Description

Is today's fast-paced media culture creating a toxic environment for our children's brains?

In this landmark, bestselling assessment tracing the roots of America's escalating crisis in education, Jane M. Healy, Ph.D., examines how television, video games, and other components of popular culture compromise our children's ability to concentrate and to absorb and analyze information. Drawing on neuropsychological research and an analysis of current educational practices, Healy presents in clear, understandable language:

-- How growing brains are physically shaped by experience

-- Why television programs -- even supposedly educational shows like Sesame Street -- develop "habits of mind" that place children at a disadvantage in school

-- Why increasing numbers of children are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder

-- How parents and teachers can make a critical difference by making children good learners from the day they are born

About the Author

Jane M. Healy, Ph.D. is a teacher and educational psychologist who has worked with young people of all ages, from pre-school to graduate school. She has been a classroom teacher, reading and learning specialist, school administrator, and clinician. She is currently a lecturer and consultant, and the author of three books about how children do (and don’t) learn, Your Child’s Growing Mind, Endangered Minds, and Failure to Connect. She and her work have been featured in national media such as CNN and NPR. She has twice been named “Educator of the Year” by Delta Kappa Gamma, the professional honor society of women educators.  Jane and her husband claim they have learned most of what they know from raising three sons and enjoying six grandchildren.

Praise for Endangered Minds: Why Children Dont Think And What We Can Do About It…

Louise Bates Ames Gesell Institute of Human Development Provocative, scholarly, and timely. Society may actually be changing our children's brains for the worse.

Priscilla Vail author of Smart Kids with School Problems Endangered Minds is a masterly blend of scientific knowledge, educational expertise, psychological insight, and common sense....Jane Healy sounds warnings we should all heed, and offers priorities and strategies compatible with the nature of childhood and the flowering of intellect.

Educational Leadership A fascinating exploration of today's much-deplored decline in school achievement....[Healy] clearly conveys the relationship between language, learning, and brain development, then explains why television viewing and present-day lifestyles sabotage language acquisition, thinking, and personal success.