SAQ Practice Edgewood

When German educator Friedrich Fröebel opened the world's first kindergartens in the mid-1800s, he frequently found himself at odds with suspicious government officials. Prussia, for example, banned his schools in 1851, characterizing them as hotbeds of socialist subversion and radicalism. How things have changed. Today, most governments want more kindergarten, not less. Even the traditional half- day programs aren't enough. Five-year-olds in British Columbia, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island all attend full-day kindergarten. Ontario is currently in the fourth year of a five-year rollout for full-day junior and senior kindergarten, meaning kids as young as three attend school all day, five days a week. In those provinces without full-day programs, demands are heard regularly. Yet despite the popularity of full-day kindergarten, particularly among working parents and teachers' unions, the actual benefit it provides to the children themselves is still hotly debated. This September, on the first day of the school year, the Ontario government claimed conclusive evidence of full- day kindergarten's advantages was finally at hand, thanks to a pair of academic studies it commissioned. “In every area, students improved their readiness for Grade 1 and accelerated their development," a provincial news release declared. Education Minister Liz Sandals called the results, which tracked students in both half- and full- day kindergarten over two years, "nothing short of incredible." This news was immediately hailed by supporters of the concept. Charles Pascal, the driving force behind Ontario's full-day program, said "it shows the program is truly a life-changer." In a front-page story, the Globe and Mail dubbed it a "landmark study." And yet there was no study to read, landmark or otherwise. The hype and excitement came from a few bullet points selectively released by the province. The actual reports were nowhere to be seen. The reason for this reticence is now apparent.

With the complete reports finally available online, it appears that Ontario's $1.5-billion-a-year full-day kindergarten experiment is a grave disappointment, from both pedagogical and financial perspectives. The provincial studies did find that children attending schools marked by low income and/or poor test scores showed improvement in some categories after participating in full-day kindergarten. This corresponds with previous research, particularly by Nobel laureate economist James Heckman, which suggested that early intervention can improve school readiness for disadvantaged children. For everyone else, however, the Ontario results ranged from negligible to abysmal. Not only did most children not receive a distinct advantage from spending all week at school, the results for many were lower than if they'd stayed in the old half-day system. "To be clear, some children appear to have done worse with [full-day kindergarten]," the report states. The biggest failings were in the categories of emotional maturity, communication skills and general knowledge. This aligns with complaints that full-day programs impede the social and emotional development of some children by removing them from familial care too early. Special-needs kids did particularly poorly. "The children with special educational needs showed superior outcomes on the measures of social competence and emotional maturity in non-[full-day kindergarten] programs," the researchers found, calling for more investigation into this troubling result. It's a far cry from declaring the whole thing "life-changing" or "nothing short of incredible." It is worth noting that even those gains identified for some kids are likely to be temporary, a phenomenon that's been identified in numerous other studies. McMaster University economist Philip DeCicca told Maclean's earlier this year that any positive academic effects arising from full-day kindergarten are largely gone by the end of Grade 1. Similarly, a study published last year on California's school system1 found that, after three years, "there were no significant differences in students who attended the all-day kindergarten program and students who attended a traditional kindergarten program." While children from poor or disadvantaged families may derive short-term benefits from extra attention in kindergarten, it defies common sense and financial reality to provide this to all families on a universal basis. The tax system or local authorities are much better suited to targeting children at risk, and at far less cost. All the above suggests taxpayers in provinces that have so far managed to avoid the full-day-kindergarten craze ought to consider themselves quite lucky. Earlier this year, for example, Alberta announced it was putting its plans for province-wide full-day kindergarten on hold due to budgetary constraints. Wise move.

Across the country, handwriting instruction is fading from prominence as teachers and students go electronic. Keyboarding and word processing are viewed as essential skills; handwriting is not. As a result, many schools and districts, emboldened by the new standards, which only require students to print upper- and lowercase letters, have drastically cut back on or eliminated handwriting instruction. "What we hear is that handwriting is not a skill that's tested, so therefore we don't have to teach it," says Laura Dinehart, associate professor of early childhood education at Florida International University. "But just because it's not tested doesn't mean that it's not influencing other skills."... Indiana University researcher Karin H. James was one of the first to notice the link between the motor systems of the brain and reading. Using MRI scans, she showed that the motor sections light up when literate adults simply look at printed text. Keyboarding doesn't "light up" the literacy sections of the brain in the way handwriting does. "Pressing a key on a keyboard doesn't really tell us anything about the shape of the letter," Dinehart says. "If you press A or B, it feels the same. But if you're creating a symbol over and over again, it creates in the brain a kind of cognitive image of what that letter looks like. The writing of that letter is critical to producing that image and having it in your brain.” Although researchers aren't yet sure how handwriting is related to reading, studies have shown that working to improve students' handwriting may improve their reading, and vice versa. . . . Research shows that writing by hand also activates the parts of the brain that are involved in memory, impulse control, and attention. Anecdotal evidence and research strongly suggest that writing by hand "moves information from short-term to long-term storage," says Carol Armann, a school-based pediatric occupational therapist.

A 2014 study found that college students who took notes by hand demonstrated better conceptual understanding and memory of the material than students who took notes using a laptop. Researchers suspect the same may hold true for younger students. . . . [To incorporate handwriting practice] Jeannie Scallier Kato, a recently retired fourth-grade teacher, required her students to write a final report in cursive. Each student's project was then sent to Studentreasures Publishing and returned as a glossy hardback book. "To my students, it was like creating an art project," says Kato. Some parents objected to using such an old-fashioned method to create a report, but, she says, "I reminded [them] that children did digital projects, too, and that the published books [would be] a sample of their child's personal writing as it was at age 9 or 10." Many studies have linked handwriting fluency with compositional skill. Research by Virginia Berninger, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, found that handwriting instruction improves first graders' composition skills, and a 2007 study published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology found that handwritten essays were two years ahead of typed essays, developmentally. Why would handwriting instruction improve students' compositional skills? Dinehart says it's partly because handwriting practice makes writing automatic. “If you're too busy focused on getting the writing out, you take the focus away from what it is you're writing. You're focused more on the writing itself than on the content."... [To combine handwriting and writing instruction] Rhonda Thomas, a sixth-grade English teacher at Woodson ISD in Texas, projects her writing onto a SMART Board. "You can't just tell students, 'Write an introduction,"" says Thomas. "I model writing for them, often sentence by sentence. They watch me as I write the whole thing out. The next week, I'll leave a few blanks and they start filling in their own words when they copy it. By the end of six weeks, they're writing their own introductions." It's a near-universal rule: Kids with better handwriting do better in school. And while it's easy to attribute this to the fact that teachers tend to give better grades to papers they can read, the link between handwriting and academic achievement appears to be deeper than teacher bias. Kids with better handwriting have "better reading grades, better reading scores on the SAT, and better math scores, both on the SAT and as it relates to grades," says Dinehart. "How we interact with things physically has a huge bearing on cognitive development," James says. "Fine motor control, memory, and learning are highly connected, and doing things with the hands is really important.” . . . Teachers at Zielanis Elementary School in Kiel, Wisconsin, don't have much time to teach handwriting, so they enlist parents' help. "We send a letter home letting parents know that our goal is to introduce kids to it and help them be able to read cursive," says second-grade teacher Sara Kassens. "We let parents know that if they would like their child to really master writing cursive, they'll need to spend more time at home [on it]." Keyboarding and tech skills are a necessity, but handwriting matters, too. You can offer your students the best of both worlds by giving them opportunities to do both. "This is not handwriting versus technology. There is a place for both of those," Dinehart says. "Handwriting serves a purpose, particularly for young children."

There are more public libraries in America—some 9,000 central buildings and 7,500 branch locations-than McDonald's restaurants, making them one of the most ubiquitous institutions in the nation. Far from serving as obsolescent repositories for dead wood, libraries are integral, yet threatened, parts of the American social fabric. Libraries, after all, are truly democratic spaces where all are welcome and where everything inside is available to everyone. Few American institutions strive for "equity of access," a core principle of the American Library Association, and even fewer pay more than lip service to the idea that services like the Internet are necessary aspects of life that simply must be made available to all members of society. But despite their impact and import—much of it hidden from people of means who can independently (and often expensively) secure for themselves those services provided by the library—America is starving its libraries, cutting off millions of people from the stream of information that, like oxygen, powers the development and basic functions of society. In response to a 2010 story by Chicago's Fox affiliate, “Are Libraries Necessary, or a Waste of Tax Money?", Commissioner of the Chicago Public Library Mary A. Dempsey explained, "There continues to exist in this country a vast digital divide. It exists along lines of race and class and is only bridged consistently and equitably through the free access provided by the Chicago Public Library and all public libraries in this nation. Some 60 percent of the individuals who use public computers at Chicago's libraries are searching for and applying for jobs." It might be amusing to quip about musty, 19th-century-era card catalogs and smudgy, analog newspapers racked on giant spindles, but the access to contemporary society that public libraries provide is deadly serious.

In New York City, library funding is down $65 million since 2008, even though demand for library services is surging. At the 217 local library branches across the city, there are waiting lists for English-language classes and computer-coding classes. One-third of city residents—about 2.8 million people, more than the entire population of Chicago has no home Internet access and must rely on services available at the public library. Indeed, the Queens Library, which serves the most ethnically and economically diverse communities in the United States and which loaned out 15.7 million items during the 2014 fiscal year, has the highest circulation rate of any public library in the country. Yet despite their popularity, City libraries are literally falling apart, and some branches in Brooklyn and the Bronx more resemble subway stations than literary oases. New York's three library systems are requesting $1.4 billion in city funding to upgrade infrastructure over the next ten years, and Mayor De Blasio-whose administration says it's "made a clear commitment to libraries"-needs to listen. After all, you can't get more populist than the public library. While it would be wonderful to assume that all media are available to all New Yorkers at all times—and that the only thing standing between us and the world is a sticky connection or a malfunctioning server-this simply isn't so. And if you spend a morning observing a job-search program at the public library-where recent immigrants, perhaps, and parolees and recovering addicts sign up for their first email addresses and struggle with a QWERTY keyboard for the first time you recognize such a sentiment as woefully naïve. As The New York Times editorialized last month, "The libraries are where poor children learn to read and love literature, where immigrants learn English, where job-seekers hone résumés and cover letters, and where those who lack ready access to the Internet can cross the digital divide." Imagine everything you did today that utilized the Internet-checked your checking-account balance, ordered a birthday present for a friend, read your hometown newspaper-and now imagine having to go to the library, during library hours, to do it. Can't make it to your local branch between 10 and 6 (between 1 and 6 at many Queens locations)? Tough luck. Hop on the bus and try again tomorrow during your 20-minute lunch break. Beyond mere fairness, there are viable economic reasons for sustaining New York City's public libraries. In 2010, the City of Philadelphia spent $33 million on its public libraries; private donations contributed $12 million more. Subsequent to the funding, the value of an average home located within one quarter-mile of one of the city's 54 public library branches rose $9,630. In the aggregate, the public libraries contributed $698 million to home values in Philadelphia, which translated into an additional $18.5 million in property taxes for the city and school district. Other studies have demonstrated that for every tax dollar that libraries take in, communities receive anywhere between $2.38 and $6.54 in return. Simply put, it's not just cruel to starve our libraries—and the communities that utilize them. It's bad for business, and bad for America.

It is time to try lowering the voting age to 17 nationwide. Takoma Park, Maryland, has done it. Iowa, too, for caucuses. Scotland went down to age 16 for its recent independence referendum. Evidence suggests it will boost informed participation in our democracy over time. In 1971, at the peak of the youth protests of the baby boom, the United States passed the 26th Amendment, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. Congress and the necessary 38 states passed the measure in a mere three months, the fastest passage of any amendment in U.S. history. Why? Because the nation grasped that it was unacceptable to draft people and not allow them to vote on matters of war and peace, life and death. If the government affects you, you get to vote. That is the fundamental principle of democracy. Of course, small children are too young to vote wisely and independently. But how could 18-year-olds be too immature to vote if they were mature enough to wear the uniform in a foreign land? Those arguments for the 26th Amendment all made excellent sense, and yet 18 may have been a bad age at which to settle. Most of us will not vote unless we see people around us voting; that is where we get the idea that it is a civic responsibility. To get into the voting booth, we also need to hear arguments, debates and emotional appeals about the importance of current issues.... Penn State political scientist Eric Plutzer has shown that voting is habitual. Once you vote, you are more likely to vote again. By the same token, not voting is also a habit. If people miss the first election that they face as eligible voters, they are starting off with a habit of nonparticipation. In the 2014 elections, just 5.2 percent of eligible 18-year-olds voted in the state of California, lower than the turnout of any other age.

The political scientist Mark Franklin studied 22 democracies and found a pattern: Lowering the voting age to 18 actually caused turnout to fall in most countries. Why? Because 18-year-olds are less likely to vote than 21-year-olds. And once those 18-year-olds missed their first year as eligible voters, they were less likely to vote again not even when they reached 21. Franklin argued that, in the United States, changing our voting age to 18 may be the sole reason voter turnout has declined since the 1970s. But 17 may be a better age. At 17, most people are still living at home, where they can see parents voting and probably hear about local issues and candidates. They also are still in school, where voting can be encouraged and become a social norm. Indeed, Notre Dame professor David E. Campbell finds that people in their 30s still have a higher turnout rate if they attended high schools where a majority of students believed that they should vote. That means that civic engagement of high school students has long-term implications for our democracy. But what about the argument that teenagers just don't know enough to vote? We might reasonably worry that Americans of all ages are not adequately informed. But Rutgers-Camden professors Daniel Hart and Robert Atkins found that 16-year-olds' political knowledge was about the same as that of 21-year-olds. And one unique advantage of high school students is that we can improve their knowledge of the Constitution, the political system and current issues before an election. We can teach those topics in school-as most states still require. A local election can be an excellent "teachable moment" in a high school civics class. . . . Just months ago, Scotland lowered its voting age from 18 so that residents who were at least 16 years old could vote in the independence referendum. It appears that turnout in that age range was high. Hyattsville, Maryland, voted in January to lower the voting age in municipal elections to 16. Another Maryland town, Takoma Park, had already allowed young people to vote in its 2013 local races. Lowell, Massachusetts, San Francisco and the state of Missouri are considering lowering their voting ages as well. Some might claim that lowering the voting age will benefit Democrats, since young voters preferred Obama in both of his national elections. But it's a mistake to look only at the past decade for evidence of how young people vote. Over the past 30 years, young voters have often opted for Republican candidates, and they might again in the future. Political scientists John Holbein and Sunshine Hillygus recently examined the impact of a different reform-allowing high school students to "preregister" when they turn 17 so that they are automatically registered on their 18th birthdays. Holbein and Hillygus found that youth turnout rose as a result, but the proportion of young voters who actually voted Democratic fell. In other words, this reform broadened the youth electorate from its current Democratic core to include more young Republican voters. Lowering the voting age probably won't help Democrats, but it will help democracy in three important ways. First, it is a strategy for connecting civic learning in schools to an important act of citizenship: voting. Students can be taught about the process before they vote and reflect on the experience in class. Learning before voting will increase the proportion of voters who are informed; discussion will then cement the habit. Second, it is a strategy for expanding the electorate long term. The United States has one of the lowest turnout rates of any democracy in the world. Lowering the voting age in municipal elections won't push us to the top, but it's a step in the right direction. Finally, encouraging older adolescents to vote on local issues recognizes that they are deeply affected by public policy, and especially by schools, police and employment programs. We need their voice to make those policies and institutions better.

After all if the government affects you, you should get to vote.

Amid the squawks and pings of our digital devices, the old-fashioned virtues of reading novels can seem faded, even futile. But new support for the value of fiction is arriving from an unexpected quarter: neuroscience. Brain scans are revealing what happens in our heads when we read a detailed description, an evocative metaphor or an emotional exchange between characters. Stories, this research is showing, stimulate the brain and even change how we act in life. Researchers have long known that the "classical" language regions, like Broca's area and Wernicke's area, are involved in how the brain interprets written words. What scientists have come to realize in the last few years is that narratives activate many other parts of our brains as well, suggesting why the experience of reading can feel so alive. Words like "lavender,” “cinnamon" and "soap," for example, elicit a response not only from the language-processing areas of our brains, but also those devoted to dealing with smells. In a 2006 study published in the journal NeuroImage, researchers in Spain asked participants to read words with strong odor associations, along with neutral words, while their brains were being scanned by a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine. When subjects looked at the Spanish words for "perfume" and "coffee,” their primary olfactory cortex lit up; when they saw the words that mean "chair” and “key,” this region remained dark. The way the brain handles metaphors has also received extensive study; some scientists have contended that figures of speech like "a rough day" are so familiar that they are treated simply as words and no more. Last month, however, a team of researchers from Emory University reported in Brain and Language that when subjects in their laboratory read a metaphor involving texture, the sensory cortex, responsible for perceiving texture through touch, became active. Metaphors like "The singer had a velvet voice" and "He had leathery hands" roused the sensory cortex, while phrases matched for meaning, like "The singer had a pleasing voice" and "He had strong hands," did not. . . .

The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated. . . . Fiction—with its redolent details, imaginative metaphors and attentive descriptions of people and their actions-offers an especially rich replica. Indeed, in one respect novels go beyond simulating reality to give readers an experience unavailable off the page: the opportunity to enter fully into other people's thoughts and feelings. The novel, of course, is an unequaled medium for the exploration of human social and emotional life. And there is evidence that just as the brain responds to depictions of smells and textures and movements as if they were the real thing, so it treats the interactions among fictional characters as something like real-life social encounters. Raymond Mar, a psychologist at York University in Canada, performed an analysis of 86 fMRI studies, published last year in the Annual Review of Psychology, and concluded that there was substantial overlap in the brain networks used to understand stories and the networks used to navigate interactions with other individuals—in particular, interactions in which we're trying to figure out the thoughts and feelings of others. Scientists call this capacity of the brain to construct a map of other people's intentions "theory of mind." Narratives offer a unique opportunity to engage this capacity, as we identify with characters' longings and frustrations, guess at their hidden motives and track their encounters with friends and enemies, neighbors and lovers. It is an exercise that hones our real-life social skills, another body of research suggests. Dr. Oatley [an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto] and Dr. Mar, in collaboration with several other scientists, reported in two studies, published in 2006 and 2009, that individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them and see the world from their perspective. This relationship persisted even after the researchers accounted for the possibility that more empathetic individuals might prefer reading novels. A 2010 study by Dr. Mar found a similar result in preschool-age children: the more stories they had read to them, the keener their theory of mind—an effect that was also produced by watching movies but, curiously, not by watching television. . . . Fiction, Dr. Oatley notes, "is a particularly useful simulation because negotiating the social world effectively is extremely tricky, requiring us to weigh up myriad interacting instances of cause and effect. Just as computer simulations can help us get to grips with complex problems such as flying a plane or forecasting the weather, so novels, stories and dramas can help us understand the complexities of social life." These findings will affirm the experience of readers who have felt illuminated and instructed by a novel, who have found themselves comparing a plucky young woman to Elizabeth Bennet or a tiresome pedant to Edward Casaubon. Reading great literature, it has long been averred, enlarges and improves us as human beings. Brain science shows this claim is truer than we imagined.