DOES YOUR CHILD REALLY NEED an MBA?

In the future, the most important credential your child will need is a “P.r.e-K” [the Preliminary Requirements for Every type of Knowledge]. Without it, even a “Ph.d” won’t land someone a secure “J.o.b.” Even potential love-mates will want to know if you hold a “P.r.e-K” ~ because everything you’ll need for emotionally healthy relationships will also be covered by this “degree”, which will simultaneously function as a decree for navigating all the aspects and prospects of life in general.
To establish the features, traits and parameters of this future decree and degree of life, we first need to contend with the “Marshmallow Man” – the imminently famous person who created the “marshmallow test” (Walter Mischel), PLUS we need to confront the author of the prominent resource of the “7 types of intelligence” (Frames of Mind, Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner). But first let’s give credit where credit is due.
Both of these brilliant pieces of work have opened people’s understandings of two general areas of human brain potential. The “Marshmallow Man” has distinctly identified the trait of “Delayed Gratification” as an essential asset for success both in careers and relationships. The “7 intelligences” author has presented us with a better understanding of how to navigate the world of learning.
The “7 types of intelligence” ought to have been titled; The 7 tools of knowledge development” These “tools” being defined as “intelligence quotients” are actually the various senses that work in various ways (depending on a child’s unique abilities) to explore, interact and transport knowledge and information to the brain. That’s what sensory tools do. “Intelligence Quotients” are “Emotional”, “Intellectual” and “Willful” — in other words “E.Q.” and “I.Q.” and “W.Q.” — these are the TYPES of intelligences that humans possess and capable of developing and operating. They ought to be more properly defined as “Emotional Intelligence Quotient”, “Intellectual Intelligence Quotient” and “Willful Intelligence Quotient”. These three ‘intelligence quotients constitute the full spectrum of brain potential, which all ought to be fully developed, and cohesively connected, for the sake of activating and utilizing 100% of our brain’s potential.
The first primordial and basic intelligence quotient is of course the emotional intelligence quotient. It is the basis for the other two intelligence quotients that are aided by the “7” tools of learning and knowledge development — although technically and effectively, there are really 60 of these sensory learning tools (but that is another subject we can get into another time).
The primordial intelligence quotient of emotional knowledge development brings us to the “Marshmallow test” and its creator. The Marshmallow test has properly identified children’s abilities to delay gratification, and be a better learner for a lifetime. However, the “Marshmallow Man” has failed to do the job of explaining to folks that the ability to “delay gratification” is based on experiencing “instant gratification” in the first three years of life. The “delayed gratification” feature does indeed first reveal itself during the preschool stage (hence, the famous marshmallow test), for a simple reason: the preschool stage is the first phase in life wherein we are capable of doing, or at least able to imitate and pretend performing all of the same capabilities that an adult can do.
The only ability a preschooler is incapable of is precognitive decision-making in the complex formats that adults are supposed to be able to do – but preschoolers are definitely capable of exploring and understanding all of the aspects that go into making decisions, and can indeed do so based on already acquired learning experiences.
Okay, maybe that’s starting to get too technical. The important thing to understand here is that “delayed gratification” had nothing to do with a “have” or “have-not” inborn genetic trait — in the same way that people tend to believe that ‘common sense’ is an inborn disposition or personality trait. Both “delayed gratification” and “common sense”, which are inextricably linked, are rooted in the emotional knowledge of “instant gratification” that would have been properly experienced during the first three years of life at the hands of parents and caretakers. In other words, if you are still wondering about letting your babies just cry themselves to sleep (as well as a few other aspects of infant care), stop wondering and worrying. Attending to your crying infant is NOT, I repeat NOT “spoiling” your child’s nature or behavior tendencies — it is ensuring the precursory “instant gratification” essentials that precede learning, practicing and mastering the qualities of “delayed gratification”.
Identifying the lack of “instant gratification” through the marshmallow test of “delayed gratification” is precisely why intervention methods work and stick for a lifetime, when they are remedied at the preschool stage. Nevertheless, the time taken to remedy this fundamental trait for a successful life would be better spent doing a whole lot of basic cognitive and intuitive development at the preschool stage – instead of fixing and therefore delaying other developments that can also ONLY take place during the preschool stage.
There are more than enough tests and pieces of evidence that support the realization that the “emotional intelligence quotient” is the rigorous basis for success in both work and relationships that will take place in the future and last a lifetime, most of which we spend as “adults”. Having an “MBA” or a “Ph.d” doesn’t magically turn back the clock and formidably re-constitute or establish “common sense” and “delayed gratification”. The core elemental structure of “instant gratification” preceding “delayed gratification” is needed to make sense of all the knowledge that can be competently applied with all the knowledge and information acquired through the degrees and credentials of education and lifetime learning.
Ultimately “delayed gratification” is an overall “knowledge app” that will be needed to execute sensible skills in everything. The “emotional intelligence quotient” of knowledge that ought to be fully nurtured during the infancy stage, will properly prepare babies and toddlers to learn the full spectrum of basic “intellectual intelligence” during the preschool stage. Together, as these “intelligence quotients” unite – intuitively – as one seamless function during the preschool phase of brain development, then the stage is set for instituting the core elements of the “willful intelligence quotient” that will take place predominantly during the “teen” years of brain development.
It is during these teen years that your children will have the proper head start to develop and master the traits of “willful intelligence” (or the fuller and final development of the frontal areas of the brain) that conduct and execute the real skills of “delayed gratification” — which manifest as; sensible-precognitive decision-making, intuitive reasoning, innovative thinking, computational-quantum processing, judgment, the ability to hypothesize and theorize, use advanced critical thinking in EVERYTHING they do, plan, intend, create, feel, and think.
Without the compassionate experiences of “instant gratification”, that line the memory banks of our minds during early infancy, thereby fully optimizing all of our emotions with a full value of emotionally intelligent predilections, then any wealth of accumulated knowledge is subject to deflate in an instant. In other words, we can retain what we’ve learned consciously, but unconsciously the sensibility of putting knowledge to use and connecting it with other useful points of knowledge and information just sets it somewhere between difficult-to-impossible. The point of accumulated knowledge and information is to make as many sensible “clicks” as we can between all points of acquired knowledge-experiences.
A proper preliminary “P.r.e-K” degree makes it possible to learn intuitively throughout a lifetime and retain knowledge imperviously so that any new field of knowledge can be imminently applied in unlimited innovative ways. Without this proper sequence of “intelligence development stages”, then the steps missed will indeed make life and continual learning a struggle. As much as we praise the virtues of “delayed gratification”, we must now begin to acknowledge the virtues of “instant gratification” as a required first step, and prerequisite of “delayed gratification”.

Praise for ‘Education Week’

Praise for “Education Week’s” article by Stephen Sawchuk regarding President Obama’s proposal on upgrading the importance of preschool education.
In particular, writes S. Sawchuk ~
“Research indicates that children’s cognitive and social development are linked to the quality of interaction with preschool teachers, regardless of their educational levels. Such findings have spawned interest in frameworks that describe effective practices in such interactions, and can serve as the basis for professional development and coaching”
This is the best information that could have been pointed out by anyone examining the quality of Early Education and the interactions that should be going on between Teachers-Parents-Aides and anyone else involved in the care and cognitive development of Preschoolers.
So, what qualifies quality interaction for social, cognitive and emotional development in preschoolers?
Many abide by certain philosophies, cultural influences and upbringing or parental styles, but the criteria for interactive qualities that ensure the best for preschoolers emotional, cognitive and social development must be drawn out, or derived by the brain’s natural requisites for preschool brain development.
So what is the brain doing during preschool and what is the brain ultimately preparing for? This is the question that needs to be raised for qualifying a framework for preschool development.
Preschool Teaching Expertise requires a simultaneous combination of:
-Open-ended instructions
-Guiding children’s freedom to Explore
-Natural Science as the basis of all classifications of Knowledge
-ALL of the Fundamental Principles of Mathematics – describing the basics of all classifications of knowledge and all interrelated functions of Early Cognitive Development
-Non-negated language/communication/guidance reflecting open-ended possibilities supporting the Brain’s developmental system to acquire infinite knowledge through Compassion and Optimism
-Foresight guidance and enforcing the knowledge of advantageous possibilities with a focus on eliminating hindsight guidance or reinforcing through consequences / consequential knowledge (Because the human brain is ultimately, by adulthood, designed to exercise foresight and intuition, and the intuitive inclination to use foresight is intuitively established during the preschool stage).
-HUGS must also be re-implemented into the order of appropriate preschool brain development – –
Preschool teachers can hardly do their job appropriately if they are banned from hugging their students. Affection is an extremely important part of human brain development, because the human brain is an emotionally developed brain. Also, if Preschool students are going to develop as they should through free exploratory learning, then Teachers are also going to need to have Creative Freedom in their Teaching Practices.
[This also means that any close-ended formats of “teaching” must go, and this specifically includes close-ended literacy development, homework, ditto sheets / following inside the lines and inside the box lessons and teaching practices at the preschool level.]
The name of the Educational Game for Preschool Brain development is Creativity as a cognitive process during this stage of natural intuitive development – the key words being ‘creative’, ‘cognitive’ and ‘intuitive’. These three aspects are as one aspect to the preschool brain and the only time in life when they will be merged and poised to function as one.
This united feature of preschool cognitive brain development ensures that the basic building blocks for quality critical thinking, common sense, out-of-the-box thinking and compassionate, interactive working relationships can meld together to produce innovative thinking in all areas of human existence.
This approach also solves problems, resolves issues and even dissolves unnecessary resolving of a variety of difficulties that would never arise because young brains are being cultivated or configured to operate more in accordance with natural potential.

President’s proposal on Preschool

I’ve written to the President on several occasions about the importance of preschool development. I’m unsure if he’s actually reviewed any of the information that I’ve sent him and his administrations, so I will write my newest letter to him right here ~

Dear Mr. President B. Obama,
Thanks for finally paying attention to Preschool. Notwithstanding the outstanding job that the Perry system has successfully implemented for young children, the deeper values of the first five years of brain development are still being sorely overlooked. We’re faced with a dual problem for educational and societal development that still must be addressed simultaneously, regarding early education.
It’s not just about education dollars and funding. It’s not about creating a Wall Street type equation for economic and market development, or monetary investments now that will project and yield a high rate of return in a productive workforce in the near and far off future. It’s much more than that. Do we need to prepare young students to have equal opportunities in our future workplace? Absolutely ! But what we also need, what professionals in all fields are begging to acquire, and what your administration keeps crying out about more than anything else is INNOVATION, INNOVATION, INNOVATION.
Innovation requires INTUITIVE development. Intuitive development must be, and can only be established in the early stages of intuitive learning. Our nation also needs more foresight and a lot less hindsight, this is something that can also only be fostered and fortified by early intuitive-cognitive development.
To achieve both a productive workforce in all communities and give all communities of children an opportunity to be innovators in society, plus dramatically reduce many of the problems that plague our communities, we need to ensure early intuitive-cognitive development with a creative emphasis on a Natural Science curriculum that is modified and diversified by the Fundamental Principles of Mathematics.
The A,B,C’s and 1,2,3’s can wait until first grade. Early literacy development implemented as a focus to prepare for elementary school is a quaintly prevalent concept but it is a gross misconception about “academic success” when we’re considering the variables of critical thinking, conscientious behavior and intuitive-creative-innovative progress. As a matter of record, all of the leading academic countries, such as Finland and Japan, wait until the end of age 5 or 6 to begin formal literacy skills.
Until we understand the exquisite, intrinsic and rigorous definition of Preschool brain development, we will continue to miss the WHOLE point. We need to implement an integrative approach – and by the way, integrative development is also useless without a basic intuitive-cognitive foundation that gives children a connecting sense of familiarity for all fields of knowledge, as well as healthy social skills.
Thanks for trying, I hope you will continue to be enlightened.
Sincerely, Carla A.M. Woolf

What do Preschool and making a cake have in common?

The first answer to this question is that both should be properly prepared.  The operative words here are “should” and “properly”. With the entourage of adult self-improvement info, it has been made clear that certain words impinge upon our sense of choice and free will, and this is certainly the case with the words ‘should’ and ‘properly’. But children are still learning the endless open-ended possibilities of everything, and that includes these words. The main message here is that, in our attempts to improve our own adult issues and experience the value of newly learned and applied information we give our best efforts in trying to apply newly learned techniques to the children in our lives. But more often than realized we do this without taking into account how it is that young children’s brain are developing and operating.

In order to combine some better definitions of “should”, “properly”, “free will”, “choices” and the differences between child brain development and already developed adult brains – that are still capable of plasticity – we’ll use cake as an analogy.  There are thousands of possibilities when it comes to the opportunity of making a cake, there will certainly never be a shortage of choosing a desired flavor and style of cake. The ingredients are equally as flexible and even substitute ingredients can be used to make a cake more conducive to our desires and even health concerns.  Then of course, the cake decorating phase has infinite possibilities. Here also, our free will and ability to decide and make choices is an endless proposition. But there is one phase in the cake making process that is generally inflexible and non-negotiable, and it is the step that requires the proper mixing of the ingredients that should result in a smooth batter – which is one of the best conditions for ensuring that the cake will bake well.

There are two important analogies here that are relative to the preschool stage of development that are also non-negotiable.  One is that similar to making a cake, there are certain basic ingredients that must be included in the cake batter-making process.  At the preschool stage of learning and brain development, there are also certain ingredients that must be included for the foundation of proper cognitive development that will influence a lifetime of learning.  Secondly, all of the required elements for preschool, like all of the necessary ingredients for making a cake, there must be a smooth amalgamated mixture that becomes one batter – or one pool of basic learning ingredients – that are smoothly mixed together.

In other words, once a cake’s ingredients are smoothly mixed together, the distinction between eggs and flour and butter, etc, are indistinct, it’s just a bowl of mush.  The same goes for the basic cognitive learning elements of the pre-K stage – for the preschool brain, all of the basic cognitive learning ingredients are one whole smooth indistinct mixture of learning elements. In fact, the whole cake making process can be likened to the phases and applications of human brain development and eventual potential, and the multiple possibilities that go into these efforts in conjunction with free will, which is vitally essential to the human development process.

The gathering of the various choice ingredients for the making a cake and the flexibility on the use of ingredients and to some degree the measured amounts of ingredients is similar to the infancy and toddler stages of emotional brain development.  The mixing of the cake’s ingredients is relative to the preschool stage. The baking of the cake, its quality, its essence, its basic constitution is relative to the elementary school years of brain development, and this stage is significantly influenced by the preschool stage. So for instance, if you followed the recipe and ingredients for making a cheese cake, however much we may wish, desire or insist it will likely never come out as a chocolate cake.  The cooling of the cake for a new phase in the cakes’ total process would be the pre-teen years that is preparing for a completely new phase of the cake making process. The decorating phase of the cake is like the teen years of brain development when the options and possibilities of planning and creatively applying designs with our unique abilities is at hand and ready to receive skillful and very experienced guidance from adults who are already cultivated in the art of critical thinking, decision-making and planning.

Thanks for tuning in, the next blog will discuss more about how free will, decision-making, and intuition are essential to human development, progress, relationships and the application of our abilities.

Attention all Preschool Teachers

The world’s leaders need a new way of thinking – a new way of thinking that can be injected into our society’s need to innovate and solve problems.  But politicians and economists will only be able to get this job done with the help of preschool teachers.  That’s right, the most undervalued professionals of our society, and indeed of any society, are the key to easing and resolving the ills and difficult issues of a society.   Only the work of a preschool teacher, and especially parents of preschoolers, can turn a major tide on Mental Health, emotional stability, eradicating war, changing poor economic practices, sustaining democracy, advancing communication and relationships, increasing innovative development, etc.  These issues may seem like they have little to do with preschool development, but in order to increase our problem solving skills, we need to use more brain power and to use more of our brain potential, we must stop relying only on the “plasticity” of the adult human brain, and begin paying attention to the advantages of building a future society of intelligent and empathetic citizens.  This is a process that begins with the early education of preschoolers who are given the basics to advance in science, math, emotional literacy, communication and social development even before reading literacy. Everyone is born to be a great thinker and a great innovator, but great thinkers and innovators still need to be made, and the making of great thinking requires the gathering of  certain basic building blocks during the preschool stage of cognitive development.  In Deepak Chopra’s latest book (“Superbrain”, co-authored with Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.d) they suggest that adults can “Just consciously do what nature designed into the infant brain”, and they proceed to lay out what these basic practices are that infants and young children naturally do.  Well it’s great for us adults to take a few cues from the fresh and open learning potential of young brains.  But why would two really smart scholarly men write the intelligence principles of infants and young children’s learning (and even state that some things learned early in life stay with us forever)  and then just stop short of writing ‘the book’ that will help adults ensure that young brains get properly fit and configured to begin with, while those principles are natural and active — as opposed to writing the one-millionth book telling broken brained adults how to keep fixing ourselves??? It’s seems like it’s the time to just stop producing broken and misconfigured brains during childhood that will require band-aid remedies in adulthood, after our brains have developed, and then repeat this same insane strategy generation after generation. We do have something that previous generations never had – the field of Neuroscience.  So let’s use it. There is more than enough neuroscientific information to help define education as being the exact same thing as brain development.  If children’s brains possess the basic building blocks for true intelligence potential, then why would we fall short of using that potential when it is there to be used? Let’s do that math, let’s use our common sense and critical thinking skills — This is why preschool teachers are in a position to design a new future.  It is simply because a society’s most intelligent learners are in our custody, so we may as well take an active role in the influencing the future – It’s a win-win situation. Stay tuned, there will be more to come.