This week marks the 50th anniversary of “The War on Poverty,” declared by President Lyndon B. Johnson in his 1964 State of the Union address. Debate over wealth distribution and economic justice will heat up this week, and stay hot all year, since these will be defining issues in the 2014 election. Fifty years later new advances in science inform our thinking and policymaking about poverty. One line of research with traction, in the field of language development, discovered a disturbingly persistent “word gap” tied to socio-economic and parenting factors. In our list of Top 10 Learning Concepts, we refer to the word gap as Language Dancing. There are 68 million parents in the US with kids aged 0-18. Every one of them should be familiar with this research. Will 2014 be the year we see big increases in the number of parents gaining cortical mass on this topic so vital to learning and education?
Parenting
When Being Called 'Incredibly Good' is Bad for Children - EurekAlert!
Tablets Make It Nearly Impossible for Kids to Get Lost in a Story - Asi Sharabi, The Atlantic
I Refuse to Feel Bad About Letting My Children Watch TV - Michael Petrilli, The Atlantic
3 Things Parents Should Know About Video Games And Kids - Jordan Shapiro, Forbes
How to Give Kids Everything But a Sense of Entitlement - Jenn Choi, Quartz
Concussion Statistics for High School Sports - Lindsay Barton, MomsTeam
The Daddy Wars: A Debate about Paternity Leave - Series by The Atlantic
Learning
Talking Directly to Toddlers Strengthens Their Language Skills - Bijorn Carey, Stanford News
The Dark Side of Emotional Intelligence - Adam Grant, The Atlantic
Top 10 Brain Science and Psychology Studies of 2013 - David DiSalvo, Forbes
Brain Function Boosted for Days After Reading a Novel - Tomas Jivanda, The Independent
Anxious Students? Amping Up Might Be Better Than Calming Down - Sarah Sparks, Ed Week
4 Essential (and Overlooked) Facts About Your Brain and Mind - A. Fernandez, Creativity Post
We've Oversimplified 'Learning Styles' - Richard Rende, Red Hot Parenting
Education
Closing the 'Word Gap' Between Rich and Poor - NPR
The Evidence on School Starting Age - University of Cambridge
Standardized Achievement Tests: Not Good for Cognitive Ability - S.B. Kaufman, Sci American
Student Test Scores Depend on Accountability - Margaret Spellings, Washington Post
Once We Wanted to Beat the Soviets, Now We Follow Their Lead in Ed - M. Downey, AJC
Is Asian Math Superiority Caused by the Language of Numbers? - Peter Gray, Psychology Today
10 Big Wins For Public Education in 2013 - Owen Davis, AlterNet
New Advocacy Groups Find Foot Soldiers in Parents - Katie Ash, Education Week
Teach Kids How To Code And You Give Them A Skill For Life - Nick Morrison, Forbes
Resources
5 Online Games That Teach Kids the Art of Persuasion - Tanner Higgin, Mind/Shift
Jon Stewart’s Greatest Education Hits ’13 - Valerie Strauss, Washington Post
Science's Top 10 Breakthroughs of 2013 - Science Magazine
E-books That Make Ye Olde Shakespearean Text Clearer - coolmomtech
How Global Warming Works (Explained in Under 5 Minutes) - howglobalwarmingworks.org
GeekMoms’ Best Board Games of 2013 - Cathe Post, GeekMom
On a Beam of Light: The Story of Albert Einstein - Maria Popova, Brain Pickings
Read a few articles each week, and gain parent cortical mass! If you enjoy our weekly article roundup, please email it to a friend, or share on social media. Thank you!