Playground-in-a-box

From David Rockwell’s “Unpacking Imagination,” here’s a proposal for an inexpensive, portable playground kit that lets kids build their own playland:

This design comes from Rockwell’s architecture firm, as he describes:

Although traditional playgrounds can easily cost in the millions to build, boxed imagination playgrounds can be put together for under $10,000. (Land costs not included!) The design below is one that my architecture firm has done in collaboration with the New York City Parks Department and KaBoom, a nonprofit organization. But it needn’t be the only one out there. There are a lot of ways to build a playground— and a lot of communities in need of one. Let a thousand portable playgrounds bloom.

Just another example of how a little bit of structure— not too much— can enable lots of imaginative play.

Mathematizing fairy tales

Now this is a fairy-tale princess I could support enthusiastically.

Fairy Tales

Direct instruction of discovery learning

From Lisa Guernsey’s A False Debate about Preschool (and K-12) Learning:

When a child sees an intriguing model of how to ask questions, explore and test hypotheses, that child will want to do the same.

What children need are more learning environments – not just in preschool, but throughout their early, middle and later years of school – that give them day-to-day experience with adults who offer them effective and engaging models of what it looks like to learn.

Maybe we could think of this as direct instruction of discovery learning, especially if we note that modeling and imitation learning can be much more powerful and direct than declarative description / prescription.

From positive self-esteem to positive other-esteem and learning

Dealing with differences needs to be encouraged gently, whether with ideas or with people.

As described in “People with Low Self-Esteem Show More Signs of Prejudice”[1]:

When people are feeling bad about themselves, they’re more likely to show bias against people who are different. …People who feel bad about themselves show enhanced prejudice because negative associations are activated to a greater degree, but not because they are less likely to suppress those feelings.

The connection between low self-esteem and negative expectations reminds me of related research on the impact of a value-affirming writing exercise in improving the academic performance of minority students:

From “Simple writing exercise helps break vicious cycle that holds back black students”[2]:

In 2007, [Geoffrey Cohen from the University of Colorado] showed that a simple 15-minute writing exercise at the start of a school year could boost the grades of black students by the end of the semester. The assignment was designed to boost the student’s sense of self-worth, and in doing so, it helped to narrow the typical performance gap that would normally separate them from white students.

After two years, the black students earned higher GPAs if they wrote self-affirming pieces on themselves rather than irrelevant essays about other people or their daily routines. On average, the exercises raised their GPA by a quarter of a point.

And from 15-minute writing exercise closes the gender gap in university-level physics[3]:

Think about the things that are important to you. Perhaps you care about creativity, family relationships, your career, or having a sense of humour. Pick two or three of these values and write a few sentences about why they are important to you. You have fifteen minutes. …

In a university physics class, Akira Miyake from the University of Colorado used [this writing exercise] to close the gap between male and female performance. … With nothing but his fifteen-minute exercise, performed twice at the beginning of the year, he virtually abolished the gender divide and allowed the female physicists to challenge their male peers.

Helping people feel better about themselves seems like an obvious, “everybody-wins” approach to improving education, social relations, and accepting different ideas.

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[1] T. J. Allen, J. W. Sherman. Ego Threat and Intergroup Bias: A Test of Motivated-Activation Versus Self-Regulatory Accounts. Psychological Science, 2011. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797611399291

[2] Cohen, G.L., Garcia, J., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Apfel, N., & Brzustoski, P. (2009). Recursive Processes in Self-Affirmation: Intervening to Close the Minority Achievement Gap. Science, 324(5925), 400-403. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1170769

[3] Miyake, A., Kost-Smith, L.E., Finkelstein, N.D., Pollock, S.J., Cohen, G.L., & Ito, T.A. (2010). Reducing the Gender Achievement Gap in College Science: A Classroom Study of Values Affirmation. Science, 330(6008), 1234-1237. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1195996

The problem isn’t pretty pink princesses, but what becomes of them

There’s nothing wrong with pink. It’s a perfectly fine color. The problem is its arbitrary association with gender[1], to the point where it becomes a code for what girls and boys are “supposed to” like and dislike, and prevents them from judging for themselves what they like based on any dimension other than color.

Nor would I necessarily take issue with princess fantasies, on the grounds that fantasizing oneself as royalty, a dragon-slayer, or a time-traveler can all be healthy exercises in one’s imagination. The deeper problem is that wanting to be a princess is too often about wanting to be pretty, pampered, and protected. To the extent that it’s about something in one’s control, becoming a princess is about being able to marry a prince. I’m not too keen on encouraging young girls to define themselves or build dreams around their marriage prospects. I think the key question to ask girls playing at being princesses is, “What will you do when you’re a princess?”

What does a girl do when she’s a pretty pink princess? What does she do to become one?

Peggy Orenstein and others have dissected the dangers of wanting to be pretty along the lines of promoting consumerism, narcissism, eating disorders, and premature sexualization of girls. At its simplest, I see the ideal of “being valued for what you do and not how you look” as just another expression of the importance of believing that effort and controllable behaviors matter more than intelligence, talent, or looks. I won’t dispute the value of attractiveness or positive self-presentation in influencing success or self-esteem; the issue is that improving one’s appearance is more limited in capacity than improving one’s skills[2] and ultimately more limited in impact. One can only be so average (noting that more average faces are more beautiful), but one can always be more capable.

I also worry about encouraging children to seek some status or reward simply for its own sake. The pleasures of being pretty go beyond ornamenting someone else’s world and receiving an extra boost in attention. Attractiveness shouldn’t be an end in itself, but a stepping-stone toward further positive outcomes—whether building confidence to pursue ambitious goals, landing a CEO or political position where leadership can make a difference, or developing interpersonal skills that help bring others together. Otherwise it’s little more than an uncashed lottery ticket, devoid of real appreciation.

For me, the bottom line is about helping all children to pursue goals which they can control and which will help them develop. I want them to choose games and activities based on how interesting or worthwhile they seem, not some marketing message that arbitrarily dictates preferences around colors and images[3]. I want them to actively create their own questions and ambitions, explore the world, and forge paths toward fulfilling those desires. I want them to focus on boosting what they know and can do, not what they have and how they look, to better support them in tackling future challenges.

So the next time I see your daughter, please understand if I don’t immediately comment on her adorable outfit. I’m probably debating whether to reinforce her perspective-taking, self-regulation, or cognitive flexibility.

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[1] LoBue, V., & DeLoache, J.S. (2011). Pretty in pink: The early development of gender-stereotyped colour preferences. To appear in British Journal of Developmental Psychology.

See also:
Chiu, S.W., Gervan, S., Fairbrother, C., Johnson, L.L, Owen-Anderson, A.F.H., Bradley, S.J., & Zucker, K.J. (2006). Sex-dimorphic color preference in children with gender identity disorder: A comparison in clinical and community controls. Sex Roles, 55, 385-395.

[2] There’s a phrase (I thought) I once heard, about the unrealistic yet persistent modern belief in “the infinite perfectibility of the human body” and its application to girls’ striving to be thin and beautiful. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to track it down; if you know its source, please send it along!

[3] I’m not interested in pandering to stereotype with boy-targeted car imagery or girl-targeted pink frills, whether for “good causes” or for some toy company’s profit. Even if topics like online shopping and cosmetic surgery interest more girls in statistics, I would still advocate finding more neutral problem contexts and framing for both boys and girls.

From: Sylvie Kerger, Romain Martin, Martin Brunner. How can we enhance girls’ interest in scientific topics? British Journal of Educational Psychology, 2011; DOI: 10.1111/j.2044-8279.2011.02019.x