Daniel Pink is a horizontal thinker. He has had his hand in business, government, law, and writing among other things. He worked with U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich and was formerly chief speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore. He is a contributing editor of Wired magazine and an independent business consultant as well as a best-selling author who chronicles the changing of the work world. In his book “A Whole New Mind,” Pink argues that right-brained thinking will dominate and drive the new economy. read the article

Playing to Learn

The Obama administration is planning some big changes to how we measure the success or failure of schools and how we apportion federal money based on those assessments. It’s great that the administration is trying to undertake reforms, but if we want to make sure all children learn, we will need to overhaul the curriculum itself. Our current educational approach — and the testing that is driving it — is completely at odds with what scientists understand about how children develop during the elementary school years and has led to a curriculum that is strangling children and teachers alike. read the article

Wired for Distraction?

Most parents who worry about their kids’ online activity focus on the people or content their children might encounter: Are they being cyberbullied? Do they have access to age-inappropriate material? Can sexual predators reach them? What I worry about, as a sociobiologist, is not what my kids are doing on the Internet but what all this connectivity is doing to their brains. read the article

Effort to Restore Children’s Play Gains Momentum

Sarah Wilson was speaking proudly the other day when she declared: “My house is a little messy.” read the article

TV Watching Is Bad for Babies’ Brains

Babies who watch TV are more likely to have delayed cognitive development and language at 14 months, especially if they’re watching programs intended for adults and older children. read the article

A comparison of Waldorf and Montessori Education in the Early Childhood Programs

This comparison of Waldorf and Montessori educational philosophies is based on my personal experience as a teacher in both Montessori and Waldorf school systems. I would like to preface my remarks by stressing that there can be much difference from one classroom to another in any philosophy, due to the style and interpretation of the individual teacher. read the article

Tech Gets a Time Out

Digital-age parents opt for a school environment where children hand-write their own textbooks, learn to knit in first grade, and spend two years in kindergarten communing with gnomes and fairies (no ABCs in sight). read the article

The Creativity Crisis

For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining. What went wrong—and how we can fix it. read the article

Old Fashion Play Builds Serious Skills

On October 3, 1955, the Mickey Mouse Club debuted on television. As we all now know, the show quickly became a cultural icon, one of those phenomena that helped define an era. read the article

Scientifically Tested Tests

As children, teachers and parents sprint, slink or stumble into the new school year, they also find themselves laboring once again in the shadow of standardized tests. That is a real shame, given that there are few indications that the multiple-choice format of a typical test, in which students are quizzed on the specific formulas and bits of information they have memorized that year, actually measures what we need to know about children’s education. read the article

What is a “Waldorf School” (and why do we love it so much?)

In 1998, our oldest daughter was ready to enter kindergarten. I searched through alternatives to public education for my own children. The Friends’ School, Duke School for Children, Durham Academy…the list goes on, each with a wonderful philosophy and wonderful teachers to go with it. We investigated all of them, and ultimately wound up at the Emerson Waldorf School. I had never heard of a Waldorf School before. read the article

Core Educational Standards for Young Children Grades K-3: The Alliance for Childhood

Young children “need to learn about families and communities, to take on challenges,and to develop social, emotional, problem-solving, self-regulation, and perspective-taking skills.” read the article

Skills at the Heart of Waldorf Education

Today we live in a world in which the vicissitudes of economic life are profoundly effecting the ways in which we work, play and relate to others. Our communities are changing more rapidly than our capacity to adapt and acquire new skills and habits. read the article

Playtime Is Over

Children today are growing up in a world vastly different from the one their parents knew. Our young people are more aware of threats to the global environment than they are of the natural world in their own backyards. read the article

The pentatonic scale…neuroscientific research.

Scholar’s School Reform U-Turn Shakes Up Debate

Diane Ravitch, the education historian who built her intellectual reputation battling progressive educators and served in the first Bush administration’s Education Department, is in the final stages of an astonishing, slow-motion about-face on almost every stand she once took on American schooling. Once outspoken about the power of standardized testing, charter schools and free markets to improve schools, Dr. Ravitch is now caustically critical. read the article

Watch How You Hold That Crayon

Noah Lascano, 8, had a problem: His teachers couldn’t read his handwriting. His homework became a frustrating exercise in writing once, and then, at the teacher’s request, writing again, just for legibility. read the article

further reading

Corporate Influences on Children

Interview with Daniel Pink on the Conceptual Age and Waldorf Schools