Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Conversation with Alfie Kohn

Alfie Kohn is a well-known author and speaker, who speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. The latest of his eleven books are THE HOMEWORK MYTH: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing (2006) and UNCONDITIONAL PARENTING: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason (2005). Of his earlier titles, the best known are PUNISHED BY REWARDS: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes (1993), NO CONTEST: The Case Against Competition (1986), and THE SCHOOLS OUR CHILDREN DESERVE: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards" (1999). My personal favorite is What Does It Mean To Be Well-Educated?

Kohn has been described in Time magazine as "perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of education's fixation on grades [and] test scores." His criticisms of competition and rewards have helped to shape the thinking of educators -- as well as parents and managers -- across the country and abroad. Kohn has been featured on hundreds of TV and radio programs, including the "Today" show and two appearances on "Oprah"; he has been profiled in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, while his work has been described and debated in many other leading publications.


In my conversation with Alfie, we discuss positive reinforcement, and standardized testing. What do you think? Should we opt our kids out of the standardized testing? How do we change a system while being ingrained in it? How do we balance "going with the flow" and putting our foot down and deciding to say no? I'm not sure I know what the right answer is, but I do know that Alfie starts the conversations we all need to having at home, and with schools across the Country.


Click here to Download Show #44- Conversation with Alfie Kohn

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Show # 43 Moms Talk about Meds Part II


In today's show, Joan LaStrange and I continue our discussion about scheduling kids in the summer, medication breaks, and medication side effects, as well as parental gems on sleeping and eating issues.

I also feature listener email, our Contest for copies of Dr. Mel Levine's great book, A Mind at a Time, and some information about PodCamp. In order to win a copy, send an email, leave a blog comment, or preferably, send a voicemail (206) 666-2343 to the show. I want to hear your comments and suggestions, and I'd love to have listeners do an intro such as "Hi, I'm XYZ, and you're listening to the LD Podcast!" and play it at the start of each show.

Thanks to Roland and K for their emails and comments this week!

I will be attending PodCamp Toronto on February 24 and 25th, and PodCamp NYC on April 6th and 7th. Both PodCamps are free to attend, but do require you to register in advance. If you are in the area and come to PodCamp, please find me! I'd love to meet you!

Featured Links:
The Twice Exceptional Newsletter

Central Auditory Processing Disorder Information:

About our kids website:
www.aboutourkids.org/aboutour/articles/capd.html#whatis

Psychology Today
www.psychologytoday.com/conditions/comdisorder.html

ERIC digest
http://ericec.org/digests/e634.html

And here are a couple more sites to check out:

http://www.iser.com/caparticle.html

This one is a parent resource, with lots of other links:

http://pages.cthome.net/cbristol/capd-idx.html

And LD Online has a great article too- www.ldonline.com and search for CAPD

Joan LaStrange Part II

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Dr. Thomas E. Brown- Author of Attention Deficit Disorder-

Dr. Thomas E. Brown is an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, and recently published a terrific book, Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults. Dr. Brown’s book breaks ADD down into its different aspects, making it easier to understand why a hyperactive kid and a coach potato can both have ADHD. His book also explains which parts of our ADHD brain’s management team may not be fully engaged in their job. Unlike many other books on ADHD, Dr. Brown describes the underlying neurological basis for ADHD in a way that’s easy to grasp, along with great descriptions of the different aspects of ADD, including the types of problems it causes people in day to day functioning. It’s one of the best books that gets into the heart of the “Why” about ADHD, and I think it’s a must read for parents of an ADHD child.

I really enjoyed talking with Dr. Brown, and despite feeling pretty confident in my knowledge about ADHD, I learned quite a few things from our conversation. I’m pretty confident you will, too.

I have included links to Dr. Brown’s website and to his book on Amazon.com, for your convenience.

I love listener feedback! Please call us at (206) 666-2343; send us an email at ldpodcast@gmail.com, or leave a comment on our WordPress blog. I also make regular contributions to the Grasshopper New Media Parents Blog- one of the best parenting blogs around. Come check it out!


Click Here to Download Show # 42-Conversation with Dr. Thomas E. Brown