Rewiring the way we raise children in the hi-tech age
Güncelleme Tarihi:
by Damaris Kremida
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Nisan 04, 2009 00:00
ISTANBUL - Brain researcher and education expert Dr. Donna Walker Tileston discusses with 200 of Istanbul's expatriate parents the latest on children learning in the hi-tech era. Speaking at the Istanbul International Community School speaker series, she says digital natives have grown up with a mouse in their hands while adults are learning fresh. ’We’re digital immigrants’
For an expatriate parent, raising a child in a foreign culture in a technological age can present challenges that make every little decision and the sum of them fundamental to the healthy brain development of their children.
American brain research and curriculum development expert Dr. Donna Walker Tileston encouraged some 200 of Istanbul’s expatriate parents last week at Cirağan Palace to view their children as "native speakers" in a technological age. The result is a generation of children with brains that are "wired" very differently from those of their parents.
Tileston also spoke about how children learn in the age of technology in the Istanbul International Community School (IICS) last week before drawing a crowd of expatriate parents and teachers from multiple schools to the cocktail hour lecture at Cirağan. Many of the parents expressed their near-desperate search for insight into how children’s minds work these days. "This is the first generation that is teaching the generation behind it the tool of its time," Tileston told the group. "The digital natives have grown up with a mouse in their hands... we’re digital immigrants."
The researcher and author explained that the amount of time children spend with the new tools of the technology era are having serious effects on children’s minds and posing new challenges to teachers and parents.
"Children are changing chemically and their brains are turning into hyperlinked minds that are not learning linearly, but in complex ways," she said. "Anything your kids do every day, for several hours a day, will rewire their brains," she said.
By the time children reach adulthood they will have spent thousands of hours in front of a computer, television, video games and other media, said Tileston, and as a result 87 percent of children today are visual and kinaesthetic learners with enhanced visual memory. IICS Development Officer Jennifer Eaton Gökmen said the new research on how children learn affects how a teacher needs to present information to a classroom of visual learners. With more than 80 percent of children now considered visual learners, teachers must alter the way they teach to reach today’s learners, she said. As Tileston shared her research, "our students and teachers learned about these strategies and our parents learned what to be aware of," Gökmen said.
Parents strategize
Parent of three kids ages five to 13, Louise Kemprecos said Dr. Tileston’s talk inspired her to look at visuals in learning differently. Her oldest daughter had just completed a unit in science class on transfat and how fast food restaurants are trying to reduce the harmful substance. "Even after reading, it was difficult for her to define," she said. "But graphics would make it clear. I also tend to see illustrations and clip art as merely decorative," she admitted. Kemprecos said hearing how repetitive activities wire the brain a certain way means every parental decision counts.
"Everything you do several hours a day will have an impact, and yet sometimes we think that won’t happen," she said. "As a parent it has a bearing because it means that the cumulative effects of the many small decisions we make are important, and it’s jolly hard work: ’should we do this extracurricular activity? What time should they go to bed?’ The things they do are making them the people they’ll become." Kemprecos said one of the most important ideas she got from the speaker series evening last week came from another parent. Christopher Purdy, parent of a 16-year-old at IICS shared how he plans to create a central work room with a desktop computer for each family member so his children do not become isolated because of technology and in order to better monitor the messages they get from the Internet. Purdy, who works for the family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention non profit group DKT International, said parenting and enriching children’s vocabulary in the technological era is "definitely" a challenge. "You can’t ignore the technological way that your kids are being raised and if you do, you do at your own peril," said Purdy. For him the biggest message of the evening was that one of the greatest challenges of visual learning children is increasing their vocabulary, and that is something that is accomplished more through reading and conversation than by television or Internet, he said.
"Definitely try to postpone or reduce exposure to too much video games and watching TV, and spend more time reading, playing outdoors, having dinner together; all those things our parents told us were good for our kids," he said. This is crucial in his own family, he said, where they are dealing with three sets of vocabularies and cultures. From his experience he advised that parents don’t buy laptops for their kids to avoid them "becoming hermits," but instead infuse their computer time with social interaction.
American brain research and curriculum development expert Dr. Donna Walker Tileston encouraged some 200 of Istanbul’s expatriate parents last week at Cirağan Palace to view their children as "native speakers" in a technological age. The result is a generation of children with brains that are "wired" very differently from those of their parents.
Tileston also spoke about how children learn in the age of technology in the Istanbul International Community School (IICS) last week before drawing a crowd of expatriate parents and teachers from multiple schools to the cocktail hour lecture at Cirağan. Many of the parents expressed their near-desperate search for insight into how children’s minds work these days. "This is the first generation that is teaching the generation behind it the tool of its time," Tileston told the group. "The digital natives have grown up with a mouse in their hands... we’re digital immigrants."
The researcher and author explained that the amount of time children spend with the new tools of the technology era are having serious effects on children’s minds and posing new challenges to teachers and parents.
"Children are changing chemically and their brains are turning into hyperlinked minds that are not learning linearly, but in complex ways," she said. "Anything your kids do every day, for several hours a day, will rewire their brains," she said.
By the time children reach adulthood they will have spent thousands of hours in front of a computer, television, video games and other media, said Tileston, and as a result 87 percent of children today are visual and kinaesthetic learners with enhanced visual memory. IICS Development Officer Jennifer Eaton Gökmen said the new research on how children learn affects how a teacher needs to present information to a classroom of visual learners. With more than 80 percent of children now considered visual learners, teachers must alter the way they teach to reach today’s learners, she said. As Tileston shared her research, "our students and teachers learned about these strategies and our parents learned what to be aware of," Gökmen said.
Parents strategize
Parent of three kids ages five to 13, Louise Kemprecos said Dr. Tileston’s talk inspired her to look at visuals in learning differently. Her oldest daughter had just completed a unit in science class on transfat and how fast food restaurants are trying to reduce the harmful substance. "Even after reading, it was difficult for her to define," she said. "But graphics would make it clear. I also tend to see illustrations and clip art as merely decorative," she admitted. Kemprecos said hearing how repetitive activities wire the brain a certain way means every parental decision counts.
"Everything you do several hours a day will have an impact, and yet sometimes we think that won’t happen," she said. "As a parent it has a bearing because it means that the cumulative effects of the many small decisions we make are important, and it’s jolly hard work: ’should we do this extracurricular activity? What time should they go to bed?’ The things they do are making them the people they’ll become." Kemprecos said one of the most important ideas she got from the speaker series evening last week came from another parent. Christopher Purdy, parent of a 16-year-old at IICS shared how he plans to create a central work room with a desktop computer for each family member so his children do not become isolated because of technology and in order to better monitor the messages they get from the Internet. Purdy, who works for the family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention non profit group DKT International, said parenting and enriching children’s vocabulary in the technological era is "definitely" a challenge. "You can’t ignore the technological way that your kids are being raised and if you do, you do at your own peril," said Purdy. For him the biggest message of the evening was that one of the greatest challenges of visual learning children is increasing their vocabulary, and that is something that is accomplished more through reading and conversation than by television or Internet, he said.
"Definitely try to postpone or reduce exposure to too much video games and watching TV, and spend more time reading, playing outdoors, having dinner together; all those things our parents told us were good for our kids," he said. This is crucial in his own family, he said, where they are dealing with three sets of vocabularies and cultures. From his experience he advised that parents don’t buy laptops for their kids to avoid them "becoming hermits," but instead infuse their computer time with social interaction.