Tuesday's Teacher

Published Online: May 16, 2011

Published in Print: May 18, 2011, as 'Math Anxiety' Explored in Studies

Comment: Putting children on the spot to answer too early or too much can hurt a child's sense of ability. While everyone else is "getting it" and one or two are not. The answer is time. Not all children develop at the same rate or time. Through games and interest and achievement - slowly - children can master this discipline.

Researchers Probe Causes of Math Anxiety

It's more than just disliking math, according to scholars

By Sarah D. Sparks

Chicago

Math problems make more than a few students—and even teachers—sweat, but new brain research is providing insights into the earliest causes of the anxiety so often associated with mathematics.

Experts argue that “math anxiety” can bring about widespread, intergenerational discomfort with the subject, which could lead to anything from fewer students pursuing math and science careers to less public interest in financial markets.

“People are very happy to say they don’t like math,” said Sian L. Beilock, a University of Chicago psychology professor and the author of Choke, a 2010 book on brain responses to performance pressure. “No one walks around bragging that they can’t read, but it’s perfectly socially acceptable to say you don’t like math.”

Mathematics anxiety is more than just disliking math, however; someone with math anxiety feels negative emotions when engaging in an activity that requires numerical or math skills. In one forthcoming study by Ms. Beilock, simply suggesting to college students that they would be asked to take a math test triggered a stress response in the hypothalamus of students with high math anxiety.

Ms. Beilock and other experts at a Learning and the Brain conference held here May 5-7 are searching for the earliest problems in a child’s math career that can grow into lifelong fears and difficulties. The conference, put on by the Needham, Mass.-based Public Information Resources, Inc., brought together several hundred educators and administrators with researchers in educational neuroscience and cognitive science.

Stress in the Brain

Anxiety has become a hot topic in education research, as educators and policymakers become increasingly focused on test performance and more-intensive curricula, and neuroscience has begun to provide a window into how the brain responds to anxiety.

Anxieties and Stereotypes

Researchers have found that the more anxious their female teachers were about math, the more likely girls—but not boys— were to endorse gender-related stereotypes about math ability. In turn, the girls who echoed those stereotypical beliefs were performing less well than other students in math by year’s end.

SOURCE: University of Chicago

Anxiety can literally cut off the working memory needed to learn and solve problems, according to Dr. Judy Willis, a Santa Barbara, Calif.-based neurologist, former middle school teacher, and author of the 2010 book Learning to Love Math.

When first taking in a problem, a student processes information through the amygdala, the brain’s emotional center, which then prioritizes information going to the prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for the brain’s working memory and critical thinking. During stress, there is more activity in the amygdala than the prefrontal cortex; even as minor a stressor as seeing a frowning face before answering a question can decrease a student’s ability to remember and respond accurately.

“When engaged in mathematical problem-solving, highly math-anxious individuals suffer from intrusive thoughts and ruminations,” said Daniel Ansari, the principal investigator for the Numerical Cognition Laboratory at the University of Western Ontario, in London, Ontario. “This takes up some of their processing and working memory. It’s very much as though individuals with math anxiety use up the brainpower they need for the problem” on worrying.

Moreover, a series of experiments at the Mangels Lab of Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory and Attention at Baruch College at the City University of New York suggests this stress reaction may hit hardest the students who might otherwise be the most enthusiastic about math.

Jennifer A. Mangels, the lab’s director, said she tested college students on math in either neutral situations or in ways designed to invoke anxiety, such as mentioning gender stereotypes about mathability to girls being tested, or telling students that their scores would be used to compare their math ability with others’.

Ms. Mangels found, in keeping with other research, that students tested in stressful situations had lower math performance. She also found that stress hit otherwise promising students the hardest.

In nonstressful tests, the students who most identified with math, defined as those who sought out more opportunities to learn within the math program, had the highest performance. While under stress, those same students performed worse than those who didn’t identify with the subject.

“We’re reducing the diagnostic ability of these tests by having students take them in a stressful situation,” Ms. Beilock agreed.

Dyscalculia and Bias

Two problems in a child’s earliest school experiences—one biological, the other social—can build into big math fears later on, experts say.

In a series of studies, Mr. Ansari and his colleagues at the Numerical Cognition Laboratory have found that adults with high math anxiety are more likely to have lower-than-typical ability to quickly recognize differences in numerical magnitude, or the total number of items in a set, which is considered a form of dyscalculia.

As part of normal development, children become increasingly adept at identifying which of two numbers of items is bigger, but Mr. Ansari found those with high math anxiety were slower and less accurate at that task, and brain scans showed activity different from that of people with low math stress doing the same tasks.

Because understanding numerical magnitude is a foundation for other calculations, Mr. Ansari suggests that small, early deficiencies in that area can lead to difficulties, frustration, and negative reactions to math problems over time.

Moreover, math anxiety can become a generational problem, with adults uncomfortable with math passing negative feelings on to their children or students.

Ms. Beilock found female 1st and 2nd grade teachers with high anxiety about math affected both their students’ math performance and their beliefs about math ability. In a study of a dozen 1st grade and five 2nd grade teachers and their students, researchers found no difference in the performance of boys and girls in math at the beginning of the year. By the end of the school year, however, girls taught by a teacher with high math anxiety started to score lower than boys in math.

Moreover, those girls were more likely to draw pictures supporting a gender bias—“Boys are good at math; girls are good at reading”—and the stronger the bias, the worse the girls performed.

That study, and similar ones, highlight a need for more training for parents and teachers on how to conquer their own math fears and avoid passing them to children, Ms. Beilock and Mr. Ansari said.

“Teacher math anxiety is really an epidemic,” Mr. Ansari said. “I think a lot of people go into elementary teaching because they don’t want to teach high school math or science.”

Eugene A. Geist, an associate professor at Ohio University in Athens and the author of the 2001 book, Children Are Born Mathematicians, works with math teachers to create “anxiety-free classrooms” for students. He advises teachers to have students focus on learning mathematics processes, rather than relying on the answer keys in a textbook, which can undermine both their own and the teacher’s confidence in their math skills.

“If I give the answer, you immediately forget about the question. If I don’t give you the answer, you will still have questions and you will be thinking about the problem long after,” he said.

By contrast, constantly referring to an answer key can undermine both students’ and teachers’ confidence in their own math skills, and encourage students to focus on being right over learning.

Likewise, Dr. Willis, the California neurologist, said that teachers can help students reduce their fear of participating during math discussions by asking all students to answer every question, using scratch paper or electronic clickers to “bet” on answers, and then talking about the problem as a group.

“It helps with wait time [between question and answer], increases participation, and decreases mistake fear,” Dr. Willis said. The key to helping students learn not to fear math, she said, is to “get students to expose faulty foundational knowledge, which they can only do if they make mistakes and participate.”

Memorial Day

Just a note to say happy Memorial Day to all those who gave of their time, talent and treasure to our country. It is an honor to live side by side and next door, to have you in our families and as friends, to know how much you gave and how much has been asked of you. We love you.

Rearing Today's Child by Judy Lyden

We all love to stand on our own self made stages and pontificate - especially to children. "You will because I say so!" That works with little kids up to the age of about four. At four a child reaches a little age of reason, and can actually differentiate between a parent who is full of words and not a lot of actions, and a parent who means business because they have the actions to back them up. At this point, the child loses a certain respect for the adult in charge who is merely a "pontificater" yelling directions from an armchair.

Want to know why a child begins to forge out on his own to accomplish his life? Because as the child sees it, he's never going to get what he needs from the armchair parent. It's a wide and common point of view. "Mom and dad are too busy with their own life and their own recreation, so I'm going to take charge and do what I want."

Parents think it's natural for their words to be sacrosanct. Words are only sacrosanct if a parent can back it up. "Clean your room," yells the angry parent. The child looks at the parent in the armchair watching TV. The house is a mess, the kitchen piled with dishes, the laundry cascading over the side of the sofa. What is one clean room going to do for this chaos? muses the astute child.

"All you eat is junk," screams the parent to the child who is eating the last of the cookies and ice cream." Well, if you didn't buy it, the child couldn't eat it. And why did you buy it if not to eat?

"You're getting fat," denounces the parent to the child, and the child wonders what the last three nights of restaurant food was all about if mom or dad was really interested in the child's weight. The child also eyeballs the parent who is cascading out of a larger size.

It begins in very early childhood when parents make mistake after mistake with their child - right in front of the child - as if the child is brainless and won't see or know what is happening or why. In our life as models we have to review the picture we are creating for the learning child.

Look at religious models. Pomp and circumstance railing from the pulpit about the abuse of riches and the need to give to the poor; then they get back into their Cadillac and Lincoln or Mercedes and drive back to the five bedroom homes in the best part of town. It sure doesn't work for me.

When Mother Theresa brought people to her point of view, she moved quietly into a neighborhood and did good deeds quietly. She and her sisters went about like invisible soldiers making things right, feeding, nurturing, giving selflessly to the poor.

Like Mother Theresa, our job as parents should be just as quiet, just as soldier-like, and just as selfless.

When you tell a child to listen, do you really have something to say that is going to build him up, to make his life better? Or is what you have to say simply critical and negative. Do you scold without teaching? Do you nag without a plan? Do you demand without an arsenal of successful deeds in your own court?

Looking back on our own arsenal of deeds, what successes can we boast of that would be models that our children can use as stepping stones to success in their own lives? Was I faithful to the promises I made and to whom? Was I careful in matters that unified my family and made it stronger? What were my life goals, and how did my children see me working to make those goals come to life for the sake of my family?

Rearing children is letting the child - when the child is ready. It means pulling back on the care taking at the right time and letting the child begin to enter the world a little at a time until he has the ability to care for himself. He will rise and fall in his trials, and that's where good parenting comes in. If a parent gives a child a task, the parent can only expect that the child will succeed a little at a time...and this becomes a teachable moment.

And letting a child fall on their face is fine if the subject is minor like the failure of a new recipe or buying the wrong size dress. These are easily fixable and easily forgotten. But letting children be publicly rude, fail repeatedly in school, hang out with questionable friends is not teaching...it's letting the whole child go. It brings nothing but heartache for the child.

When parents miss the big steps with young children, they will also miss the big steps with the adolescent child. A child wants to drop out of school, drive the family car without a track record of responsible behavior, date a steady boy or girl friend who has questionable values and the parent just caves.

Just caving in is a learned experience that comes with allowing very young children to misbehave and laughing it off as "independence." Then it's on to letting young children do what they want. By the time a child is sixteen, the child is ready to fall so hard on his or her face that pick up takes years instead of minutes to recover from; that's neglect.

Rearing and teaching children is no easy or simple task. Ask anyone who has done it for more than six weeks. But when the years are counted, it always comes out as the best work any person will do who has children. It is the most important job anyone will do in their life time. And like Mother Theresa's quiet soldiers, it takes a constant falling and rising from the parent as well as the child to succeed. It begins with a positivism that says I can do this. And it continues with a do rather than say mentality.

Wise and Wonderful Wednesday

With Memorial Day weekend quickly approaching and summer right around the corner, road trips and travelling will put more of a dent in the wallet as gas prices are at the highest average ever for this time of year. With some planning and preparing, it’s possible to maximize your fuel mileage so that you can have cost effective road trips in the coming months.

Max Bohbot, President of penny auction site Beezid.com, has put together tips on how to get the most out of what you’re paying for at the pump:

• Drive consistently and carefully: Avoid braking hard or accelerating unnecessarily quickly, you waste gas each time you accelerate just to brake a few seconds later.
• Do Your Research: Calculate how much a trip will cost in gas (you can use AAA’s gas calculator) and then compare it to bus, train or air fares.
• Cash not credit: Pay for gas with cash instead of charging it to a card, you’ll save a few cents per gallon. Sometimes you can buy gas cards at a discount on sites like Beezid.com.
• Fill ‘em up: Check that your tires are inflated according to the manufacturer’s recommended pressure. By maintaining well-inflated tires, you ensure your car is getting better mileage than on under-inflated tires.
• Invest in a GPS: Using a GPS cuts down on the chances of getting lost while driving to your destination which can waste time and gas. You can check out Beezid.com for deals on the latest GPS models.
• The one minute rule: If you’re going to idle your car for more than a minute, it’s worth turning off the engine. If it’s going to be under a minute, just leave the car running.
• The more, the cheaper: Try and carpool to destinations and split the costs of transportation costs.
• Quality goes a long way: Make sure to have your car or motorcycle inspected before you take a road trip, it’ll save you money to fix anything that might need repairs before your trip instead of potentially breaking down on the road which can become a costly inconvenience.

Tuesday's Teacher

Peanuts in pregnancy may reduce risk of allergy: Study

By Nathan Gray, 13-May-2011

From Foodnavigator-usa.com

Related topics: Science & Nutrition

Maternal intake of peanuts may help protect against peanut allergy in children, according to new research in mice.

The study, published in Food Research International, assessed whether maternal feeding of peanuts protects against peanut allergy in offspring, and tested if the use of a mucosal adjuvant (an immune boosting agent that can amplify the effect of other compounds) alongside peanuts boosts allergic responses and brings about greater tolerance.

The research team, from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, USA, found that maternal intake of peanuts in mice can bring about protection against sensitization to peanuts in the offspring.

“Our study demonstrated that maternal feeding of peanuts alone had a protective effect against peanut sensitization of the progeny, which was enhanced by co-administration of a mucosal adjuvant,” said the authors, led by Iván López-Expósito

They added that maternal transmission of these peanut-specific antibodies through breast milk “may be, at least in part, responsible for this protection.”

“Ultimately, such approach could potentially alter the trend of increasing prevalence of peanut allergy in childhood,” said López-Expósito and colleagues.

Peanut Allergy

The prevalence of childhood peanut allergy has is a growing problem, and with peanut allergy potentially fatal for some, food manufacturers are already bound by tight regulations to highlight possible allergens in a food product, such as the EU’s Labelling Directive 2000/13/EC.

Unlike most food allergies, which appear in children but resolve with age, peanut allergy generally persists into adulthood, and can reappear in individuals who appear to have become peanut tolerant.

“This increase has been speculated to be due to either early introduction of peanut to the immature immune system, or delayed dietary introduction of peanut,” said the authors

López-Expósito and colleagues noted that the environment in the womb has a strong influence a child’s immune system, thus backing up the suggestions that early and exposure in the womb to allergens may have an effect on childhood allergies.

For many years, the maternal avoidance of peanut during pregnancy and lactation was recommended in the U.S. and the U.K. However, such recommendations have been recently revised due to a lack of conclusive evidence of benefit, and concerns that this approach may in fact lead to an increased the risk of peanut allergy in children.

“Several recent studies indicated that early introduction of peanuts to infants may be beneficial. The latest epidemiologic data suggests that earlier, more frequent and larger consumption of peanut during the first year of life was associated with a low prevalence of peanut allergy,” said López-Expósito and co-workers.

The authors also noted results from a recent study (du Toit et al, J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 2008, 122, 984-91.) which found that Jewish Israeli children had significantly lower incidence of peanut allergy when compared to Jewish children in the U.K. where avoidance of peanut was significantly more common in mothers (0.17 per cent vs 1.85 per cent).

“These findings raise the question whether introduction of peanut during infancy, or even antenatally might be associated with development of tolerance to peanuts,” said the researchers.

Study details

The new study assessed whether protection against peanut sensitization can be conferred by maternal peanut consumption alone and if so, whether protection was increased by mucosal adjuvant co-administration (cholera toxin).

Offspring serum peanut-specific immunoglobulins and cellular responses were then determined.

The researchers reported that offspring from peanut fed mothers had lower peanut-specific immunoglobulin-E (IgE) levels, and showed reduced peanut-stimulated immune responses than offspring from non peanut fed mothers.

Co-administration of peanuts with cholera toxin was found to enhance these responses.

“Milk from mothers fed peanuts and cholera toxin, but not peanut alone preconceptionally … contained markedly and significantly increased levels of both peanut-specific IgG2a and IgA,” said the authors.

The authors said that further investigations into whether maternal peanut exposure in unimmunized or unsensitized mothers during pregnancy and lactation prevents offspring from sensitization are underway.

Source: Food Research International
Published online ahead of print, doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2011.04.047
“Maternal peanut consumption provides protection in offspring against peanut sensitization that is further enhanced when co-administered with bacterial mucosal adjuvant”
Authors: I. López-Expósito, K.M. Järvinen, A. Castillo, A.E. Seppo, Y. Song, X.M. Li

Monday's Tattler

A finish up week with review for the kids and lots of bees and prizes. Cleaning, emptying, and getting ready for summer.

On Friday, we will have our awards presentation at 3:00 P.M. sharp.

Parents are asked to bring something to share. There is a sign up sheet at the front of the school on the door. The school will provide the hot dogs and buns and drinks.

It's been a great year, and the children are now ready for summer. We hope parents like our go go go summer as much as you seem to have liked the school year. We NEVER stop at the Garden School. We do switch gears, but we absolutely NEVER stop.

Please take note of the new horses next door. We have a new foal traveling with her mama. It's so sweet to see mama exercising her young one.

Sunday's Plate

You know there is nothing quite like the taste of a superb muffin. It's a filler and a delight at any meal. Making a good muffin is not hard, and it takes relatively little time. Muffin batter lasts a week in the refrigerator, so it's a good investment in time.

Think about muffins when you are making dinner because you can put in a dozen muffins and have them for dinner and then for breakfast the next day.

Making a muffin requires what most people have in their kitchens without shopping:

Flour - now is the time to use that whole wheat flour! But any flour will do. For a family of four - making twelve muffins, you'll need two cups of either white or whole wheat.

You'll need a half a cup of sugar. Any kind will do. Brown sugar will make the muffins denser, and white sugar will make the muffins lighter. Half and half...well you can figure it out.

You'll need a teaspoon of salt.

You'll need baking powder - a heaping teaspoon. Be generous with your baking powder; it can mean the difference between muffins that are "gluey" and muffins that are light and airy.

You will need an egg.

You will need half a cup of butter, oil, margarine, crisco - this helps bind and gives the muffin flavor.

You will need something wet -milk, juice, applesauce even water. You will need about a cup.

That's it. Now isn't that easy? You mix all your ingredients and bake at 350 degrees in a greased cup cake tin for about twenty minutes.

Now, if you want to be creative, you can add other things to your muffins while you are mixing them.

Some of the things you might consider are raisins, nuts, bananas, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, maple flavoring, vanilla, chocolate, butterscotch, apples, orange rind, almond flavoring, lemon rind, lemon juice, jam, oats, peanuts, onion, bacon, cheese bits...and just about anything you can think of.

A muffin, after all is just a little dinner cake, so the sky is the limit.

A muffin made with great goods from home might just be the best thing you've eaten all week.

Saturday's Sun

Here's a new ezine that you can get on line by clicking HERE. This ezine is all about vacations, staycations and more.

It's worth a look !

The Cost of Childcare by Judy Lyden

Just read a facebook discussion about how expensive childcare is and it kind of made me cringe. It made me uncomfortable because I know it's expensive, and I know it cuts into other family needs and wants on the financial front. But at the same time, I know childcare outside the home is a necessary part of the budget and it can't be free.

The facebook posting also made me uncomfortable because of how hard our staff at the Garden School works to present a truly great place for children to play and to learn and to grow. And I suppose I should be pragmatic and realize that no matter what we do for our families, there will always be those parents whose first thought is pocketbook.

I've been in the early childhood business for nearly thirty years, and in that time, I've seen a lot of really poor childcare out side the home, and I've seen a lot of parents struggle to pay for it, and that is the one promise I made to myself when I started. That no matter what the statis quo is, I will always do my best for the children in my care.

I've seen just about every scenario there is. For ten years, I was a monitor for fifty family day cares across the southern part of the State of Indiana. In that time, I reviewed a lot of homes that provided childcare, and for the most part, these were excellent places and the providers did their best to provide a caring place for children. I always recommend a family home first to people who ask because of the nurturing I saw in those homes.

I've also visited a lot of childcares, daycares and preschools and I've seen a lot of places come and go, and most of these places have been poor at best. Poor because the hired help are just that - hired help at a little more than minimum wage. I was gleefully told at the door of one establishment that they employed thirty-five floaters. I once walked into a reputable day care to tour, and the babies were locked into a room without an adult, and the key could not be found. I have had menus that looked like something from concentration camp. I've seen pureed puree and white on white and goop on goop. In one place, the toys were marked, "Closed."

Thirty years ago when I started, childcare, even in family homes, was much worse than it is today. It was a disgrace with awful basement care, few tattered and sometimes dangerous toys, poor lunches - like a piece of cheese flung at a child at lunch time, long naps that encompassed most of the day, and TV. I've heard providers say, "I'm better at caring for the children than their parents." This is a terrible statement and rarely true.

My theory is that children are always better off at home then with a provider - any provider. Our job is to offer children, who are out of their homes for the day, the very best of everything every single day. There is no such thing as skimping on a child's day.

When I started a family day care in my home, I decided right from the beginning that my place would be different from the disgraceful places I had witnessed out there in daycare land. It didn't take long to establish a busy place. In three years, I had sixty-seven children on my roster and parents came to trust me as someone who was good for their children. I charged a $1.00 an hour.

Right along with hanging out a shingle, I started a preschool in my home and was blackballed by the other providers. I made all my snacks from scratch from the beginning. I made super meals and provided swimming and some field trips - and no naps. I hate naps.

Today, I am still trying to offer the best program for the least amount of money possible. I struggle with summer fees for half the year. I usually have a couple of children on scholarship; I give the poor big breaks, and I always listen to those who need financial help.

It costs $125.00 per week for a child to come to the Garden School. That's $25.00 per day. If you subtract three meals at $2.00, $5.00, and $2.00, that must be eaten out, that leaves a balance of $16.00 per day for child care. In a ten hour day, that's $1.60 an hour. If you suggested to a babysitter that price, you'd never get one.

Yet in all fairness, it's expensive when you add up those weeks. It's a mortgage payment, two car payments, all your medical expenses for a year. It's the food cost, the utility cost, the vacation you can't take...all because of childcare.

That's why, when buying childcare, parents must be offered the very best. There have to be the extras: really great meals that help children discover their palate, foods, tastes and nutrition. A real education from a staff that is intelligent and knows how to read, how to create an art project, how to speak properly, how to incorporate a plan in the day that broadens not only the children's day but the other staff members. The staff needs to be able to bond with children, to understand their needs and wants in the absence of parents. There must be outings so trust is built between child and adult. And there should be a multitude of expensive toys that allow children to explore, and this is the tip of the iceberg.

But all of these points take work. I know, I spend the time and do that work - about sixty-five hours a week. It's a dilemma that is only solved by a moral code and a love for children.

Wacky Wonderful Wednesday

This wood art is fascinating. It is so creative and yet so silly. I love the cars at the end. Enjoy your Wednesday and this wonderful art.

Tuesday's Teacher

Published in Print: April 27, 2011, as GOP Lawmakers Press Voucher Expansion in States

From Education Week:

State GOP Lawmakers Push to Expand Vouchers

Heather Coffy, at back, leaves St. Monica School with her children, left to right, Delano Coffy, 15, Alanna Marshall, 8, and Darius Coffy, 11, in Indianapolis. Indiana lawmakers are considering a proposal to create an ambitious new voucher program for low- and middle-income families. Ms. Coffy says her elder son was struggling in public school when she applied for a private school scholarship through an existing state program. The money she received helped put her children in Catholic school, where she says they are thriving.

—Michael Conroy/AP

Some legislation would extend eligibility to middle-income families

By Sean Cavanagh

Republican governors and lawmakers are pushing for a major expansion of voucher programs, efforts that in some cases seek to give taxpayer money for private school tuition to a much larger swath of the population, including middle-income families.

Many of those legislative endeavors come as no surprise, given that GOP candidates for state office made historic gains across the country last fall, in many instances after promising to expand school choice—a longtime priority for many Republicans.

But the proposals put forward this year are notable both for the diversity of strategies they use in attempting to channel more public funding for nonpublic school options, and for their ambitious reach.

To date, many state voucher programs have limited eligibility to students from disadvantaged families or other targeted populations, a structure that helped generate political and public support for them.

But legislation in some states, such as Indiana and Pennsylvania, would establish relatively loose income requirements that would give access to families who are not impoverished. And a sweeping bill in Florida would allow broad public access to vouchers, though the bill’s sponsor says his goal is to have it approved by lawmakers in the Republican-dominated legislature next year, rather than this year.

Backers of the proposals contend that families of all backgrounds—including middle-income ones—deserve more educational options, and that providing funding for private and religious schools would compel traditional public schools to improve.

“We want to empower parents to make choices in education,” said state Rep. Robert Behning, a Republican sponsor of voucher legislation in Indiana. “To provide more choice for parents, you need to create more options. ... It shouldn’t be limited to just those at the poverty level.”

Hospitable Climate

At least 51 different pieces of legislation offering some type of mechanism for providing public funding for private education services have emerged in 35 states this year, according to the Foundation for Educational Choice, an Indianapolis organization that supports vouchers.

Pending Legislation

Lawmakers in numerous states are pushing proposals to set up or expand voucher programs. A few highlights:

Arizona:
Republican Gov. Janice K. Brewer this month signed into law a bill designed to create vouchers for special education students. But, citing cost concerns, she vetoed a measure that would have expanded a tax-credit program for entities that support private school scholarships.

Florida:
A proposal would create “education savings accounts” worth 40 percent of per-student state funding, or about $3,100, which families across the state could use for a host of private school services, including tutoring and virtual education.

Indiana:
A Republican-backed measure would set relatively loose eligibility requirements for vouchers and be open to both low- and middle-class families. it would also create tax deductions for vouchers and expand tax credits to organizations supporting them.

Pennsylvania:
A proposed voucher program would gradually expand eligibility for students from low-income backgrounds. the measure also creates a mechanism for families with incomes up to 300 percent of the poverty level to participate.

SOURCE: Education Week

Those proposals include both direct vouchers for families, tax credits to individuals or organizations that support scholarships for students to go to nonpublic schools, and accounts that cover a range of private education costs, such as tutoring.

Robert C. Enlow, the president and chief executive officer of the organization, said that this year’s spate of voucher and tax-credit bills is not unusually high, but that “no year in recent memory” offered better chances for as many proposals making it into law.

The new, decisively Republican look in statehouses—the party in November won control of a majority of governor’s offices and the highest number of legislative seats since the 1920s—has clearly created a more hospitable environment for vouchers, Mr. Enlow said. The overall interest among policymakers in making dramatic—and controversial—changes in education, including in areas such as collective bargaining and teacher tenure, has also helped generate interest in private school choice, he said.

“The political landscape is definitely part of the equation,” Mr. Enlow said. “It emboldened legislators to go further, farther, and faster.”

Voucher proponents recently scored a victory in the District of Columbia, when Congress reinstated a voucher program that federal lawmakers had voted to end two years ago. ("D.C. Vouchers Resurrected in Budget Compromise," April 27, 2011.)

But they have also experienced several legislative setbacks this year.

Arizona Gov. Janice K. Brewer, a Republican, signed a measure to establish a voucher program for special education students. But she rejected legislation to expand the state’s allowance of tax credits for private school scholarships, which she fears would cost the state too much money. And a number of voucher bills in other states have stalled in legislatures and will not become law this year.

Indiana’s legislation, which is supported by Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, would allow families to receive vouchers if they earn incomes up to 150 percent of the federal qualifications for free or reduced-price lunches. Families of four with annual household incomes up to about $62,000 would be eligible.

Poorer families would be eligible for a larger share of state support—about 90 percent of per-student public funding—while students from families with greater annual income would receive less, 50 percent. For children in grades 1-8, the maximum voucher amount would top out at $4,500 per year; for students in grades 9-12, the amount would vary by family income level. The maximum number of eligible students eligible for vouchers would be 7,500 the first year, 15,000 the second year, and unlimited after that.

State Sen. Earline S. Rogers, a retired teacher, argued that the measure would hurt public schools’ finances. She also questioned the need for vouchers—particularly for middle-income families—given the strong presence of charter schools in the state, including in her northwest Indiana district.

“We’ve made full use of choice through charters,” said Ms. Rogers, the ranking Democrat on the Senate education committee. Vouchers “could be a drain on the budgets of local school corporations,” she added, “because they would be losing students.”

Unsympathetic Public?

In Pennsylvania, a recent version of a GOP-backed bill would expand poor families’ access to vouchers over time—and give middle-income families access to “excess” public funding that was not spent on disadvantaged students through the program.

The legality of state voucher proposals depends on individual states’ constitutions, said Dick Komer, a senior lawyer at the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm in Arlington, Va., that supports vouchers and other forms of school choice.

Thirty-nine states have provisions in their constitutions that in some way bar the use of public funds for religious schools or institutions.

Traditionally, voucher supporters have set up state programs focused on helping poor families, rather than wealthier ones, for political rather than legal reasons, because providing educational choice to needy families is an appealing concept, Mr. Komer said.

By attempting to expand vouchers to middle-class families, backers of those efforts have the potential to sell the idea to a larger audience of parents whose experiences have probably been with public rather than private schools. The obvious risk is that the public will not be sympathetic to channeling taxpayer money to private institutions, he said.

The goal is to “broaden the base of political support by broadening the people who benefit,” Mr. Komer said.

Others, like Mary Kusler of the National Education Association, predicted the public would take a dim view of large-scale expansions of vouchers, at a time when policymakers in several states propose deep reductions to public schools’ budgets.

“There are scarce resources at the state level,” said Ms. Kusler, the manager of federal advocacy for the 3.2 million-member teachers’ union, and policymakers are “cutting public education at the same time they’re offering private tuition to families.”

Accountability Concerns

Legislation in Florida seeks to make one of the broadest expansions of public aid for private school services.

A sweeping bill would make vouchers—called education savings accounts—widely available to families across the state, not just those in poverty. The vouchers would be worth 40 percent of current state per-student funding, or approximately $3,100 a year, and could pay for private school tuition, virtual education services; private tutoring; and public or private college tuition, among other costs. The overall concept has been embraced by the state’s Republican governor, Rick Scott, who was elected last fall and who has backed the idea publicly.

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Florida was a pioneer in launching programs for private school choice, and today it offers vouchers to students with disabilities and provides corporations with tax credits to cover private school tuition costs for low-income students. But a broader voucher program, which provided taxpayer funds to students in struggling schools, was declared unconstitutional by the state supreme court in 2006, leading some to predict that an even farther-reaching proposal would meet the same fate. ("Fla. Court: Vouchers Unconstitutional," Jan. 11, 2006.)

Candace Lankford, the president of the Florida School Boards Association, predicted that a large-scale, statewide voucher program would create the potential for fraud, because ensuring that so much public money was being used on private school costs would be difficult to track.

“Public accountability is not going to follow the public dollars,” she said.

State Sen. Joe Negron, the Republican sponsor of the current bill, said he does not expect it to become law this year, but hopes to build public and political support for passage next year. Mr. Negron, whose three children have all attended public schools, has heard criticism that the bill represents an overreach by voucher supporters, and that it would result in public schools’ losing large numbers of students and money, but he doesn’t buy it.

“That’s the traditional argument of a monopoly,” the lawmaker said. Over the next year, he predicted support for the plan would grow. “This is a big idea, and a transformative idea. I feel like we need to have a public airing of these issues.”

Monday's Tattler

Good Morning!

This week we are going to talk about, study and look and make puppets! There will be a final puppet show on Friday just for the kids.

We will introduce all kinds of puppets, like hand puppets, paper puppets, shadow puppets and clay puppets. We will make, play and use them to create stories.

It's going to be chilly all week. Please dress children to suit the weather.

There are no field trips or special events this week. It's a "get ready for summer week."

If you still have money out for field trips, it's time to get that in.

Hoping it's a cool, casual, relaxed week.

Sunday's Plate

My daughter told me that her grocery bill is $350.00 per week for a family of five. I gasped. I'm not sure I spend that much to feed fifty children for a week. I know that groceries are climbing because of the rise in gas prices, so now more than ever homemades and scratch cooking make sense.

I really began to think about homemade food this morning as Terry and I had homemade bread and jam for breakfast. At lunch, we had swamp or soup made with left overs and a Monterrey cheese and bacon stuffed whole grain tortilla. When lunch was over, I made ice cream for dessert tonight. I had strawberries, and I spun them down in the Cuisinart and added them to the ice cream.

I got some ground meat and cheese and onions out for a cheese and onion stuffed meatloaf later, and remembered that we were out of yogurt so I made that too. I suppose we are living on more homemade foods than ever around here, and we take them for granted more and more. Tonight I will make bread again.

It's hard to do if you don't like to cook, but even the most lackluster cook can make these things. It's a matter of having the machinery and wanting better quality foods that are always on hand. And no, I don't spend my life in the store nor do I spend my life in the kitchen. Today I probably spent 20 minutes in the kitchen and an hour at the grocery, but I had to buy school groceries, and that takes some thought.

I have to admit that having the right equipment helps a lot and makes life a little easier. I have a bread making machine. It cost about $65.00. The simple recipes in the direction book are simple and easy to follow. It's just a matter of doing it. I use whole wheat, rye, and regular bread flour.

I have a yogurt maker that cost $15.00. Yogurt is made with any milk and a starter of plain yogurt purchased from the store. Once you make yogurt, you can use a jar of your own yogurt as the starter. I make my yogurt from 40% cream. It makes richer better yogurt which is more like the thick Greek store purchased.

In a pan, you heat your milk to baby bath warm and add your starter yogurt. Then put your mix into the yogurt cups or in my case, pint canning jars. Plug in your machine and in 12 hours you will have yogurt.

I have an ice cream machine that cost $50.00. It has a tub that stays in the freezer until you are going to use it. You mix three cups of the 40% cream with 2/3 cup of sugar in a bowl, and then deposit your mix into the frozen ice cream machine, insert the paddle and turn it on. Today I added strawberries. Sometimes I add cocoa or marshmallows. In twenty minutes you have ice cream. It needs to be stored in the freezer.

My suggestion to young moms and people wanting to make their own food is to go on Amazon and buy those machines on sale that will save lots of money and make life a lot better. I also say, go to a restaurant supply store for your pots, pans and bake ware. These pots, pans and bake ware are indestructible and they are cheap. The variety is incredible, and the gadgets amazing.

The right equipment makes cooking so much easier, and the easier it is, the more fun it is.

Have a great Sunday.

Fifty Dangerous Things for Saturday

Frequent TED lecturer Gever Tulley offers a radical concept for parents: Teach your children about safety by exposing them to risk. He believes that experimenting with “dangerous” things helps foster creativity and teaches problem solving by exposing children to explore the world around them with old-fashioned, hands-on learning.

It offers the suggestion that parents can think outside the box by letting their kids do the same. Letting children explore, tinker, and learn-by-doing boosts creativity and teaches them troubleshooting that will help later in life.

Some of the activities included in the book:

01 - Lick a 9-volt Battery

06 - Drive a Nail

10 - Play with the Vacuum Cleaner

24 - Construct Your Own Flying Machine

38 - Learn Tightrope Walking

46 - Superglue Your Fingers Together

Here is some video as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVxBKUTgI_A
http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_s_tinkering_school_in_action.html

Gever is a frequent lecturer at TED conferences around the world and founded Tinkering School to explore the notion that children could learn by building real things using real tools and real materials.

50 DANGEROUS THINGS is a great book as we head into summer, just in time for an entire summer break of exploring, creating, and experimenting! www.fiftydangerousthings.com.

Wednesday's Nightmare

Texas has been on fire and these are pictures one of my Texas friends sent. It's a nightmare. It could happen anywhere. So glad it's not happening in Indiana. Blessings on Texas.

From Wise Woman ezine Empower Yourself... Seed Carriers by JoAnne Dodgson Comment: I just loved this article from a favorite ezine I get every month from Susun Weed.

Seed Carriers http://www.wisewomanweb.com/
by JoAnne Dodgson
mentor at the Wise Woman University

“We’re Seed Carriers,” I said to Jasmine as I tenderly removed the burrs caught in her fur and tangled up in my woolly sweater. Seeds are ingenious, finding all kinds of ways to spread out to new places on the land. In the fiber of their being, seeds hold the blueprint for life – the knowing of who they are, of where and when and how to grow, of the resources and relationships that help them flourish and thrive, of what they have the potential to be. It’s all there, inside the body of the seed.

Touching the wisdoms of the seeds, I felt the magic of being a Seed Carrier and holding vast creative potentials for new life. Seed Carriers – that’s what we all really are. We too have innate genius to carry potent visions, to awaken new possibilities, to set the momentum of growth in a particular direction, to seek out essential resources and relate wholeheartedly.

With every thought we think, we plant a seed.

Our emotions and ideas are fertile seeds.

Every word and action touches others, affecting the world.

We may be spreading seeds containing judgment. Or joy and happiness. Or stress. Or fear. Or acceptance and love. Like the prickly burrs, these seeds get picked up and passed along. They may blossom and spread like wildflowers among new people and places on the land.

So just what do we want to be seeding?

What are we allowing to take root and grow, within us and all around?

What is the legacy we’re leaving behind?

The future grows out of the choices we make in the here and now experiences of our everyday lives. This is the Feminine knowing which instinctively lives in the present while tending to the generations to come.

When pregnant with a daughter, three generations are interwoven in the body of the mother. Her womb holds the daughter whose developing ovaries carry eggs – a precious new life already holding the potentials for creating future expressions of new life.

What’s going on in and around the mother’s body, spirit and mind directly influences the unfolding of the future – her children, her children’s children, the worlds they inhabit, envision and co-create.

Three generations interwoven in her body: the sacred lineage of the Feminine is a river flowing through time which nourishes the continuance of life.

Whether or not we are women or mothers, we all are Seed Carriers. Seed Carriers can choose to walk in the ways of the Feminine – holding the very blueprints for life, awakening new potentials, nourishing natural growth.

In the heart of the feminine nature of Seed Carriers lives the instinctual calling to be intentionally aware of the essence and influence of every thought and emotion, of each spoken word and action taken. Our personal and collective future – all that comes to be – grows out of our here and now choice-making.

So what do you want to be seeding…
…in your life?
…on the earth?
…for the generations to come?

Copyright © 2011 JoAnne Dodgson

About JoAnne Dodgson

JoAnne Dodgson, Ed.D, is a healer, teacher, medicine storyteller and weaver of webs of balance in ancient Peruvian medicine ways Ka Ta See, ‘living in balance from the heart.’ She has a doctorate in counseling psychology and over twenty years experience offering transformational counseling, ceremonial gatherings, holistic healing, workshops and community outreach. She teaches at Southwestern College in Santa Fe. JoAnne lives in the enchanted desert mesas of New Mexico.

WISE WOMAN UNIVERSITY ONLINE COURSES
Shaman's Circle: Earth Spirits and Guides
Learn ancient healing ways of the shaman to awaken and enrich your connection with the vast web of life.

Manifesting with the Moon
Connect with the energies of the Moon and her cycles to awaken your natural ability to manifest your dreams.

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BOOKS by JoAnne Dodgson

MoonDance Journal
Paperback with comb binding by Joanne Dodgson. Each copy of Moondance Journal is handmade, lovingly printed and bound by JoAnne Dodgson.

Price:$19.95

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Walking the Spiral Path:
Awakening Power and Passion

Paperback with comb binding by Joane Dodgson. 113 pp. A collection of medicine stories.

Price:$14.95

Monday's Tattler

Good Morning on this bright and beautiful sunny day. We're going to be warm today...shorts and t-shirts are the ticket! Please do not send your child in sandals or flip flops. Shoes and socks please!

Middle Ages week. It should be fun. Ladies, knights and dung heavers...the children will howl with laughter. Fall of Rome, rise of chivalry, castles, dragons, games, and more. Lots of history! On Friday we will have a dress up day for Middle Ages. A note will be sent home - weather permitting. If it's too hot, we won't do it.

Time to get your next payment in for summer. Summer looms. Bathing suits have been purchased and are on their way. This week the summer schedule for teachers needs to be put together. It's a never ending story!

On Thursday, Miss Beve Pietrowsky, our photographer, will be at school to take pictures of the kids. These are character shots if you want them. We will have dress up dresses, leghorn hats, high heels for the girls, and hats and dress up for the boys. The pictures can be black and white, color or sepia. It's a great opportunity to have some really interesting photos of your child dressing up. Plain photos are always an option.

As we finish up the school year, we will be having classroom competitions for prizes. Children are being constantly tested about what they have learned this year. It's an on going final!

Hoping everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day.

Have a great week.

The Domestic Life by Judy Lyden

I'm domestic, and I love it. Anyone who knows me would say I'm very domestic. Now some would scoff at me and run as if domesticity rubs off or is catching. Domesticity has a bad rap today - kind of like being stupid and badly prepared for "real life." Admitting that one is domestic makes one especially suspect for friendship, for respect and for believability.

What I've learned over the past forty years is that being domestic does not mean you can't do non domestic things well too. In fact, it probably means that a person can do other things better. That better is a very well kept secret - especially today. I compare domesticity to "having one's ducks in a row." That means that my home front is clean, sound, and easily managed. Those nicely placed ducks mean I CAN do other things.

As a domestic person, it is easy for me to make a meal for fifty, organize a home, space, and time, and make just about anything needed - clothes, drapes, rugs, upholster a sofa or chair, and know the difference between well made furniture and antiques and junk.

Domestic people don't fear children. I remember several years ago baking for a room party at the local public school. I made a cake, three kinds of cookies, some new candy samples and some kind of bar cookies while I was caring for fifteen children. While the other mothers brought in a plate of tacky tube dough chemical tasting circlets, my score of goodies went the way of all blackballing. It only made me laugh. "Oops, I'm sorry you can't cook...lol."

I realize that domesticity is the enemy of the feminist movement because somehow being domestic is losing one's real self for some kind of servant mentality - like putting on an apron is losing brain power. That enemy-ship also makes me laugh because it is through domesticity that one learns the order of life, the organization of time, and the building of just about anything.

As a young bride, it was my duty to build a home for my husband and children to be. My husband was busy building a career and didn't have a lot of time to spare looking at furniture or planning shopping trips. It took years to put together a home, a garden, a cookbook of makeable meals, and those things came along with children. It was not easy. In fact, it was very hard. It was sometimes grueling, but as the children came and the house took shape, and the meal plan evolved, so did the understanding of the order of life, the ability to organize time and the creativity to build, make and do just about anything that came our way.

Three years after my last child was born, I went back to school. At that time, I was contributing to the family income by having a family daycare at home. I saw thirty children every day in my home. I cooked three scratch meals for them and did a nursery school program. I ran Right to Life for the county and volunteered at my children's school. I walked four miles a day as well. At school, I took an accelerated program of intercession classes for three years and graduated at the head of my class. I attribute my success to one thing...my knowledge of domestic things. I knew how to organize my time - not unlike producing a meal for thirty children. I knew how to build a paper which was not unlike upholstering a chair. And I knew how to find things out and how to have the patience to study for a test.

After school was done, I got a side job at the local newspaper writing a column on child care. I had honed my writing skills in college - might as well not waste them. In three months, my column was picked up by Scripps Howard - because it was good. I had a sense of humor and a knowledge of my subject - children. That writing success led me to write eight books, four plays, a book of poetry and some children's stories.

I've done a lot of public speaking about children and have been an advocate for hyperactive personalities. I've done a lot of workshops along the way, and about fifteen years ago, I decided to build a school, because having a day care at home was beginning to destroy my house. Today, that school is a huge success. We employ nine people.

The last time I saw my mother, she said she never thought I would amount to a hill of beans - simply because I was domestic. She wanted great things for me. She wanted me to be a success, and she truly thought that the domestic tag was a ridiculous interest that would lead to nothing. She was, after all, a very modern woman, a very sophisticated woman who knew the score, and that score had nothing to do with the label - domestic.

Today, at sixty, I have four fabulous children, six incredible grandchildren, a job that is enviable, and a home that is warm and welcoming. I can stand before a congregation of people and give a reasonable address; I can write a book; I can turn around and feed the audience...all because I learned a great lesson as a young woman...how to be domestic. And now I am going out to my garden and enjoy thirty blooming plants...just for fun ;-}

Saturdays' Something New Under the Sun

Wow! Be careful. It appears to be true. Just got this from a trusted friend. How awful!DANGER Kids are putting Drano, tin foil, and a little water in soda bottles and capping it up - leaving it on lawns.

When you go to pick up the trash, and the bottle is shaken just a little - in about 30 seconds or less builds up a gas and explodes with enough force to remove some of your extremities. The liquid that comes out is boiling hot as well.

Don't pick up any plastic bottles that may be lying in your lawn or in the gutter, etc. Pay attention to this. A plastic bottle with a cap. A little Drano. A little water. A small piece of foil. Disturb it by moving it; and BOOM!! No fingers left and other serious effects to your face, eyes, etc.

People are finding these "bombs" in mailboxes and in their yards just waiting for you to pick it up intending to put it in the trash. But, you'll never make it!!!

It takes about 30 seconds to blow after you move the thing.

See "SNOPES" below -- it's true -- the video at SNOPES shows the Indiana State Police Bomb Squad detonating one -- it's truly horrifying! I checked "Truth or Fiction" and "they" agree this is TRUTH!!! So warned and beware.

http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/bottlebomb.asp

Friday's Tattler

It's been a great week with the kids. Nice to have a few days rain free. We experimented with the new Physical Education class and the children really loved it. They loved the games Miss Lisa and Miss Dayna taught them.

We had a marvelous visit from the Leafs who taught the children sign language. This was really well received, and we are talking about making sign language our second language because it would be easier for the children to learn and a lot more fun.

We had lots of nice meals this week and got to enjoy some homemade yogurt and ice cream. Plain yogurt and blackberry marshmallow, and then chocolate chip peanut marshmallow! The children really love these treats. It's always a joy to have them taste something new and get a smile in return.

Today, Friday, we will have an eye screening by the Lion's Club. Please get your forms in.

Our last day for summer enrollment has passed. Now it's time to get the balances in for summer. It's a very very ambitious summer this year. We hope the kids enjoy it.

Swim suits have been ordered for the boys and the girls. Towels have been bought - new idea. A new cooler has been bought. Next week we will do a trial run on our picnic and ask the kids what they liked and didn't.

School is winding down now as we move closer to summer. Summer is a huge learning experience and so much fun.

Looking at a new floor for the school. Looks really good - called Free Fit. It's new, just out.

Have a great weekend!

Teaching Music by Judy Lyden

I've taught music to children on and off for years, and it's not the best of choices. First, I have about as much musical sense as a deaf dog, and second, my voice is so low, I sound like Gravel Gertie. In fact, one of my goals is to reach the level of Elvis Presley singing "Old Man River."

But whether I can or should teach music, I have. I've plunged in there because most people just don't want to. I also have an opinion about what should be taught to children about music and most teachers roll their eyes at my ideas.

I think music is a many level discipline and children should get a full range of sounds, experiences and information early on because "early on" is where the interest in music comes from. By creating experiences in music, we create desire usually for more.

That was not the case in my own young life, and I have to go back to my own childhood to find out why my music interest is so poor. We never listened to anything in the house. There was never any music played, and my parents did not think a car radio was important, and I vaguely remember listening to music perhaps twice although we had a huge record player in the dining room. I always wondered what it was. As I was reading a biography on Theodore Roosevelt, the biographer said that Theodore abhorred music and found it a nuisance and chore to listen to. I can truly understand Theodore's point of view. It's a hyperactive response to that which takes brain power that is not familiar.

I don't remember much Church music as a child - mostly the priest said a twelve minute Mass, and we were out before we had time to sing anything. He had been a foxhole priest in the second world war, and he could shoot through a Latin Mass like a bomb was about to fall.

But I did learn Gregorian Chant in school as a young child, and some hymns as a teenager, and then there were the once a week gatherings to sing songs in the playroom at school, but I was always asked to mouth the words because my voice, even as a child, was lower than anyone's.

I played guitar as a teenager and loved it because it was LOW. Played classical piano as well, but was horrible at it. I finally was able to sing songs as a young woman when I got married. My husband taught History at a men's college, and at Mass, the men would sing, and it was there - for the first time - my voice found a niche. So add up those experiences, and the end result is deprivation, disorder and ignorance.

None of these things do I want to happen to my kids at the Garden School. I want them to learn to sing with a group as a full functioning member of a choral group. I want them to enjoy singing children's songs, songs from different historical periods of time, from show songs both new and old, just for fun songs that everyone sang as a child, the classics of church, and more. So finding music the children like is important and learning the lyrics so that one can teach effectively, so that the children can burst into song occasionally is the goal.

Children should learn to listen to music and interpret what they hear because so many children transition from auditory learners to visual learners with reading. Children should learn how to listen to something beautiful like music in order to be able to rely on auditory skills their whole life. A child should be exposed to the great masters of music like Beethoven, Bach, Handel, and Mozart. A child should be able to say if he or she likes the music or not and why.

Children should experience playing little musical instruments. They should be able to explore making sounds and adding sounds to sounds. They should be able to learn to discover how to make ordinary things into playable instruments - making sounds is a huge step into making musicians. If a child never touches a musical instrument, he will never know if he has an interest in becoming a musician.

Now accomplishing this is not a one person job. It's a combined effort, because it's a huge undertaking, and not something everyone can do. But it is something everyone should have a part in teaching and should not be shy about. Children never know that a teacher does not have a good voice, and children certainly are not critics of fine music. So the sky is the limit once again.

Establishing a music program for early childhood should be as easy as assigning days of the week to do one of the essentials. Monday we sing; Tuesday we listen; Wednesday we play instruments; Thursday we put body movement to music; Friday we review.