© 2000 John Consoli |
Educational consultant and 1999-2000 visiting Fulbright scholar
Anne Meade is well known in the fields of childhood development
and educational sociology. A native of New Zealand, Meade has
conducted research over the years that explores the relationship
between the neurological and behavioral development of children.
For her, the findings of neuroscientists and early childhood researchers
should build upon each other to produce a better understanding
of the brain development of children.
During her Fulbright grant, she explored opportunities for collaborative
research involving U.S. neuroscientists and conducted her own
research on children's schema and concept development at the Families
and Work Institute in New York. In New Zealand, she will carry
out a replica project at an early childhood center.
Meade commented on the benefits of observing children in an early
childhood center firsthand as a way to strengthen and more completely
understand the academic research one can conduct with written
materials. She remarked, "The observations of learning and
teaching in the early childhood facility provided reality and
validity checks on material in academic literature. The children's
actions and behavior helped me pose searching questions when I
visited neuroscientists on a range of campuses. And these discussions
helped me clarify my interpretation of neurobiological research."
The scholar plans to organize, in collaboration with both U.S.
and New Zealand colleagues, an international conference that will
serve as a forum for cooperation between neuroscientists and childhood
development experts. Such a conference would ensure that important
research findings in each field will be shared and new insights
developed.
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