Education goes far beyond the subjects we typically teach in school. Life skills like focus and perspective taking are essential to building human potential. Mind in the Making will be a powerful new resource for teachers and families.

— Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board

Why I Am Concerned About Learning

Featured article

April 16, 2010

by Ellen Galinsky

Curiosity, according to Laura Schulz of MIT, is fueled by having two ideas that are at odds with each other.  Her research shows that when this happens, children typically will explore and experiment until they figure things out. That’s my story too. Having two images of learning that disturbingly conflicted with each other has led to eight years of exploration—so far.
 
The first image was from interviews I conducted with children a few years ago as background for a study we were planning on children and learning. In my travels around the country, I interviewed groups of children from the third through the twelfth grades, asking them about their experiences in learning—at home, in their neighborhoods, in school, in church, anywhere. Despite the fact that these children came from very different backgrounds and communities—they told me very similar stories.
 
They described learning as “learning stuff”—as the acquisition of facts, figures, and concepts. The learning experiences they described were primarily imposed—and their motivation was primarily extrinsic rather than also being intrinsic. 
 
I asked the children to finish this sentence: “It is important to learn so I can….”  And the children I interviewed all over the country said:
 
Get good grades.
Go to good schools.
Get a good job.
Support myself—have a good house—have a nice car.
 
Their reasons echo those of 81,499 students in a nationwide study conducted by the High School Survey of Youth Engagement from the University of Indiana. When asked why they go to school, 73% said because they want to get a degree and go to college, 69% said because of their friends, and 58% said because it’s the law. 
These are valid reasons, but there’s a major problem, too. In the High School Survey, only 39% said they go to school to learn. Likewise, I heard little connection to learning in the children I interviewed. Even worse, I found that there was little, if any, fire in their eyes when they talked about learning.
 
So I pushed. I asked children to finish the sentence, “When I am learning, I feel….” Those few children who had experienced a broader connection to learning said things like:
 

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Skill: Focus and Self Control
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It’s Toddlers on the Loose! The Challenging Transition from Baby to Toddler

Featured article

April 15, 2010

by Morra Aarons Mele

The leap to toddlerhood is both thrilling and upsetting for a parent. Your baby clearly has a mind of his own: you can see the wheels turning in his head 24-7. Little babies are cute but their repertoire is limited. But for a toddler, each day brings something new to learn. 

As a young parent working with Ellen Galinsky on Mind in the Making, I sometimes take the life skills to heart a little too much. 

For instance, I breathlessly reported to Ellen that my 14 month old was clearly making connections: when he heard a phone ring, or even the sound of my text message chiming, he put his hand to his ear to mimic the phone. I was so proud of my clearly brilliant son and his ability to make rather abstract connections for one his age: connecting the bell of an incoming text message with talking on the phone. Literally the same day I bragged to Ellen, my husband called to tell me our son had an ear infection and that’s why he was touching his ear!! The mommy guilt I felt was astounding. 

But mostly, using the skills in Mind in the Making gives me more joy and patience as a mom. It’s almost as if I have a new language with which to interpret my son’s needs. 

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Skill: Focus and Self Control
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New CCF Release: How do we teach children the most important life skills?

In the news

April 14, 2010

Press release from the Council on Contemporary Families:

Chicago, IL, May 14: How do we use what we know? That is the theme of the Council on Contemporary Families’ 13th annual conference this year. In connection with the conference, CCF is releasing a list of research-tested tips for building the seven life skills that children really need—and that parents can teach simply. The tip sheet is based on a preview of Work and Family Institute’s Ellen Galinsky's new book, to be released April 20, which summarizes her eight years-long review of research on child development and interviews with 75 of the leading researchers in this field.

Her advice sheet, included below and available at www.contemporaryfamilies.org, provides one example for how to teach each skill. In short, what works is NOT high-tech, high-cost gadgets but simple skills- and values-focused interactions. Her report is being circulated at the April 16-17, 2010 conference of the Council on Contemporary Families, Augustana College. Rock Island, Illinois. Read Ellen's full tip sheet after the jump.
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Mind in the Making in the LeapFrog Blog

In the news

April 13, 2010

The LeapFrog Community's Learning Team member, Jim Gray, EdD recently wrote a post about the Fred Forward conference from the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media.  Ellen Galinsky spoke at that conference. Here's what Jim had to say about it:

Among the many insightful ideas and projects presented at Fred Forward, the Mind in the Making project stands out as having direct, immediate benefit to parents.  Through a book, companion website, DVD, and other materials, this project aims to translate the best scientific research on how young children learn into useful lessons for parents and educators.  Ellen Galinsky, the author and head of the Families and Work Institute, proposes seven skills that are essential for life success in the 21St Century.  These include: Focus and Self Control, Perspective Taking, Communicating, Making Connections, Critical Thinking, Taking On Challenges, Self-Directed and Engaged Learning.

Read the full post on the LeapFrog Learning Team blog.

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Bullying: We All Can Make A Difference

In the news

April 05, 2010

Every few years, there is a local incident of bullying that is so horrible, so beyond our understanding that the local incident escalates to a national incident with continued coverage.

The latest of these occurrences is the tragic story of Phoebe Prince, the 15-year old high school student who moved to South Hadley, Massachusetts from Ireland and committed suicide in January. At the end of March, criminal charges were filed against nine students—six of the teenagers were charged with felonies and three were charged as juveniles, all for bullying.

Much of the news coverage of this incident and others like this one has focused on our attempts to figure out what went wrong and to assign blame.  We go over and over the known facts and dig deeper for new facts to try to understand. Is it families with children who bully who are at fault? Is it the school personnel—teachers and administrators—who seemingly stand by and don’t take action when the signs that something is wrong abound? Is it the community—from the law enforcement system to the community culture that are to blame?

I, too, have been asking myself the question of what goes wrong and what can go right. These are especially urgent questions for me because I have spent decades conducting and studying the research on children’s development.

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Daily Kid



Here is a list of Mind in the Making researchers and educators filmed to date

Community Schools: “Mind in the Making and Community Schools: Crossing Boundaries and Creating Strong Linkages for Children Birth through Eight and their Families,” is a collaborative project with The Children’s Aid Society’s National Center for Community Schools and the Institute for Educational Leadership. (Read more)

Learning Communities: Throughout the country, groups of parents, educators, and other family support and health professionals have joined together to learn more about the research on children’s learning from birth through the early elementary school years, and about how to use this research to promote better outcomes for children. (Read more)

Learning Modules for Educators: Mind in the Making Learning Modules for Educators is an 11-part, facilitated learning process designed to bridge the gap between research and teaching practice. (Read more)

Seven Skills Modules: We have created new Modules from the book, called the Mind in the Making Seven Essential Skills Modules. (Read more)

Experiments in Children's Learning DVD: This two-volume series of 42 videos take viewers on a series of virtual “field trips” to laboratories in the U.S. and abroad. (Read more)
View a crosswalk of the experiments to the seven essential life skills

Download a companion Catalogue to Mind in the Making: Experiments in Children's Learning

Have you seen the Marshmallow Test?

What does eating marshmallows have to do with how your kid does on the SAT?
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