MGTutoring.com. A Rational Perspective on Education.

March 25, 2011

Blogs For Paleo Parents

Filed under: Child Development,Exercise, Health & Nutrition,Parenting — Administrator @ 10:36 pm

In the post “Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying” on her blog Feasting on Fitness, Kristy A provides a list of blogs by parents who follow the paleo diet and lifestyle. Learn and enjoy!

She says:

For many overweight kids and adults, junk food and sweets aren’t the only cause: it’s starch.  One reason is that high fructose corn syrup is in EVERYTHING, even starches like bread.  Check the labels–you’ll be horrified.  Why we need to sugar everything we consume is another post, but for now, take it on good authority that high density foods like bread, pasta, rice, and potatoes give too much energy, and the excess carbohydrate turns to fat.  In reality, it isn’t fat that makes us fat, but carbohydrate! The old advice to eat a low fat and high carbohydrate diet hasn’t gotten us out of the obesity epidemic; in fact, the epidemic has gotten worse.

I just got back from a talk given by Dr. Lustig of “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” fame, but I can’t write up that smorgasbord of info at the moment.  Next time, Gadget, next time. Right now, the focus of this post is:

Step 1: We need to work toward the goal of replacing that starch AND SUGAR with vegetables and fruit–i.e. REAL FOOD.

Update (4-22-11; 7:07 PM): Another blog for parents is The Primal Parent. On her “About” page, she says:

My own journey with the primal diet – or the paleo diet as it is also called – began just before my pregnancy. Hitherto I was unable to conceive and had myriad health challenges. I began studying nutrition and disease while experimenting with the primal diet. Within three months of eliminating grains and dairy, I was pregnant. This unexpected miracle fueled my interest in the primal diet. I continued studying and experimenting with foods which led to the successful control of joint pain, infertility, acne, depression and other illness from which I had previously suffered. Now, as a parent I am primarily concerned with the prevention of gratuitous pain and suffering in children and growing adults. My experience with paleolithic lifestyle and diet extends to the philosophy of those ancient practices and how they can be applied to modern parenting.

March 4, 2011

Combating Autism

Filed under: Biology,Child Development,Exercise, Health & Nutrition,Psychology,Science — Administrator @ 12:34 am

Fox News interviewed a family (be sure to read the comments to the post on Tom Naugton’s site), Michael and Tula Larson, and their doctor, Dr. Kenneth Bock, (author of Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma and Allergies) about Tula’s autism and how it was eliminated with diet. The diet is basically the paleo diet, which you could learn about from such books as Mark Sisson‘s Primal Blueprint, Robb Wolf‘s The Paleo Solution, Nora Gedgaudas‘ Primal Body — Primal Mind, or Dr. Art DeVany‘s New Evolution Diet.

The episode and Dr. Bock are criticized on Media Matters. However, Dr. Ann Childers, among numerous other people, has made observations similar to those of Dr. Bock, and has used diet to treat children with mental health problems, as she discussed in an interview by Jimmy Moore.  You could also listen to Nora Gedgaudas discuss how diet has an affect on mental health in some of her radio shows (episodes #29, 33, 39). See also the PBS documentary The Medicated Child (which I have not seen, and so cannot recommend; I am posting it here on the implicit recommendation of Tom Naughton) and read the comments to the post.

I’d tend to think that diet does help; however, we’d have to do the (real, proper, inductive and integrated) science and research the (real, proper, inductive and integrated) science that has already been done. If you look into related issues, you will learn how high-fat diets have been used to help children who are not developing neurologically properly and how ketogenic diets are used to treat cancers and neurological problems.

February 8, 2011

Learning & Diet

Filed under: Biology,Child Development,Education,Exercise, Health & Nutrition — Administrator @ 12:11 am

The modern American diet is a big part of the cause of current learning difficulties and syndromes. We need and must have fats in our diet for proper neurological, and therefore cognitive, function, yet fats are demonized and avoided. I’d recommend you listen to Jimmy Moore‘s interview of Dr. Ann Childers to see what you can do to help yourself, your children, and those you love.

Jimmy Moore describes the interview as follows:  “Ann Childers, MD began her career as an animal behavior researcher and over time she noticed the effects of diet on canine health and behavior. Eventually she decided to become a professional licensed child and adult psychiatrist and a strong advocate for a low-carb approach to improving one’s “mental fitness” as well as physical health. Listen in for some junk food horror stories and what kinds of mental disorders she’s treated with carbohydrate restriction!”  Copyright © 2011 The Livin La Vida Low-Carb Show

Here is Dr. Childers’ bio:  “Dr. Childers is a child and adult trained psychiatric physician with a passionate interest in regaining our physical and mental health through nutrition and sleep. She has published a number of textbook chapters, among them ‘Nutritional Aspects of Psychiatry’ for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: The Essentials (Cheng and Myers, 2010). Her office is in Lake Oswego, Oregon where she sees children, adolescents and adults. A member of the Metabolism Society, she welcomes those who desire an integrated approach to psychiatric care, weight control, and/or metabolic management.”

October 29, 2009

Innovation, Inquisitiveness, and Upbringing

Filed under: Child Development,Education,Parenting — Administrator @ 10:29 am

In “How Do Innovators Think?” (HBR Editors’ Blog, 5:21 PM Monday September 28, 2009)
,  Bronwyn Fryer writes:

We also believe that the most innovative entrepreneurs were very lucky to have been raised in an atmosphere where inquisitiveness was encouraged. We were stuck by the stories they told about being sustained by people who cared about experimentation and exploration. Sometimes these people were relatives, but sometimes they were neighbors, teachers or other influential adults. A number of the innovative entrepreneurs also went to Montessori schools, where they learned to follow their curiosity. To paraphrase the famous Apple ad campaign, innovators not only learned early on to think different, they act different (and even talk different).

Copyright © 2009 Harvard Business Publishing. All rights reserved.

This is the kind of upbringing that Thomas Edison (see a previous post) and the Wright brothers (see anecdote 1 and  anecdote 2) had.

The context for this paragraph from “How Do Innovators Think?” is the initial answer to what Jeff Dyer (Brigham Young University) and Hal Gregersen (Insead) learned are important skills from their survey of 3,000 “creative” executives and interview of 500:

Dyer: The first skill is what we call “associating.” It’s a cognitive skill that allows creative people to make connections across seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas. The second skill is questioning — an ability to ask “what if”, “why”, and “why not” questions that challenge the status quo and open up the bigger picture. The third is the ability to closely observe details, particularly the details of people’s behavior. Another skill is the ability to experiment — the people we studied are always trying on new experiences and exploring new worlds. And finally, they are really good at networking with smart people who have little in common with them, but from whom they can learn.

Fryer: Which of these skills do you think is the most important?

Dyer: We’ve found that questioning turbo-charges observing, experimenting, and networking, but questioning on its own doesn’t have a direct effect without the others. Overall, associating is the key skill because new ideas aren’t created without connecting problems or ideas in ways that they haven’t been connected before. The other behaviors are inputs that trigger associating — so they are a means of getting to a creative end.

Copyright © 2009 Harvard Business Publishing. All rights reserved.

We meet again Kipling’s “Six Honest Serving-Men.”

All this, thought for the day? No, a thought for life…

August 31, 2009

The Power of Reason: A Helen Keller Anecdote

Filed under: Child Development,Education,Language — Administrator @ 10:27 am

On the Internet is some 1930 newsreel footage (2 min 58 sec) of how Annie Sullivan taught Helen Keller to speak. Amazing…   HT:  Dr. D. H.

And “Helen Keller: In Her Story (clip)” is good. It has the comment — very pregnant with meaning and implications — “her hand is her chief link to the outer world.”

August 12, 2009

Raising the Young Reasoning Mind

Filed under: Child Development,Parenting — Administrator @ 7:57 am

There have been a number of posts on raising children and discipline that I have read in the past few months and that I’ve wanted to make people aware of, but I have been busy and forgetful. Here is an excerpt from one such post, entitled “The Nature of Children:”

Because they are proto-rational, not a-rational or irrational, we must teach a rational approach to problem solving. We cannot train them through rewards and punishments (behaviorism), as we would a-rational animals. We cannot be unkind to them, using retribution or a withdrawal of time or affection, assuming that they were capable of better choices…. Instead, we must use tools that teach better behaviors while respecting the burgeoning rationality of the child.

Because children are not inherently good, we cannot expect good behavior without practice. They must learn to make the choices that lead to positive outcomes (the good), and they must learn not to make choices that harm them (the bad). We cannot expect them to know things until they have had a chance to observe adults or experience the consequences of an action first hand. We cannot be angry because they don’t know how to behave – that is putting a wish before reality. No matter how much we wish children might be inherently good and make the right choices with ease, reality doesn’t work that way.

Because children are not inherently bad, we cannot assume that any annoying behavior is malicious. …  Instead of thinking of children as bad and needing to be straightened out, we think of them as inexperienced, acting wrongly, often because they have not connected an action to its negative consequences yet.

August 11, 2009

Mental Abilities of Dogs

Filed under: Animals,Child Development,Science — Administrator @ 7:55 am

In “Dogs as Smart as 2-year-old Kids” (Live Science; posted: 08 August 2009 02:00 pm ET), Jeanna Bryner, Senior Writer for Live Science, says:

The canine IQ test results are in: Even the average dog has the mental abilities of a 2-year-old child.

The finding is based on a language development test, revealing average dogs can learn 165 words (similar to a 2-year-old child), including signals and gestures, and dogs in the top 20 percent in intelligence can learn 250 words.

…

While dogs ranked with the 2-year-olds in language, they would trump a 3- or 4-year-old in basic arithmetic, Coren found. In terms of social smarts, our drooling furballs fare even better.
…

To get inside the noggin of man’s best friend, scientists are modifying tests for dogs that were originally developed to measure skills in children.

Here’s one: In an arithmetic test, dogs watch as one treat and then another treat are lowered down behind a screen. When the screen gets lifted, the dogs, if they get arithmetic (1+1=2), will expect to see two treats. (For toddlers, other objects would be used.)

But say the scientist swipes one of the treats, or adds another so the end result is one, or three treats, respectively. “Now we’re giving him the wrong equation which is 1+1=1, or 1+1=3,” Coren said. Sure enough, studies show the dogs get it. “The dog acts surprised and stares at it for a longer period of time, just like a human kid would,” he said.

These studies suggest dogs have a basic understanding of arithmetic, and they can count to four or five.

Other studies Coren notes have found that dogs show spatial problem-solving skills. For instance, they can locate valued items, such as treats, find better routes in the environment, such as the fastest way to a favorite chair, and figure out how to operate latches and simple machines.

© Imaginova Corp. All rights reserved.

But we have to use “mental abilities” loosely. The child has a consciousness that is developing into a rational consciousness; dogs do not. The child is going through this state of development of his/her consciousness; the dog is stuck there, and will develop no further.

While the dog and 2-year old show evidence of being able to do some of the same things, their mental content and methods might not be exactly identical. A child, for example, is just about ready to talk or is already talking; a dog is not and never will.

Update (6:00 PM): Top this, top dog!!  In “Toddler milestone: Talking,” on a Website called The Baby Center, they say:

(more…)

July 29, 2009

Silly Educational Methods

Filed under: Child Development,Education — Administrator @ 5:36 am

Wrong-headed attempt to practice “brain research” and all that. This looks like the same “research” that lead to some childrens’ shows changing to quick, jumpy sequences that do not let the child concentrate. Quite opposed to what Montessori teaches and does!!

It appears that the class in the video is functioning on the premise that we learn best when we learn in a “multi-sensory” fashion. Not necessarily the case. That idea has to be put in context (like the ancient Greeks, we should engage in full analysis and synthesis of the idea); it should not be taken and run with like a wild animal running scared from the wind.

July 9, 2009

Cognitive Development

Filed under: Child Development,Education — Administrator @ 7:27 am

Piaget’s stages of cognitive development:

1.  Sensorimotor stage (Infancy). In this period (which has 6 stages), intelligence is demonstrated through motor activity without the use of symbols. Knowledge of the world is limited (but developing) because its based on physical interactions/experiences. Children acquire object permanence at about 7 months of age (memory). Physical development (mobility) allows the child to begin developing new intellectual abilities. Some symbollic (language) abilities are developed at the end of this stage.

2. Pre-operational stage (Toddler and Early Childhood). In this period (which has two substages), intelligence is demonstrated through the use of symbols, language use matures, and memory and imagination are developed, but thinking is done in a nonlogical, nonreversable manner. Egocentric thinking predominates.

3. Concrete operational stage (Elementary and early adolescence). In this stage (characterized by 7 types of conservation: number, length, liquid, mass, weight, area, volume), intelligence is demonstarted through logical and systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects. Operational thinking develops (mental actions that are reversible). Egocentric thought diminishes.

4. Formal operational stage (Adolescence and adulthood). In this stage, intelligence is demonstrated through the logical use of symbols related to abstract concepts. Early in the period there is a return to egocentric thought. Only 35% of high school graduates in industrialized countries obtain formal operations; many people do not think formally during adulthood.

Huitt, W., & Hummel, J. (2003). “Piaget’s theory of cognitive development.” Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved 6-21-09 from http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/cogsys/piaget.html

This is what I have (generally, non-scientifically) observed, too — but I had not put it to words, had not done a lot of work and research in the area, had not fully developed a theory, had not put it all into a science as Piaget had. Thanks to Piaget!

July 8, 2009

Montessori on Intelligence

Filed under: Child Development,Education — Administrator @ 7:33 am

Dr. Montessori points out how “intelligence” is not a “hard-wired” aspect of our consciousness, but is affected by how well-ordered our memory is (and, I’d say, also by how efficiently our subconscious functions):

The swift reactions among our children are not merely an external manifestation of the intelligence. They are related not only to the exercise, but also to the order which has been established within: and it is this intimate work of re-arrangement which is in itself a more exact indication of intellectual formation.

Order is, in short, the true key to rapidity of reaction. In a chaotic mind, the recognition of a sensation is no less difficult than the elaboration of a reasoned discourse. In all things, social as well as others, it is organiztion and order which make it possible to proceed rapidly.

(p. 156, The Advanced Montessori Method – I (formerly Spontaneous Activity in Education) by Dr. Maria Montessori, trans.s Florence Simmonds and Lily Hutchinson, Clio Press, Oxford, (c) 1991 Montessori-Pierson Estates, ISBN 1-85109-114-9.)

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