Dr. Elanna S. Yalow, Ph.D., M.B.A
Dr. Yalow is Executive Vice President, Knowledge Universe, and Vice Chair, Knowledge Learning Corporation. In her capacity she is responsible for supporting the global expansion of early childhood education programs for KU. Previously Dr. Yalow served as President and Chief Operating Officer of KLC, which operates nearly 1800 early childhood education centers in 39 states, including KinderCare Learning Centers and Knowledge Beginnings centers. As President and COO, Dr. Yalow was responsible for center operations, curriculum development and training, quality assurance, marketing and business development, mergers and acquisitions, and new center development, supervising a total workforce of approximately 40,000 employees.
Prior to joining KLC, Dr. Yalow served as Project Director for numerous state and national level research and development projects in both educational assessment and health education for agencies including the National Institutes of Health, Office of Disease Prevention/Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control, and State Departments of Education in Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. She also served as a lecturer at California State University, Long Beach and the University of California, Los Angeles, Graduate School of Education, and as a Teaching Fellow at the Stanford University School of Education.
Dr. Yalow has published and presented extensively on issues related to education and health in publications including the Annual Review of Health Promotion and Education, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Educational Researcher, and the Handbook of Human Intelligence. She has served as a speaker on early childhood issues at the Milken Institute Global Conference, the Hechinger Institute Seminars on Education and the Media, the World Forum on Early Care and Education, and the BMO Capital Markets Back to School Conference. She has also made numerous presentations on issues related to assessment and evaluation in the education and health care arena at the American Psychological Association, Psychometric Society, National Council of Measurement in Education, the American Educational Research Association, and the National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Dr. Yalow holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the Stanford University School of Education, an M.B.A. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and a B.A. in Psychology from State University of New York at Stony Brook. She currently serves on the Advisory Board of the National Childhood Obesity Foundation and the Board of Trustees for Ellis University.
Dr. Yalow is married and the mother of two sons. She is the daughter of Dr. Rosalyn Yalow, 1977 Nobel Laureate in Physiology and/or Medicine.
What a wonderful tribute to the Men and Women of our armed services! The things that this Country takes for granted and forgets is amazing to me. The sacrifice (s) that the Military Family has made for our Country should be recognized daily.
Thank you again for making this a focal point of your Blog.
John
Hi Dr. Yalow,
Writing from Florence, Oregon on Early Childhood Education. Ours is a small town of about 25,000. We have a good percentage of young families that would benefit from a professional ‘pre-school’…I don’t know how it would be funded but I am certain the children (hence future generation) would benefit from having a Kindercare located here.
Please consider sending someone to scope out this area(?)…Many thanks, and feel free to contact me anytime (541) 991-2151 (Verizon).
Best regards,
Melody A. Beaudro, Realtor
TR Hunter Real Estate
1749 Hwy 101, PO Box 3104
Florence, OR 97439
541-997-1200 office
800-210-7453 toll free
541-997-8625 fax
Other than the education to which we have numerous individuals and programs advocacy, has it been considered, the health concerns and the spread of children illnesses within the centers and preventive measures?
I searched long and hard to find a place to give credit to the director and staff of our neighborhood Kindercare. My child attends before and aftercare at Russett Kindercare in Laurel, MD. The director is a “leader” in every sense of the word and her staff is awesome! Please pass on my comments from someone at the top. Thanks!
JM
Hello Dr. Yalow.
I wish you could meet a star that I know in education who is definitely on the right path. After reading about you I just had this great urge to contact you. My daughter Raycheal Fernandes is currently working towards her Masters Program at Sacramento State, CA. Her current employer is the Sacramento Office of Education in the Bridging Model currently. Of course her aspirations, projects stem far beyond the imagination. Ms. Fernandes is a very multifacted person at 35 years of age raising two little girls. Her accompolishments are unbelieveable. Ms. Fernandes is working towards her Masters in Special Education-that once so over looked field. Ms. Fernandes also happens to be my daughter.
When I read your profile pages I had this immediate urge to write you, the two of you are so much alike. It’s women with dreams and visions the desire to make changes that are so needed in society today.
Dr. Yalow, I hope if your life should happen to bring you to Sacramento you take the time out of your very busy schedule possibly to meet Ms. Fernandes.. I know she would be so delighted to meet someone so accompolished. Her assigned number with the department is 916-261-2812
Dr. Yalow,
Since you were posting about family engagement, I wanted to make you aware of two new books out from respected educational publisher, Maupin House. In Anytime Reading Readiness and Before They Read, I have given communities, schools and parents groups a framework for facilitating complementary, targeted promotion of three big ideas that bring children to the reading table, ready at their “prime time”. In invite you to explore them at http://maupinhouse.com/index.php/featured-products/home-school-literacy-partnership-set.html?SID=e7de663a7a0337ba99ab4f0c25bced70. These can start a revolution if we stop trying to make teachers into parents and parents into teachers.
Last Child in the Woods ––
Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder,
by Richard Louv
Michael J. Vandeman, Ph.D.
November 16, 2006
In this eloquent and comprehensive work, Louv makes a convincing case for ensuring that children (and adults) maintain access to pristine natural areas, and even, when those are not available, any bit of nature that we can preserve, such as vacant lots. I agree with him 100%. Just as we never really outgrow our need for our parents (and grandparents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.), humanity has never outgrown, and can never outgrow, our need for the companionship and mutual benefits of other species.
But what strikes me most about this book is how Louv is able, in spite of 310 pages of text, to completely ignore the two most obvious problems with his thesis: (1) We want and need to have contact with other species, but neither we nor Louv bother to ask whether they want to have contact with us! In fact, most species of wildlife obviously do not like having humans around, and can thrive only if we leave them alone! Or they are able tolerate our presence, but only within certain limits. (2) We and Louv never ask what type of contact is appropriate! He includes fishing, hunting, building “forts”, farming, ranching, and all other manner of recreation. Clearly, not all contact with nature leads to someone becoming an advocate and protector of wildlife. While one kid may see a beautiful area and decide to protect it, what’s to stop another from seeing it and thinking of it as a great place to build a house or create a ski resort? Developers and industrialists must come from somewhere, and they no doubt played in the woods with the future environmentalists!
It is obvious, and not a particularly new idea, that we must experience wilderness in order to appreciate it. But it is equally true, though (“conveniently”) never mentioned, that we need to stay out of nature, if the wildlife that live there are to survive. I discuss this issue thoroughly in the essay, “Wildlife Need Habitat Off-Limits to Humans!”, at http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/india3.
It should also be obvious (but apparently isn’t) that how we interact with nature determines how we think about it and how we learn to treat it. Remember, children don’t learn so much what we tell them, but they learn very well what they see us do. Fishing, building “forts”, mountain biking, and even berry-picking teach us that nature exists for us to exploit. Luckily, my fort-building career was cut short by a bee-sting! As I was about to cut down a tree to lay a third layer of logs on my little log cabin in the woods, I took one swing at the trunk with my axe, and immediately got a painful sting (there must have been a bee-hive in the tree) and ran away as fast as I could.
On page 144 Louv quotes Rasheed Salahuddin: “Nature has been taken over by thugs who care absolutely nothing about it. We need to take nature back.” Then he titles his next chapter “Where Will Future Stewards of Nature Come From?” Where indeed? While fishing may bring one into contact with natural beauty, that message can be eclipsed by the more salient one that the fish exist to pleasure and feed humans (even if we release them after we catch them). (My fishing career was also short-lived, perhaps because I spent most of the time either waiting for fish that never came, or untangling fishing line.) Mountain bikers claim that they are “nature-lovers” and are “just hikers on wheels”. But if you watch one of their helmet-camera videos, it is easy to see that 99.44% of their attention must be devoted to controlling their bike, or they will crash. Children initiated into mountain biking may learn to identify a plant or two, but by far the strongest message they will receive is that the rough treatment of nature is acceptable. It’s not!
On page 184 Louv recommends that kids carry cell phones. First of all, cell phones transmit on essentially the same frequency as a microwave oven, and are therefore hazardous to one’s health –- especially for children, whose skulls are still relatively thin. Second, there is nothing that will spoil one’s experience of nature faster than something that reminds one of the city and the “civilized” world. The last thing one wants while enjoying nature is to be reminded of the world outside. Nothing will ruin a hike or a picnic faster than hearing a radio or the ring of a cell phone, or seeing a headset, cell phone, or mountain bike. I’ve been enjoying nature for over 60 years, and can’t remember a single time when I felt a need for any of these items.
It’s clear that we humans need to reduce our impacts on wildlife, if they, and hence we, are to survive. But it is repugnant and arguably inhumane to restrict human access to nature. Therefore, we need to practice minimal-impact recreation (i.e., hiking only), and leave our technology (if we need it at all!) at home. In other words, we need to decrease the quantity of contact with nature, and increase the quality.
References:
Ehrlich, Paul R. and Ehrlich, Anne H., Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearances of Species. New York: Random House, 1981.
Errington, Paul L., A Question of Values. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1987.
Flannery, Tim, The Eternal Frontier — An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples. New York: Grove Press, 2001.
Foreman, Dave, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. New York: Harmony Books, 1991.
Knight, Richard L. and Kevin J. Gutzwiller, eds. Wildlife and Recreationists. Covelo, California: Island Press, 1995.
Louv, Richard, Last Child in the Woods — Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2005.
Noss, Reed F. and Allen Y. Cooperrider, Saving Nature’s Legacy: Protecting and Restoring Biodiversity. Island Press, Covelo, California, 1994.
Reed, Sarah E. and Adina M. Merenlender, “Quiet, Nonconsumptive Recreation Reduces Protected Area Effectiveness”. Conservation Letters, 2008, 1–9.
Stone, Christopher D., Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1973.
Vandeman, Michael J., http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande, especially http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/ecocity3, http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/india3, http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/sc8, and http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/goodall.
Ward, Peter Douglas, The End of Evolution: On Mass Extinctions and the Preservation of Biodiversity. New York: Bantam Books, 1994.
“The Wildlands Project”, Wild Earth. Richmond, Vermont: The Cenozoic Society, 1994.
Wilson, Edward O., The Future of Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.