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The current issue (9/12/2009) of Science News has a long, for them, feature article entitled "Morality Play", by Bruce Bower (pp 16-19). The article makes many of the same points as our film MORALITY: JUDGMENTS AND ACTIONS with Elliot Turiel.  It cites Dr. Turiel several times and it seems that the other research in the article is based on Turiel's work showing that there are universal moral codes about fairness and justice in addition the conventional codes that are culturally based but individuals can question.  Conventional codes include  such things as the role of women in a society or a society's decision about what foods are acceptable. It cites Turiel's "influential" study of women in the Druze Arab community of Israel where women "regarded their unequal
standing in marriages as unfair.  Wives routinely said that they did
their husband's bidding only to avoid becoming impoverished by
abandonment or divorce." The third kind of decision, in Turiel's view, is purely personal, such as  who to befriend, what colors to wear and more than the moral and conventional decisions is a source of conflict universally between parents and children. But it is the big moral decisions about  how to  react to violence, what is fair in terms of dividing resources, etc. that seem to be universal concerns based on cross cultural studies in China and Japan that are in cited in this article. The article concludes with, "When it comes to making moral judgments, it may be a small world after all."

The New York Times Magazine of September 27, 2009 features an article several pages long ("The Make-Believe Solution" about the TOOLS OF THE MIND educational program of Elena Bodrova and Deborah Leong, based on the work of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky.  Davidson Films made VYGOTSKY'S DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY: AN INTRODUCTION, with Drs' Bodrova and Leong in 1994, when they were first developing their TOOLS OF THE MIND project. We have gone on to make three additional films with the duo: SCAFFOLDING SELF-REGULATED LEARNING IN PRIMARY  CLASSROOMS, PLAY: A VYGOTSKIAN APPROACH, and BUILDING LITERACY COMPETENCIES IN EARLY CHILDHOOD.

The New York Times article largely covers the same ground as the PLAY film. According to Vygotsky, and now demonstrated in the several hundred pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classrooms using the TOOLS OF THE MIND curriculum, high level play is the key for young children to learn self-control. In high level creative play, children take on roles which they have to maintain despite distractions. They have to respond in character to the actions of the other children and act appropriately to their role. This, say Drs. Bodrova and Leong, creates an arena in which children learn self-regulation, and far more effectively than top-down direction from teachers or parents.

Our film, PLAY: A VYGOTSKIAN APPROACH, shows children at play, maintaining roles and developing them. It also illustrates how teachers support this kind of play by helping children plan and monitor their activities.

SCAFFOLDING SELF-REGULATED LEARNING IN PRIMARY CLASSROOMS illustrates other aspects of the Vygotskian TOOLS OF THE MIND curriculum that are mentioned in the New York Times article. These include the use of private speech and mediators to give the children the ability and motivation to take on more of the responsibility for their own learning than is found in traditional classrooms.

Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School

[ A research based report from the Alliance for Childhood ]

It is always encouraging to find that a group of people you respect hold opinions very close to your own.  That is the case with a well done report by the Alliance for Childhood on the importance of play, specifically in kindergarten classes.  We’ve been worried about the “push down” nature of education with kindergarteners doing lessons that used to be reserved for at least first grade and on up the ladder. 

Education is not a race.  And too often, in our experience, students who have set the fast pace in early years burn out early, fed up with the constraints of formal education and having lost the curiosity and delight in learning that should have carried them through the rigors that higher levels of education demand. 

At http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/sites/allianceforchildhood.org/files/file/kindergarten_report.pdf. this report cites research that finds that school districts have restricted time, materials and support for play in kindergarten in recent years in their attempts to raise test scores. 

The report suggests that though the test scores may be raised in the short run, in the long run they don’t.  The study reminds us, as we know from other sources, that school systems abroad in Europe and Japan that don’t start formal literacy and math lessons at age five have better long term results than US systems where very didactic work is being mandated for the very young.

We were pleased to see that some of our favorite people and past consultants are involved in the Alliance for Childhood.  David Elkind wrote the preface for this report,  the work of Elena Bodrova and Deborah Leong is cited and Samuel Meisels, Bettye Caldwell, Deborah Meier are all associated with the work of the Alliance.   You can see them and their work in our early childhood, Vygotsky and Dewey films.  Good people, with fine opinions! 

It is always interesting for us to review journals to ascertain whether the scholarly work discussed in our films continues to have relevance on new research.  The September/October edition of CHILD DEVELOPMENT has three articles reporting new research that utilizes work of our collaborators or subjects.  "Changes in the Relation of Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Behaviors Across Development."  Albert Bandura's pioneering work in the field of self-efficacy is discussed at length in our film BANDURA'S SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY: AN INTRODUCTION which is narrated by Dr. Bandura himself. Bandura's work is also repeatedly cited in an article entitled "Stability and Change in Moral Disengagement and Its Impact on Aggression and Violence in Late Adolescence."  The concept of "moral disengagement" is also discussed in our Bandura film.  This "Stability and Change..." article also cites work by Elliot Turiel, our consultant on our two morality films. The "Strange Situation" developed by Mary Ainsworth and fully documented in our MARY AINSWORTH: ATTACHMENT AND THE GROWTH OF LOVE is an important assessment tool in the research that led to "Gene-Environment Contributions to the Development of Infant Vagal Reactivity; The Interaction of Dopamine and Maternal Sensitivity" in this same edition of CHILD DEVELOPMENT. 

This article is particularly gratifying to those of us who believe in the importance of attachment and the ability of secure attachments to mitigate potential genetically based developmental difficulties. "At 12 months, infants with the risk allele who were also exposed to maternal sensitivity showed levels of RSA (respiratory sinus arrhythmia) withdrawal comparable to infants who were not at genetic risk."  Wow!

The effect of early experience on the brain development was the subject of several sessions at the recent meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The work coming from Helen Neville's Brain-Development Laboratory at the University of Oregon was highlighted in the February 29 issue. Neville was the consultant on our film production of HUMAN BRAIN DEVELOPMENT: NATURE AND NURTURE.

Howard Steele is a featured speaker at the Seventh Annual Attachment Conference in March, 2008 at UCLA.  Dr. Steele is the consultant for the recently released JOHN BOWLBY: ATTACHMENT THEORY OVER GENERATIONS. Also on the UCLA program are Drs. Miriam Steele and Peter Fonagy, both of whom appear in the John Bowlby film - as well as Mary Main, whose work is highlighted both in the Bowlby film and in our film MARY AINSWORTH: ATTACHMENT AND THE GROWTH OF LOVE.
 

Albert Bandura is the recipient of the 2008 Grawemeyer Award for psychology.  This award carries with it a $200,000 prize and is administered through the University of Louisville.  BBANDURA'S SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY: AN INTRODUCTION is one of the best selling in the Davidson Films catalogue. It was written and narrated by Dr. Bandura himself. 

 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071129142444.htm

Howard Steele and his wife, Miriam Steele, have just published a new book, Clinical Applications of the Adult Attachment Interview.  It has been very well received (see sample review below). released through The Guilford Press, the 500+ page book can be found on amazon.com. ISBN-10: 1593856962 and ISBN-13: 978-1593856960

"Steele and Steele have brought together a really valuable set of data and ideas concerning the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), one of the more intriguing and powerful clinical and research tools available in psychology. The book stands out as a serious and ambitious attempt to translate the AAI--and attachment theory more broadly - to multiple clinical contexts. Chapters are written by leading clinicians and scientists, and each is focused and thoughtful, showing, for example, how the AAI informs case conceptualization in individual treatment. This volume deserves to be widely read. It is highly accessible for those just beginning to apply attachment theory to research and practice, but there is also enough that is new to please experienced fans of the AAI." --Thomas G. O'Connor, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, University of Rochester Medical Center