By Sarah Vander Schaaff Several weeks ago, well before Sandy and the holidays took over our thoughts and conversations here in New Jersey, I attended an evening lecture given by Sam Wang, an associate professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton University and co-author of the 2011 book, Welcome to Your Child’s Brain: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College. The room was full of parents, whose children, one imagined, spanned the time frame mentioned in the title of his book. Wang told us, as both a professor and father of a five-year-old, “For nearly everything, don’t worry.” Young kids not sleeping through the night, not talking properly, these issues usually resolve, he said. The brain is a… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff Imagine you had a child in high school who faced this choice: take a history class taught by a school legend, the kind who challenges her students to be deeper thinkers and better writers and is known for being a tough grader. Or, take the same class taught by a competent teacher who just happens to be known for giving a lot of A’s. Any seasoned parent would stop me there. “How do we know the first teacher is a tough grader?” That’s a good question because it speaks to the very nature of grades: they are personal. But as we all know, in practice, they cease to be. Grades may or may not accurately reflect… Read More