Shannon's Window: Building on Be the Bulb


  • October 20, 2016
  • /   Shannon Nickinson
  • /   education

Dozens of people who responded to the Be the Bulb early learning challenge met at a networking
reception Oct. 18 at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. Credit: Rachael Gillette

The Be the Bulb challenge was the start.

Now begins the hard work.

In 2016, Quint and Rishy Studer gave a total of $50,000 to the best ideas to promote kindergarten readiness in Escambia County through the Be the Bulb contest. Hundreds of ideas from the public at large and from employees of the Escambia School District were submitted and winners in each category won $25,000.

It turned out to be one big step in the journey toward making Pensacola America’s First Early Learning City.

On Tuesday night, we invited everyone who submitted an idea to the contest to the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition for a reception to thank them for their work.

The contest generated interest and excitement in the community about how we could help make sure that more of our children arrive on the first day of school ready and eager to learn with their peers.

That’s work that the Studer Community Institute has been in engaged in since 2014 as we researched and explored the educational and economic challenges our community faces.

There was also more good news shared at the Be the Bulb reception.

Bruce Watson is director of the Escambia County Early Learning Coalition, the agency that works with childcare centers and oversees the voluntary prekindergarten and School Readiness programs in Escambia County.

Inspired in part by research at the Thirty Million Words Initiative at the University of Chicago that SCI has highlighted, Watson is launching a project that will bring cutting edge technology to childcare centers in Pensacola.

Bruce Watson, executive director of the Escambia County Early Learning Coalition, talks about plans to pilot technology to help caregivers boost their interactions with young children.

Bruce Watson, executive director of the Escambia County Early Learning Coalition, talks about plans to pilot technology to help caregivers boost their interactions with young children.

Watson will use Language Environment Analysis (LENA) system in targeted centers to track the interactions between caregivers — who often spend upwards of eight hours a day with their children — and infants and toddlers.

The LENA is, essentially, a word pedometer that records up to 16 hours of audio. The file is collected and uploaded to a computer, where the number of words said can be analyzed.

Watson said the data will be used to help coach caregivers to coach them to do what they do more often.

“And children in Pensacola will get better childcare as a result,” Watson said.

That’s good news for our children, our parents and our community.

Because those words and positive interactions with a parent or caregiver are good for a child’s physical, emotional and social development. They truly help build a baby’s brain.

And as we like to say on our journey toward becoming an Early Learning City: Build a brain, build a life, build a community.

 
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