the focus of classroom instruction.  Children at this age are entering a more complex social world, they have more complex cognitive abilities, and they are hungry to know all about the world around them  about nature, culture, other people and themselves.  Too much time is being spent on preparing kids for tests, or teaching them silly irrelevant academic skills, and too little time is spent engaging students in rich encounters with the real world.  The model of the children's museum is a good one to use for this stage of schooling. 
• At the middle school level (ages 11- 14), instruction should focus on social, emotional, and metacognitive growth.  Adolescents entering puberty have a whole range of new emotions, social interactions, and intellectual insights descending on them, and to ignore these changes by focusing only on academic subjects like algebra and reading comprehension is to risk turning these kids off of school, and turning them toward gangs, violence, drugs, addictions, and other social problems.  Middle schools should teach using peer instruction, cooperative learning, and mentor-guided experiences.  They should teach school subjects by engaging the students' emotions (e.g. teaching the Revolutionary War by asking students if they ever felt like revolting against anything).  Students should also have their newly-developed "meta-cognitive minds" engaged (where they can think about thinking itself) both in academic learning, and also in thinking about the conflicts in their often emotional turbulent personal lives.
• Finally, high schools (ages 15-18) need to focus on helping students prepare to live independently in the real world.  In middle and late adolescence, students are beginning to take on responsibilities that will make them a part of the adult world (between 15-18 kids in many states are able to marry, open IRA accounts, drive, and engage in other adult responsibilities).  Instead of having to spend all their time cooped up in a large impersonal high school, where they have to raise their hand if they want to go to the bathroom, they should be out in the real world engaged in internships, field work, cooperative education, job shadowing, career academies, part-time jobs that link with academic instruction, and other educational models that help these kids across the great divide separating childhood from adulthood. 

All of these developmental goals require that schools that have become testing factories radically alter their direction, their purpose, and their structure.  The Best Schools provides many examples of schools at all levels around the United States that are already doing this; that are already providing developmentally appropriate instruction for kids and treating kids not as test-taking machines, but as whole human beings.

To read excerpts of The Best Schools, click here.

To read a review of The Best Schools in the online Teachers College Record, click here.

To order The Best Schools, click here.

Protecting Girls from The Human Papillomavirus

The Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is the name of a group of viruses that includes more than 100 different strains or types.  It is sexually transmitted and can lead in some cases to cervical cancer.  Cervical cancer can lead to loss of fertility, ongoing health problems, and even death (4000 women a year die from cervical cancer in the U.S.).  Now there is a drug available called Gardasil that can vaccinate pre-pubertal girls against HPV before they become sexually active.  Some religious groups such as Focus on the Family oppose mandatory vaccination of girls in public schools because of their belief that abstinence is the best way of protecting against the virus and because they feel that parents should be the ones who decide whether their children are vaccinated.  The problem with this reasoning, however, is that girls who practice total abstinence and later marry a man who carries this virus are also at risk of infection.  In addition, some parents may put moral scruples ahead of the best health interests of their kids.  Estimates are that by the age of 50, 80% of women have been infected with HPV.  Given the fact that a substantial number of girls will not practice abstinence during adolescence and early adulthood, both inside and outside of marriage, it makes sense to make sure that they are protected against HPV (Gardasil protects against two HPV types that account for 70 percent of all cervical cancer, and two other types that cause 90 percent of all genital warts).  To let moralistic concerns interfere with the health needs of girls growing into womanhood is itself morally questionable.  Get your child vaccinated against HPV and encourage your school, municipality, and state government to support vaccination programs of this kind.  Read about this issue in a New York Times article, "A Vital Discussion Clouded," by Denise Grady.

Cigarette Companies Hook Teens on Nicotine

A new report from the Massachusetts Department of Health says that the amount of nicotine in most cigarettes rose an average of 10% between 1998 and 2004, and that the cigarettes with the greatest increases in nicotine include brands that are the most popular with teenagers:  Marlboro, Newport, and Camel.  So while the public personna of cigarette manufacturers like Phillip Morris has them warning young people of the dangers of smoking in media advertisements (see, for example, their home page on the web which is strewn with proactive health messages), behind the scenes they’ve been jacking up the nicotine levels in cigarettes that teens love the most.  Nicotine is an addictive substance.  Thus, despite highly publicized law suits, cigarette maufacturers still know how to legally hook more and more adolescents into a habit that will ultimate lead many of them to suffer major illnesses in adulthood (cancer, heart disease, emphysema, diabetes etc) and die prematurely.

For an excellent history of the cigarette industry in the United States and how cigarette companies have sought to get young people to smoke, see The Cigarette Century:  The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America, by Allan M. Brandt, a professor of the History of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.