Childhood Education articles from September 1997

Childhood Education archives from September 1997

Educating through the arts: an introduction. (play and creative arts in furthering children's growth)
September 15, 1997... Teachers all over the world have much to learn from each other. The purpose of this second International Focus Issue (IFI) of Childhood Education is to share ideas with colleagues from outside North America. Until the advent of these annual...

The arts as the basics of education.
September 15, 1997... A local Canadian school, in its newsletter to parents, has been boasting that it offers its students "job-ready skills." The school has been tailoring its curriculum to "produce" precisely what various local employers seem to want. This...

With a marble and telescope: searching for play. (play in children's education)
September 15, 1997... Lately, I have been going into different classrooms, bringing with me only the glassy spectrum of light that a shining marble holds. I hold the marble snugly between my thumb and index finger, and lift it above my head so everyone in the room can...

How to create a world. (stimulation of creativity in children)
September 15, 1997... My primary goals for the "How To Create a World" project were to stimulate children's creativity, enhance their ability to plan and help them realize the power of their own activities, and to promote an ecological way of thinking. I also sought...

Play and the arts: the importance of the 'unimportant.' (Play and the arts in children's education)
September 15, 1997... Play is a voluntary activity which takes place within certain fixed limits of time and space. Play also contains tensions and uncertainty. It has nothing to do with necessity, utility or duty. - Johan Huitzinga. Homo Ludens (1950) I was very...

Learning how to learn: the arts as core in an emergent curriculum.
September 15, 1997... The arts mean different things to different people. While many of us enjoy and appreciate artistic experiences, we often find it difficult to explain exactly what we have come to know or understand as a result of our artistic encounters. "That...

Eagles, reptiles and beyond: a co-creative journey in dance. (Children's Center)
September 15, 1997... Come with us to the Children's Centre in Melbourne, Australia. Operated by the University of Melbourne's Department of Early Childhood Studies, the Centre is unique for its special programs in dance and visual arts. Here, over a 10-week period in...

Stimulating an appreciation of the arts through noteworthy books in Spanish.
September 15, 1997... Spanish-speaking children, like other children, sometimes need to be enticed into the worlds of books and reading. The arts can help! Indeed, they provide some of the most enjoyable ways to combine excitement, aesthetic experiences and...

The cultural context of infant caregiving.
September 22, 1997... To be prepared for the 21st century, early childhood teacher educators, educators of child care personnel, and early childhood practitioners need an expanded conceptualization of infant caregiving. Instead of preaching "universals" exclusively,...

How to calm children through massage.
September 22, 1997... This article was written by an early childhood professor in Chile. It describes how she, as director of the early childhood center associated with the University of Playa Ancha at Valparaiso, Chile, conducted an informal study to determine if...

Using song picture books to support emergent literacy.
September 22, 1997... Music enriches the lives of children in many significant ways. Lullabies played during infancy have a calming effect and offer reassurance from the earliest days of life. During toddler and preschool years, traditional nursery rhyme songs like...

Teacher response to superhero play: to ban or not to ban?
September 22, 1997... Superhero play has received a great deal of attention from parents and educators in recent years. As defined here, superhero play refers to the active, physical play of children pretending to be media characters imbued with extraordinary...

Teenage parenting: challenges, interventions and programs.
September 22, 1997... Although the overall birth rate in the United States has declined since 1970, the rates of adolescent pregnancies and childbearing remain higher than in many other industrialized countries (Testa, 1992). More than 500,000 teenagers in the U.S....

Reflections from a NBPTS "trailblazer." (National Board for Professional Teaching Standards)(ACEI Exchange)
September 22, 1997... What is an accomplished teacher? What do I have to do to become certified? How much time will it take me? Who will read my portfolios? Is there any support help available? Is there a number I can call for more information? These are only some of...

Get INGEARs! (International Network for Global Education Activities in Rural Schools)(ACEI Exchange)
September 22, 1997... In 1986, a program began at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale that involved the cooperation of the College of Education (COE), the SIUC Office of International Programs and Services (IPS), and representatives of the Illinois Office of...

What is the math moral of the story? (using children's literature to teach mathematics)
September 22, 1997... When one thinks of stories with morals, Aesop's Fables come to mind. The lesson or moral contained in these pithy stories is a general statement about life and how to live it. A story with a "math moral" illustrates a general principle of...

Seth's story: the tale of a self-determined retention.
September 22, 1997... Every good story has a climax. The climax to Seth's story took place as his mother drove him along a busy southern California freeway. Such a thoroughfare is not the best place for a 5th-grader to make special announcements. It was there,...

Family television viewing - how to gain control.
September 22, 1997... With 99 percent of the homes in America having at least one television set, as well as 58 percent of children ages 6-17 having a television in their bedrooms, it is no wonder that television viewing claims a significant influence over our...

The Moral Intelligence of Children.
September 22, 1997... At both the beginning and the end of this book, Coles tells tales of his younger self wanting specific answers from his mentors and being denied the "satisfying generalization" for which he yearned. Readers who yearn for this widely published...

The Vulnerable Child: What Really Hurts America's Children and What We Can Do About It.
September 22, 1997... The Vulnerable Child is a powerfully written book that raises a number of provocative issues that must be addressed if America is to succeed in strengthening its families. Weissbourd, a Harvard University policy expert, exposes a variety of...

First Steps Toward Teaching the Reggio Way.
September 22, 1997... Interest in the Reggio Emilia approach to working with young children appears to be sweeping the world of early childhood education. Some teachers have read about the exemplary practices of the schools in Reggio Emilia, a town of 130,000 in...

Girls in the Middle: Working to Succeed in School.
September 22, 1997... Girls in the Middle is an important book. First, it simultaneously considers gender, school and community cultures. This makes its contributions distinctive and noteworthy - linking the tenets of middle-level education (e.g., the Carnegie Council...

Years of Promise: A Comprehensive Learning Strategy for America's Children.
September 22, 1997... This report underlines our collective responsibility toward children from communities that have historically not provided good education. It emphasizes that children and families are not the problem, and cites many examples of children who...

A kaleidoscope of new topics and titles in video viewing for education, entertainment and just plain fun.
September 22, 1997... Given the current explosion of new videos, this column will review a kaleidoscope of videos that reflect myriad topics. Some reviews represent individual videos, while others offer somewhat abbreviated glimpses of promising new series....

Cooperative learning: making it work in your classroom.
September 22, 1997... The concept that "teachers affect eternity" puts into perspective the task we face each day as we encounter differences in levels of interests, learning styles and cultures. Newly acquired knowledge is more likely to carry meaning in everyday...