New York Times article addresses role of
play in future academic and life success.
It is always a challenge to provide a concise, yet meaningful explanation of why our Somerset curriculum is grounded in play. We understand that parents enroll their children in our school to provide them with a strong, developmentally appropriate, academic foundation. To most people, play is thought of as a pleasant but not particularly useful activity, so explaining why we have based our whole curriculum on play is not a trivial task! Fortunately, most of our children come to us through word of mouth “advertising”. Parents know Somerset children typically are at the top of their classes as they move through K-12 education. The connection between what children gain from their Somerset experiences and their subsequent school success is what is hard to explain.
An article recently appeared in the New York Times (NYT) which provides information about a program called Tools of the Mind. The Tools of the Mind program is a play-based early childhood program designed to support the development of children’s “executive functioning” which is defined as the ability to order your thoughts, to process information in a coherent way, to hold relevant details in your short-term memory, to avoid distractions and mental traps and to focus on the task in front of you. Self-regulation is a key component in all of these processes. While Somerset’s curriculum is not exactly like the Tools of the Mind curriculum, it is based on the same developmental principles. The NYT article provides important information about research that addresses this connection.
Click here to link to the NYT article.
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Helping Our Children Succeed
The link below will take you to an interesting interview of Stanford University Psychologist, Carol Dweck, Ph.D., the author of the book "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success". The interview was done by Will Richardson, a well-known speaker on integrating Web 2.0 technology in our classrooms who also hosts the blog: Weblogg-ed. An article which included a description of her work was published in the May 2009 issue of Readers Digest entitled "Make Up Your Mind to Succeed" by Joe Kita. The interview is approximately 50 minutes long but is well worth the time. Dr. Dweck provides many practical suggestions for helping our children succeed.
http://weblogg-ed.com/index.php?s=Carol+Dweck&submit=Search
The development of your child's potential is our passion.