Success Is Not An Outlier

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers makes a case for understanding successful people. We may think that someone is a self-made person, that they had overnight success or were born with talent to burn.

Gladwell asks us to look closer at the components of success. Ambition and intelligence are not enough to create people who thrive. Individual success is an accumulation of when and where a person is born, as well as family and community support.

Our community affects us more than we might realize. Gladwell tells us about Roseto, Pennsylvania, a community formed by Italian immigrants from Roseto Valfortore, located a hundred miles southeast of Rome. The people of Roseto were unexplicably healthy, with statistically low incidents of age-related diseases. Medical researchers concluded, after looking at factors such as diet and exercise, that the close family-centered community of Roseto keeps people happy, healthy and long-lived. Community is important to individual success.

When you are born affects your opportunities. Using the cutoff dates for the hockey leagues, Gladwell explains that to become a dominant hockey player you need to be born very close after the cut-off date for your age group. Born a month after the cut-off date, you have the advantage of being the oldest in your age group, and with those few months, a chance at being a star player. Born six months before the cut-off date? You barely have a chance.

It takes practice to succeed. At least 10,000 hours of practice. Gladwell uses The Beatles as one example of the 10,0000-hour rule. It appeared as though the Fab Four were an overnight sensation when they appeared on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. In reality, they had played together 8 hours a day for over 5 years--about 10,000 hours--before they became a worldwide sensation.

Genius is not enough to make a person successful. Gladwell tells us about the Terman study for geniuses. What became evident in the Terman study is that there are factors other than raw intelligence that determine our ability to thrive. Family structure and support are perhaps the most important keys for success.

Success is determined by being at the right place at the right time. Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt and Bill Joy--all heads of major software companies--have two things in common. All were born in 1954, '55 or '56, barely 18 months apart from each other. The other common thread: they had virtually unlimited access to computer technology in their early and late teens, when most of the world didn't know what PC meant.

Basically, Gladwell sees that understanding the factors to success helps create a level playing field. Want to raise a child who will survive and thrive in life? Make sure that you live in a caring community. Realize that when you are born matters, as cut-off dates impact success, not just for athletic endeavors but for anything that requires a cut-off date. Work 10,000 hours at becoming a master. Create a family structure that not only supports the emotional, mental, physical and social health of your children, but also sustains your children's passions and dreams. Allow your children to express their views of the world and situations without fear of reprisal. Don't limit your expectations of your children. Imagine the person who is not yet there, and believe that the person will appear.

Success is not an outlier. Individual success builds on family, community, culture, freedoms and work that allow our children to become their best.

Next week: Thoughts on Freedom

Kids Talk™ is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 25 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Complete Collection of the Shining Light Reading Series Now Available on DVD
Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
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©2009 KIDS TALK™
25877 East Bright Avenue
Welches, OR 97067
503.622.6750
503.550.3143
maren@kidstalknews.com

Kids Talk is published in conjunction with Scribe Marketing

Now Available: Understanding Montessori: A Guide for Parents

What can I say? It's finished! It's done. It's ready!

Understanding Montessori: A Guide for Parents is for sale at my website, MarenSchmidt.com, as well as Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and other online sellers. Order from your local bookstore through Ingram or Baker and Taylor.

Buy it now, or read the book introduction, then buy it.

Either way, buy this book and read it.

It may be the most decisive book you'll ever read about educating children.

Buy directly from MarenSchmidt.com $19.95 plus shipping. Volume discounts available. Contact Maren Schmidt for ordering information. 10 or more copies 15% discount 25 or more copies 20% discount 50 or more copies 30% discount 100 or more copies 40% discount 10% of author's royalties supports Montessori teacher training.

An Excerpt
from Understanding Montessori: A Guide for Parents

Introduction

This book incubated in my nightstand drawer. My habit for many years has been to write goals and objectives and place them into my nightstand. As I transferred the accumulation of stuff from my old nightstand to a new one a few years ago, I discovered a goal written in 1996:

Help make Montessori education available to as many children as possible.

When I wrote this sentence in 1996, I was concerned about keeping tuition affordable at my school as we grew from 28 students to almost 100 students over the next 12 months. Reading this old goal in a different context made me think I had made no progress at all, as today as "many as possible" looks like millions.

Montessori education, more than anything, is about understanding and aiding the natural process of child growth and learning. The principles, methods and materials used in Montessori education are scientifically supported, researched and time-tested.

This goal took life again as I began to write a weekly newspaper column about child development, Kids Talk, seeking to communicate to adults the child's point of view.

What my studies in brain and human development over the past five years illuminate, in conjunction with my 25 years of working with children, is this:

Authentic Montessori education is the most powerful way for children to learn.

Montessori education encompasses a culture that is innovative, respectful of the child, peaceful, joyful, collaborative, child-centered, community-minded, developmentally exacting and supported by research. Montessori classrooms include the outdoors and aid children in valuing and caring for the wonders of our Earth.

Unfortunately, less than five percent of the children in the United States have an opportunity for a Montessori learning experience. I believe if parents understood the mightiness of Montessori education for their children and their families, they would find ways to create authentic Montessori education for their children, be it private, public, parochial or home schools.

My daughter, Dana, and I conceived this book in February 2006, and together we wrote eight chapters. We didn't find a method to have both of our voices in the book without creating a disjointed style. Dana's influence is here in her research with young parents, visiting classrooms and helping me understand the needs of this new generation of parents. My voice and experience certainly dominate this book, but you should hear Dana's voice in the background asserting, "Mom, be sure to make this point."

This book is for parents. It's not meant to be a comprehensive study of Montessori education geared for teachers and administrators or a scholarly footnoted work, though I hope teachers and administrators will find the book helpful. This book expresses my understanding and experience of using Montessori principles for over 25 years. Others may have different experiences and perceptions. I share what worked for me.

My goal for this book is to help parents have a clear and concise resource for understanding Montessori educational principles and for finding a school situation, Montessori or not, that meets their family's needs. Parents are on the front lines of life, rearing children to become adults, taking care of their own parents, building careers, contributing to society through their work and much more. The information in this book is my way of helping parents make informed decisions when time is in short supply.

Too many grandparents have commented to me, ‘"I wish I had known about Montessori education when my children were little." This book, I hope, will help parents understand the choices they have for educating their children.

As a guide for the future Dr. Maria Montessori, the Italian physician who developed Montessori education through her philosophy, methods and materials, asked us not to look to her, but to look at the child. Observing our children and helping our children meet their needs is the crux of Montessori education. Seeking and seeing the true nature of the child may be our most powerful help to all life on our planet.

By assisting a child we help parents and support families. As families are strengthened, our communities, our countries and our world become healthier places to live.

Look at the child. It is where everything begins.

Maren Schmidt
January 2009

Buy directly from MarenSchmidt.com $19.95 plus shipping. Volume discounts available. Contact Maren Schmidt for ordering information. 10 or more copies 15% discount 25 or more copies 20% discount 50 or more copies 30% discount 100 or more copies 40% discount 10% of author's royalties supports Montessori teacher training.

Thank you for reading Understanding Montessori: A Guide for Parents.

Kids Talk™ is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 25 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Complete Collection of the Shining Light Reading Series Now Available on DVD
Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
Click here for a FREE subscription.

©2009 KIDS TALK™
25877 East Bright Avenue
Welches, OR 97067
503.622.6750
503.550.3143
maren@kidstalknews.com

Kids Talk is published in conjunction with Scribe Marketing

A Whole New Mind

Daniel Pink in his 2005 book, A Whole New Mind, tells us the world is changing and that our brains need to change, too. Pink sees the world becoming geared more towards creative endeavors in order to maintain our economic system.

Our work and behavior will need to draw on the creative side, or right side of our brain. Success in the future will be determined by the creativity and flexibility of our thinking. What changes in the brain, which can also be seen as shifts in thinking, does Pink view as important?

Pink asserts that basic changes are occurring in these six areas:

Design: It won't be enough in the future to be involved in producing a functional product or service. Our outcomes must be beautiful, fun and engage the consumer at an emotional level.

Story: Enough of a diet of facts and information. We'll want and need facts, but we will be required to craft them into a compelling story.

Symphony: Focus and analysis will not satisfy the demands of a whole new mind. Synthesis and the creation of meaning, giving the big picture, will become the new standard.

Empathy: Dr. Spock logic will be replaced with meaningful relationships where emotional well-being is tantamount.

Play: Work is important, of course, but we need to learn to laugh and have fun as part of the process. Our physical, mental and emotional health will benefit from a new balance of play and work, or perhaps the development of work as play.

Meaning: With our new minds, meaning comes to the forefront, pushing materialism into the background. Purpose, understanding, spiritual fulfillment and purposeful activity will become our focus versus the accumulation of things.

Pink's concept of a whole new mind merges left-brained activities that are analytical, linear, explicit, sequential, verbal, concrete, rational, active and goal-oriented with the creative right brain's ways of being intuitive, spontaneous, emotional, nonverbal, visual, artistic, holistic, playful, diffuse, symbolic and physical, thus creating a more balanced approach to life.

What does this mean for our work with children? Perhaps we should be thinking of ways that we can integrate creative activity within our learning environments of school and home. Perhaps we need to nourish the ideas of design and meaning by creating opportunities for our children to appreciate beauty.

A softer delineation between work and play might help us create stronger learning in the brain, and deeper satisfaction with life. In the words of Mark Twain, “Work and play are words to describe the same thing under differing conditions.” Research shows that we retain information longer and more accurately when we laugh and have fun. Dramatic play, singing and art can be used to integrate learning for our whole new minds.

We also need to help our children make the connections to a bigger picture and offer opportunities for meaningful personal relationships.

Pink describes a world that is hopeful, meaningful and fun when we develop a whole new way of thinking with a whole new mind.

Next week: Success Is Not an Outlier

Kids Talk™ is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 25 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Complete Collection of the Shining Light Reading Series Now Available on DVD
Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
Click here for a FREE subscription.

©2009 KIDS TALK™
25877 East Bright Avenue
Welches, OR 97067
503.622.6750
503.550.3143
maren@kidstalknews.com

Kids Talk is published in conjunction with Scribe Marketing

Self-Discipline

An indicator of healthy and normal development in children (and adults, too!) is the presence of self-discipline that seems to appear almost out of nowhere. In reality, there are factors that contribute significantly to the development of self-discipline in the child and adult.

As a child's will is strengthened by the use of free choice, spontaneous self-discipline appears, and we see concentration, coordination, order and independence develop within the life of the child.

As mentioned in previous columns, children are born willing to listen and follow adults whom they trust. When we as the adults in a child's life can provide the child with clear direction for independent activity, concentration is strengthened, and self-discipline forms.

The word ''discipline'' has roots in the Latin word discere, ''to learn.'' Self-discipline connotes that we are able to learn and follow a path with self-determination and control.

Sue and Steve worked to create a home environment for their three-year-old daughter, Tasha, where Tasha could make appropriate choices for her activities. Their home contained a variety of independent tasks for Tasha, from working puzzles to making a snack for herself and others. Steve and Sue used their home to create a place where Tasha could tap into the natural tendencies of early childhood--love of order, love of purposeful activity, love of silence, obedience, attachment to reality, practice in choosing and support of independent activity. All these factors contributed to Tasha's development of self-discipline.

Tasha showed the signs of healthy and natural development--joyful activity, a sociability to help others, ability to concentrate on self-chosen tasks for over an hour at a time, as well as the ability to listen and follow directions from the trusted adults in her life.

A morning with Tasha might look something like this:

• 7:00 am: Wake up, go into parents' room to tell them, ''Good morning,'' and get a hug and kiss.

• 7:15 am: Choose clothes, and get dressed independently.

• 7:30 am: Pour milk on oatmeal, put jam on toast and carry to table.

• 8:00 am: Put dishes in dishwasher, and brush teeth without reminder from parents.

• 8:15 am: Help Sue sweep porch.

• 8:30 am: Choose puzzle from activity shelf.

• 9:00 am: Put puzzle away. Choose blocks.

• 9:30 am: Put blocks away. Choose beading necklace.

• 10:00 am: Put beading necklace away. Make snack in kitchen with Steve.

• 10:30 am: Go outside and feed dog.

• 10:45 am: Swing.

• 11:00 am: Dig in garden.

• 12:00 pm: Go to bathroom, wash hands and set table for lunch.

• 12:30 pm: Help clear table. Choose book for Sue to read at naptime.

Tasha's parents have created an environment where Tasha can make successful choices for purposeful activities in an independent manner. Tasha is able to live with quiet dignity, gaining self-discipline and self-confidence with each activity chosen and successfully completed.

Next week: A Whole New Mind

Kids Talk™ is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 25 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Complete Collection of the Shining Light Reading Series Now Available on DVD
Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
Click here for a FREE subscription.

©2009 KIDS TALK™
25877 East Bright Avenue
Welches, OR 97067
503.622.6750
503.550.3143
maren@kidstalknews.com

Kids Talk is published in conjunction with Scribe Marketing

Independence

We are raising adults, not children. Our job as parents (and parent support systems) is to guide our children to complete independence. Little by little, day by day, we help our children develop skills and take on more responsibility until they can run at full speed on their own two feet.

Unfortunately, it is often easier for us to do skill-building jobs ourselves, or hire someone else to do it, than to teach our children these skills. If we don't teach skills, how can we expect our children to act with responsibility, or ''respond with ability'' when opportunity knocks?

When we allow our children to be babied too long, we help create adults without clear direction and who have a failure to take on the challenges of adulthood. We even have a popular phrase for this phenomenon: failure to launch.

A three-year-old is able to do a multitude of tasks independently when given the tools and environment to do so. Three-year-olds should be able to dress themselves, get themselves a drink, fix a simple snack, wash hands and face, brush teeth and more.

In order to dress themselves, children require several considerations. Clothes should be easy to put on and take off (for example, T-shirts and pants with no zippers or buttons). Shoes with Velcro fasteners are helpful for self-dressing, though for five-year-olds shoelaces to learn to tie are important. Tags in the backs of clothing can help avoid backwards dressing. Sets of clothes grouped together ease the choosing of outfits. Low shelves or hanging rods help a child get clothes without adult help. Of course, a hamper or basket helps establish a habit of putting dirty clothes away and not on the floor.

Children can pour themselves a drink of water if glasses are placed in a low cabinet and a small pitcher of water is available on a tray placed on a low table. A child-sized table in your kitchen with a pitcher of water available, along with a lesson or two on how to pour, will be of great help to your child.

Preparing a snack or sandwich is another activity that children can do in their quest for independence. Small jars of crackers on low shelves can help your child prepare his or her snack and eat it at the child-sized table in your kitchen. Peanut butter in small jars (think pimento jars) and a small canapé knife can help your child make peanut butter crackers or a sandwich. Place a slice of bread in a sandwich bag or plastic sandwich container for easy availability.

A stepstool in the bathroom or kitchen can help your child wash hands and face, as well as brush teeth independently. Washcloths work as child-sized hand towels, and a basket full of washcloths by the sink can make hand washing inviting.

Be an adult raising an adult. Help your child attain independence by providing tools and an environment that promote independence.

Next week: Self-Discipline

Kids Talk™ is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 25 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Complete Collection of the Shining Light Reading Series Now Available on DVD
Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
Click here for a FREE subscription.

©2009 KIDS TALK™
25877 East Bright Avenue
Welches, OR 97067
503.622.6750
503.550.3143
maren@kidstalknews.com

Kids Talk is published in conjunction with Scribe Marketing