Rhode Island Feeds

Last year I took President Barack Obama to task for not wearing a helmet while bicycling with his family during his Martha's Vineyard vacation. This year, he's wearing one. Way to go, Mr. President. Glad you know you're a...

I’m trying to catch up on summer reading before the season ends, and just finished reading the cover story in an issue of TIME magazine that I picked up earlier this month. The cover first caught my eye: A shirtless boy in a baseball cap skipping a stone across a pond, rendered in a retro, Norman Rockwell style. But it was the headline that made me buy the magazine. In bold black type across the top of the image, it said, “The Case Against Summer Vacation.”

The article, by David von Drehle, claims that Americans romanticize a lengthy summer break that has its roots in our country’s agrarian past. In our imaginations, summertime for children means day after day off the clock. It means the freedom to let minds roam — and bodies, too, from stream to seaside to forest and lake. In this idyllic summer world, every child spends hours outside, reads dozens of books, plays games with cousins and grandparents, daydreams, invents, travels, explores.

The reality, von Drehle convincingly argues, is that for many children, summer isn’t a time of enrichment but a time of loss — learning loss. On average, American children lose one month of progress in math skills from the end of one school year to the beginning of the next; for children from low-income families, the “summer slide” can mean slipping back three months in reading comprehension, compared with their middle-income peers.

By the time such disadvantaged children complete elementary school, they have fallen three grade levels behind, according to a 20-year study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University. Roughly two-thirds of that achievement gap can be attributed to summer learning loss.

But this achievement gap doesn’t make “the case against summer vacation.” It makes the case against wasted vacations. The article describes children who spend their summer breaks on virtual house arrest — cooped up indoors in unsafe neighborhoods, unsupervised by adults — or in communities with shockingly few resources for children. Enrichment programs can close the gap, von Drehle says, and he profiles several successful ones around the country.

Unfortunately, the headline and a simplified version of the article, which can be summarized as “Our children are falling behind academically because we insist on holding onto a summer break that has no place in modern America,” is now making the rounds.

When I look closely at some of the data included in the article, I come to a different set of questions and conclusions. In a graph charting “The Summer Slide,” I notice that the slope of achievement steepens for children from high-income families in the summer between third and fourth grade, and again the following summer. It’s actually higher during the summer months than during the school year.

Shouldn’t we be asking, then, What is it that high-income kids get that other kids don’t? And how do we make those things available to all children?

The TIME article offers a partial answer to both questions. Privileged children get enrichment during the summer months in numerous forms, from sleepaway camps to family vacations (although fewer families spend entire summers at a cottage than in previous generations). As for how to bring a version of summer to all children, under the heading “Stealth Learning,” von Drehle profiles a program in the Appalachian town of Corbin, Kentucky. Every Wednesday, Redhound Enrichment takes the children in its program to the swimming pool. They also go fishing, and when they weigh and measure their fish, they’re doing a day’s worth of math. Nearly 9 in 10 of the kids come from latchkey families. By the time school starts again, more than half of the kids improve in math by a full letter grade, or more. Interestingly, even though the program doesn’t explicitly offer reading instruction, the children also improve similarly in reading.

I’ve often written in this space about the growing body of research on the value of time in nature, down time, unplugged time, even boredom. The case for summer vacation is the case for spending time outside, for self-directed reading, for learning new skills or practicing old ones.

My family is lucky to have time, economic wherewithal, and an understanding of the importance of those lessons. When I think of what my children have done with this summer break, I think of the long list of books Ursula has devoured, but also how trips we’ve taken have let her spread her wings, both in cities and in wilder country. I remember countless games of Stratego and Settlers of Catan that Virgil played, but also how much time he spent in the water and around our land, and how he backpacked even with his arm in a full cast.

This is the kind of stealth learning that actually improves academic achievement — and does something more that can’t be measured. In fact, I’d like to turn the debate about summer vacation around and say that the more pleasurable, enriching activities of summer we give our children, the better off they’ll all be.

Why not have the best of summer, year-round?

Learn more
- Read the TIME article.
- See the cover.
- Read a summary of the research on summer learning loss.

“Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine.

Southside Community Land Trust (SCLT) and the Providence Community Gardens Network are planning a tour of community gardens for walkers and cyclists Saturday. A potluck supper will follow. Tours will be held at six community gardens from 3 to 5...

Kinsman Ridge Trail, New Hampshire
Friday, Aug 27 – Sunday, Aug 29, 2010

Fri., Aug. 27-29. Kinsmans Weekend. For experienced Northern hikers. Saturday: 10 miles RT with 3650' elevation gain. Sunday: L's choice. Register by 8/2. Cost is $110 and includes two nights lodging, two breakfasts and one dinner. L Sue Warthman, CL Steve Harrison , reg/w Sue Warthman (401-270-3363 7:00-9:00pm, swarthman@cox.net)

"Five year old Charlie Smith caught his first keeper off his parents' dock on Quonny Pond," reported Robin Nash of Quonny Bait & Tackle. "Charlie...

It took 20 months and a lot of willpower, but Elizabeth "Betsy" Knowles, 26, of Smithfield, lost 160 pounds. Weight had been an issue for Knowles since her teens, but she says the pounds started to escalate when she...

We had such a terrific North American Butterfly Association Count in Rhode Island this year (see results here), and the star of the show was the Baltimore Checkerspot! 3,240 of these beautiful butterflies were found in a single field. The team that surveyed the site was joined by Dr. Deane Bowers of the University of Colorado, who studies the Baltimore Checkerspot and is on sabbatical at Brown University. Dr Bowers will be presenting a talk on this remarkable butterfly and its life cycle. I hope you will attend!

Baltimore Checkerspot Butterfly: Evolution Unfolding
Environmental Education Center
1401 Hope St, Bristol, RI
Thursday, September 30
7 – 8:30pm
$6/member, $8/non-member
To register: Call (401) 949-5454 ext. 3041.

"The striking Baltimore Checkerspot butterfly is native to the eastern United States. Not only gorgeous behold, they have a fascinating story. Historically, the caterpillars fed on turtlehead, a wetland plant, and the butterflies were relatively uncommon. But recently populations of these butterflies have been making the switch to a different host plant - common Ribwort Plantain. This has sometimes resulted in dramatic population increases. Dr. M. Deane Bowers of the University of Colorado has studied the Baltimore Checkerspot for over 30 years and will share her research and a unique perspective on evolution unfolding in our lifetime."

Dave Pickering a 15-pound mirror carp he caught this week. "This lousy weather of the last few days has lit up the carp fishing...

Dr. Jeffrey D. White, director of the National Cancer Institute's Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine (OCCAM). The National Cancer Institute is examining the role of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in cancer prevention and treatment. CAM is...

I received another email update from Russ.  It’s now eleven days after his bicycle accident and he has yet to be interviewed by the police to get his side of the story, what could they possibly be waiting for?  I’d like to believe that police take every accident seriously and all are treated with the same diligence, but I’m struggling with why the facts seem to disagree with my utopic view of justice.  Russ has now placed two calls to the Westerly police department asking to be interviewed, both times he was told that that they would call him back and arrange to come out for an interview, but he has yet to hear anything.

Russ relates what a huge impact this has had on his life

my level of activity not just as someone who trains regularly but that as a competitive athlete. It is that
which has been taken away from me, at least for some time at best. I race bikes and skis. Cycling started as cross-training but has become a passion. residents here usually see me riding 25-50 miles on a daily basis. When the
accident occurred, I was following my usual warm-up route of 15 miles. I’ve been a USAC member and raced in that capacity, raced a 53-miler in the mountains of VT this summer, and ski race with USSA, including the national
level. I was a competitor as a Nordic racer in the 70’s-90’s. Nationally ranked and some Olympic aspirations.

The injury is unfortunate in that I am not just hurt, but at my age, one’s level of training goes fast when disabled. Further, I am not some couch potato who doesn’t know the rules of the road! I was riding exactly as
I should be, put on three strobe lights when the sun started to set, and my helmet in all likelihood saved my life (as has my ski helmet when I crashed racing a downhill once)

In the blink of an eye Russ’ life was forever changed, yet the driver of the automobile is still without any sort of citation.  The official police report states that Russ

received a concussion and “a few bumps and bruises”

However, since our last update, Russ has now visited with multiple doctors who believe that the injuries

are clearly due to being struck by a car and not falling to the ground, as the witness for the driver contends.

he now has

a Siamese twin about the size of a watermelon on my hip, cannot walk, and an abdomen and groin full of pooled blood

I’m working on getting a copy of the police report to post and any other news articles.

ESPN has reached an agreement in principle to sell BASS to a group of investors led by Don Logan, Jerry McKinnis and Jim Copeland. BASS...

We will need only one flu shot this year, says a press release from CVS/pharmacy and MinuteClinic. The Woonsocket-based companies are offering flu shots at all of their 7,000 pharmacies and 500 MinuteClinic locations. "This year, only one vaccine will...

The first-ever New England Bike-Walk Summit will be in Providence on Thursday, October 7. A full day of sessions (and at least one field trip) will address issues important to the full range of bike and walk stakeholders – grassroots advocates, agency employees, professionals in private practice, etc.

Volunteers are needed to do things like manage a/v, staff the registration table, take photos & video, etc. All registered volunteers will have the Summit fee waived and can attend whichever sessions they like, as well as attend the evening reception.

More information can be found at the Summit website and the Summit facebook group. Contact me (eric@greenway.org) if you’d like to help.

Thanks!

Pregnancy, weight gain and even weight lifting and some medicines can cause unsightly stretch marks to appear on our skin. Providence Journal photo / Bob Thayer Stretching is good, but not stretch marks Most folks are not a fan, so...

"Bass are here but very tough," says Chris Willi of Block Island FishWorks. "Even guys with eels are having a bit of a rough time...

A recent article in The New York Times described an unusual outdoors adventure: a week-long raft trip down the San Juan River in southern Utah undertaken by a group of neuroscientists to debate the effect of spending time “unplugged.” The skeptics in the group didn’t see much value in disconnecting from their electronic devices or from email and the web. Others saw value in stepping away from daily distractions. They wondered if our brains might look or act differently on the river or on a trail. The trip could be called a moving debate on the importance of vacations, especially vacations in the outdoors.

As it happens, I read the article a few days after it was published because we’d just returned from a three-day hiking trip. On the first day of our trip, Jim and the kids and I hiked several miles to a campsite next to a spring-fed lake and set up our tents. The next day, the four of us climbed a small peak; Virgil and I read on the summit while Jim and Ursula traversed to a second peak. Back at the lake, we swam in the cool water. We’d brought a pack of cards with us, and we played card games on a table-sized rock at the campsite. Virgil had finished his book at the summit, so I started reading to him from mine, an adventure story about a Viking set near the end of the first millennium.

It’s worth saying that Jim and I weren’t working, or taking phone calls, or doing chores around the house. When I took my place at the granite card table, my normal mental list, in which each item starts with Remember to ( … put laundry in dryer, call Mom, pay bills, start this, finish that), was gone. In its place was a single thought, not even a command, that I might characterize as Just be here.

During our three backcountry days, I reminded Jim of something our friend Whit once told us. Whit is the father of three daughters and an avid parent and outdoorsman. A few years back, in his pursuit of ever better parenting, he attended a lecture by Mary Pipher, Ph.D., best known for her book Reviving Ophelia. He passed on to us two simple pieces of advice from Pipher for conveying strong family values to children, and staying connected with them through adolescence: One, eat dinners together as a family; two, take family vacations.

Our hiking trip gave evidence to his point, and Pipher’s. We grew closer as a family during our time on the trail and in camp. We shared old stories and developed new ones. We made up dumb jokes and laughed together. Virgil completed his first real backpacking trek without any complaint and basked in our appreciation of his accomplishment. Ursula stepped out, both as a hiker and as a helper around camp. Our second day in, a family — parents, two-year-old daughter, grandmother — took the other campsite on the lake. Ursula walked the toddler back and forth between our two camps while the adults set up camp, giving her full attention to the little girl as she pointed out each pretty wildflower.

The scientists on the river trip were paying attention to the quality of our attention. In the Times article, one of them said, “Attention is the holy grail. Everything that you’re conscious of, everything you let in, everything you remember and you forget, depends on it.” The article mentioned new research on working memory that suggests we should be careful of cluttering it too much, and thereby lose our ability to focus, to pay attention.

When I read that quote, though, I thought of the attention we give our children. Parental attention does seem to me a kind of holy grail. I value our recent hiking trip for many reasons, but one of them is the better, more focused and clear attention I could give my children.

This morning, I went online looking for the advice from Mary Pipher that Whit had passed on to us. I found this in an interview: “Three things that adults remember with the greatest pleasure from childhood: time outdoors, family meals, and family vacations. So my simplest advice to parents is, if you want your children to have happy memories, spend time outdoors with them, eat family meals together, and take them on vacation. And they'll have good memories of your family.”
From what I’ve seen in our own family, and from what those rafting neuroscientists may determine, good memories probably aren’t the only benefit.

Learn more
- “Outdoors and Out of Reach, Studying the Brain” (The New York Times, August 15, 2010)
- Mary Pipher’s books and research on adolescence and family life.
- Virgil and I are still reading The Long Ships, a recently re-issued book by the Swedish author Frans Bengtsson. Read the review in The Christian Science Monitor.

“Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine.

August 26, 20106:30 pmto8:30 pm

The College Hill Neighborhood Association (CHNA) is presenting a Providence mayoral Q&A session on Thursday, August 26th from 6:30pm – 8:30pm at the Wheeler School.  They are soliciting questions you would like to see answered by the candidates.  Submissions can be sent to chna@collegehillneighborhoodassociation.org
. Questions must be received by Wednesday, August 25th at 12noon.  This is a perfect opportunity for the candidates to hear what’s on the mind of Providence cyclists.

We are sorry to report that it’s happened again.  Another cyclist has been struck on Rhode Island roads and currently, it looks like the motorist will just get away with it.  According to the cyclist, Russ Harkay, he was riding along route 1A in Westerly when

[the motorist] turned right at [the] Langworthy Inn onto Shore road… in doing so , he crossed a lane and plowed into me and my bike. He told the police that the reason he never applied his brakes is that he never saw me until it was too late. I am listed on the same form as a pedestrian and as having been struck by his car.

If you follow bicycle accidents around the country, there seems to be a common thread.  Most police departments focus sorely on automobiles and either don’t care to or don’t have the ability to differentiate between reporting accidents involving cyclists and pedestrians.  While some can argue there is little difference, it makes it almost impossible to track statistics on such accidents.  Russ continues by saying

today I saw my [principle care physician], he ordered a battery of tests and cannot believe no one was charged. According to the police report, I was riding in the bike lane on the side of the road as I should, had flashing strobe lights on my Marin Stelvio carbon fiber bike, and , of course, was wearing the helmet that saved my life. There is damage to my hip where I was hit and I will suffer arthritic changes.  I continue to suffer from the concussion that caused me to lose consciousness for 30 minutes.is doing his best to see that the driver is cited. I still have not been interviewed by the police and called the station today requesting that they do so to complete the report.

The accident occurred on August 13th and as of August 17th he had still not been interviewed by the police.  Russ has gone so far as contacting the police, requesting that he be interviewed.  I have not yet heard an update as to whether this interview has been granted.  As of yet, the driver has not been cited for any sort of moving violation.  I’ve said it before and, unfortunately, I’ll likely say it again, accidents do happen, but people need to take responsibility for the result of their actions.  Russ appears to have been doing everything he could, yet he will likely live with physical handicaps for the rest of his life and, aside from the moral implications, will have nothing to remind him of the life long changes he has inflicted upon someone else.

I’ve been unable to find any mention of this accident in any papers.  Also, the online police reports posted to the Westerly police department website only go through August 8th, so there is no mention of the accident yet.

It’s time for Rhode Island to have the laws on the books, ensuring that the police have the ability to charge drivers with something when they are involved in an accident and for a court of law to uphold those charges.  Once again, RIBike will be work to get Vulnerable Roadway User legislation passed during the next session, this is another sad reminder of how desperately such legislation is needed.

We will update everyone as more details are made available.

“I’m having trouble getting my family outdoors...”

A mother wrote this in a recent comment on the blog. She wanted to get her 3-year-old daughter outdoors more. But her husband is an indoors person and spends many hours at work. When he’s at home, her daughter wants to spend time with him.

It’s a common family situation: For many reasons — work, travel, illness, or simple lack of interest — getting a family outdoors becomes a one-parent effort. And that effort can feel overwhelming.

I know the feeling. When Ursula was a baby, Jim worked long days at a job 80 miles from our home. We were new to the area, and I didn’t know many other parents. Some days, “getting outdoors” meant a brief stop at a playground in between errands, naps, and meals. Gradually I found other moms who liked to be outside, too. We’re lucky to live near hiking trails, and it wasn’t hard to plan short day hikes. Even so, I look back and regret that we didn’t do more in the outdoors together as a family during that time.

More resources have become available over the past decade for parents who want to get their children, and themselves, outdoors. I’m always inspired by the Children and Nature Network, both by the stories of parents and communities and by the research that reminds me why it’s important to get my family outside. (Two articles currently on their website that caught my eye: Turning your backyard into a discovery zone; the benefits of outdoor play.) C&NN also maintains a database of parent-led nature clubs. I’ve run into parents who have found great support within these clubs.

I’m guessing that the mother who wrote that comment lives somewhere along the East Coast between Washington, D.C., and Maine, in which case she has access to the resources of AMC’s local and regional chapters. As part of its Vision 2020 initiative, AMC is focusing on helping families and children get outdoors.

What to do, though, when one parent is, as this mother wrote, “an indoors person” who’s “hard to budge”? It could be that this dad will join in on outdoors activities once he sees how much fun they are, and if he doesn’t have to stretch to organize them. But it could also be that spending time outdoors will become something that this mother shares with her daughter. Even if the father never budges from his chair or the computer screen, the mother and daughter will have gained a lifetime of benefits from being outside together.

Advice from other readers?

Learn more
- "Getting Children Outdoors" (AMC Outdoors, May/June 2010)
- AMC family trips and activities
- Children & Nature Network

“Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine.