A little concerned about Tools of the Mind

[Anonymous]

I always understood Tools of the Mind to be a philosophy of learning that focused all activities on developing executive function skills. The point as I understood it was a form learning play which kids could build pre-learning skills. For example kids have stories they tell each other from simple story lines. While one tells the story the other holds an ear picture reminding him that he is the listener and then they switch. Sounds simple, but often not so easy for 3 & 4 year olds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get real folks...pre-K kids don't need "academics". What do you expect, that your 4 your old is going to start reciting Shakespeare and doing trigonomitry for fun? Or do you think that sending your 3 year old to an "academic" preschool will give them a leg up on the other 3 year olds and put him on the fast track to Harvard?

Let your kid have some fun in preschool if you want them to make it through the rest of their schooling intact.

I agree that attending an "academic" preschool doesn't automatically give a 3 year old a leg up on other 3 year olds. But I have no doubt that there are 3 year olds who do have a leg up on other 3 year olds because they are more academically prepared (usually at home) and that these students are on a fast track to a much better education.

[Anonymous]

The foundations for traditional academic skills - attending to an adult in a group situation, understanding the functions of print and the ways we communicate, inquisitiveness, reasoning through a problem - can be supported in preschool. Language and vocabulary, important predictors of children's later academic success, can also be developed in prek through storybook reading, thematic explorations, and even targeted small group instruction. Schools need structure and instructional leadership to make sure that these things happen consistently across all classrooms for all children. Playful, engaging and intentional classrooms can support the development of important skills. But the "just letting them play" all the time won't necessarily build these skills and doesn't maximize the investment that the city has put into preschool. At the same time, repetitive drilling on skills, removing all child choice, etc. is harmful for children at all grade levels. Building academic skills doesn't have to happen with children sitting in little desks.

[Anonymous]

From the August 19, 2011 issue of Science magazine (EF stands for Executive Function, which I think means regulation/self-control):

Classroom curricula. Two curricula that share important similarities have been shown to improve EFs (32). Tools of the Mind (Tools) is a curriculum for preschool and kindergarten developed by Bodrova and Leong (33) based on work by Vygotsky (34). Vygotsky emphasized the importance of social pretend play for the early development of EFs. During pretend play, children must inhibit acting out of character, remember their own and others’ roles, and flexibly adjust as their friends improvise. Such play exercises all three core EFs and is central to Tools. Children plan who they will be in a pretend scenario, and the teacher holds them accountable for following through. Bodrova and Leong initially tried Tools as an add-on to existing curricula. Children improved on what they practiced in those modules, but benefits did not generalize. For benefits to generalize, supports, training, and challenges to EFs had to be part of what children did all day at school and therefore are now interwoven into all academic activities.

Children are taught how to support nascent EFs by scaffolding with visual reminders (e.g., a drawing of an ear to remember to listen) and private speech. Instead of being embarrassed for being poor listeners, the simple drawing of an ear enables children to proudly be good listeners. As EFs improve, supports are gradually removed, gently pushing children to extend the limits of what they can do.

Tools was evaluated against another high-quality program by using EF measures that required transfer of training (35). Tools 5-year-olds outperformed control children on both EF measures (which taxed all three core EFs), especially on the more EF-demanding conditions. Thus, the program with more play produced better EFs than the one with more direct instruction. One school was so impressed by how much better Tools children were doing that it withdrew from the study and switched all classes to Tools.

[Anonymous]

My older child is in a Tools classroom at a DCPS school- it's also a Spanish immersion class. From the child's perspective, there is a lot of 'play', however, it is actually very structured. (Perhaps more than I would like- I'm a play-based devotee). I am impressed with how engaged the kids are-- I've volunteered in class during their 'play plan' part of the day. It's not often you find 18 4-year-olds all on task as I witnessed. I also see lots of cooperation and virtually no arguments--quite different from when they are in the cafeteria, on the playground, etc! It's early in the year, but I feel very positive about the children's exposure to the program.

One thing that always irks me when the 'academic' camp criticizes the 'play' camp-- saying, 'there won't be any letters or math!'. It should never be the case-- it's simply that the more 'academic' learning should be child-directed, not teacher-directed. I strongly believe that our most important goal is to inspire children to want to learn, and teachers and parents must impart the skills necessary to learn.

[Anonymous]

Which schools are using Tools of the Mind?

[Anonymous]

Also interested in which schools are using Tools of the Mind.

[Anonymous]

This says 28 schools (all but two adopted it this year) but doesn't name them

http://www.dc.gov/DCPS/In+the+Classroom/The+DCPS+Academic+Plan/What+does+this+plan+mean+for+my+child%3F/What+your+child+is+learning+in+Preschool,+Pre-k,+and+Kindergarten

[Anonymous]

Interesting. Last year when they were pimping the program theysaid it was going to 8 schools this year. Now they say 28?

Pretty sure Garrison & Barnard have it. Maybe Tubman as well...

[Anonymous]

Barnard is using it this year. DD's class has a pretend grocery store and have been doing pretend grocery shopping activities, followed by a field trip to the Giant and a store tour by a Giant staffer.
My DH was concerned about ToM because DD is reading at a first grade level and he was worried she would not be getting enough academics but so far it seems like they are still working on things like word recognition, handwriting and tasks like understanding and writing out numbers up to 100.

[Anonymous]

jcargabr wrote:Read the chapter in Nurtureshock by Po Bryson about it - it sounds like a great program, and I wish I had access to it for my child. Executive functioning (which is what Tools of the Mind is all about) is key to doing well - kids can grasp the "academics" but if they don't have the executive functioning skills to be able to focus, learn, stay on task, and execute, the academics don't mean squat.

I've read this, and I thought that "academics" were interwoven into the curriculum, and ToM was more of a teaching strategy that incorporates the executive functioning.

[Anonymous]

Article in today's Post by Bill Turque on Tools of the Mind. He seems a tad skeptical.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/dc-school-reform-targets-early-lessons/2011/11/04/gIQAGZ2VCN_story.html

[Anonymous]

It doesn't seem skeptical to me. I mean, no more skeptical than any reporter should be.

[Anonymous]

Our DCPS seems to be using some TOM strategies in k-1st. Does anyone think centers are somewhat chaotic? Maybe it's because we have a big class, but a couple of times I've volunteered it was just plain loud. Most kids seemed fine. A few looked pretty overwhelmed.

I haven't read lots of background. Does class size matter for implementation?

tia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't seem skeptical to me. I mean, no more skeptical than any reporter should be.

I agree. Just doing due diligence. I didn't pick up any editorializing one way or the other. I came away thinking TOM sounds great, but I can see how others would read the same article and feel there is not enough research to back it up.