Neurons That Fire Together—Wire Together

Developing Young Minds: From Conception To Kindergarten

Preface

Dr. Rebecca Shore’s landmark book, Developing Young Minds: From Conception to Kindergarten, introduces an essential paradigm shift in perspective that is needed on educating children. 

Introduction: The Scientist In The Crib  

Everything we do with and say to babies alters their brain biologically and neurologically—ultimately changing their lives. Cognitive stimulation is occurring naturally around babies because, literally, everything is new to them. In educational terms, the baby is born a student ready to learn. Their very existence is focused around learning to adapt to their new world. This is an enormous responsibility, not just for parents but also for society as a whole.

Developing Young Minds From Conception to Kindergarten

Conception–K Schooling: Rich Rewards and Returns

My schooling begins at birth, people!

Huge sums of federal and foundation funds have been injected into the education system—school reform efforts— over the last half-century in an attempt to bridge the learning gap. No silver bullet has surfaced. How can so much hard work, so much money, and the best intentions fail to produce some kind of “best practices” that work for educating our children?

Perhaps the critical question is not “How do children learn best” but “When do children learn best?” 

Let's Spend the Night Together

Cosleeping and Independence 

"Let's spend the night together", the title of this post, has a very appropriate second line... "now I need you more than ever". This is a classic Rolling Stones song but those two lines apply to every newborn baby's plea to their parents upon being brought out of the safety of the womb.


It's time parents get the correct message about cosleeping with their children. Dire warnings against infant bed sharing backfired. Many young parents have obeyed the unfounded warnings of infant bed sharing for much too long. Untrusting of their innate ability, and of their child's "motives" in giving perfectly clear signals (crying), parents have been misguided into forcing their newborns and infants to sleep alone.

Alive Inside

Connectedness of Music

Listen to your heart!

The winner of the 2014 Audience award at the Sundance Film Festival is the documentary, Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory. This remarkable, touching film reveals how music can open up doorways to the soul inside, even for seemingly comatose people living in nursing homes. 

"The Spiritual Embryo"

                        The Birth of Humankind

Note: Much of this post is directly attributable to  Dr. Maria Montessori's  The Absorbent Mind's seventh chapter - "The Spiritual Embryo". Dr. Montessori was an educator, child psychologist, and doctor of medicine and surgery. Her scientific training and experience was exceptionally broad based and unique among educators, even to this day.

Note: This week I use the pronoun "he/him" to refer to people.

Introduction:

Just getting started 

Humans seem to have two embryonic periods. One is pre-natal, like the animals; the other is post-natal and only humans have this for such a long time. For although he is already born, he continues to carry on an embryonic life. He is an inert being who cannot even support the weight of his own head.

Getting Inside the Brain of a Baby

Wiring The Brain

Introduction:

The effects of early experience are profound. The flood of sensory experiences drives the explosion of learning that takes place after birth. The brain undergoes a series of extraordinary changes in a display of biological exuberance. The electrical activity of brain cells change the physical structure of the brain. A child's earliest experiences can increase or decrease the number of cell connections in the brain by 25% or more. 

• A baby is born with about 100 billion nerve cells, roughly as many as there are stars in the Milky Way.