Shirley Chisholm is recognized for being the first African American woman to be elected to Congress, as well as the first African American woman to campaign for the United States presidency. Born in Brooklyn, Chisholm began her career as a teacher and education consultant for New York Cityâs day-care division. In 1964, Chisholm entered the political arena when she was elected to the New York State Legislature. Four years later, she was elected to Congress, where she gained a reputation as a trailblazer for minorities in politics.
During her time in Washington, the distinguished congresswoman led expansion of food and nutrition programs for the poor and rose to party leadership. Admirers and foes alike dubbed her the "Pepperpot" because of her fondness for saying, "I breathe fire." In 1983, Chisholm retired from Congress and taught at Mount Holyoke College, while continuing her political organizing. In 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated Chisholm as the U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica, but the woman who had broken so many barriers declined due to her ill health. In 2015, Chisholm was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was also recognized by the U.S. Postal Service with the Shirley Chisholm Forever Stamp in 2014.
Convinced that her vocation would be in early childhood education, Chisholm enrolled in the graduate program at Columbia Universityâs Teacher's College. Known for her work ethic, Chisholm worked at a day-care center during the day, attended night classes at Columbia, and then took the long subway ride home back to Brooklyn. Weekends were devoted to studying, for she was extraordinarily conscientious about her studies, and most of her free time was spent in the library or participating in a myriad of campus and extracurricular activities. The fruits of her efforts soon materialized and in 1951 Chisholm received her Master of Arts degree in elementary education from the Teachers College of Columbia University.
During her life, Chisholm always enjoyed a positive relationship with her alma mater. In 1972 she returned to campus as a U.S. Representative in order to deliver her talk: "The Individual and His Environment: Implications for Education." A couple years later she was back at Columbia to discuss politics and race. "Much of the racism in the United States is caused because blacks and whites do not know each other," she explained, supported by loud applause and shouts of encouragement from a capacity crowd of about 150 in Columbia's Lehman Auditorium.
Since those days, Chisholm has been honored by her school at least twice. In 1985, she received a Distinguished Alumni Award from Teachers College. Even more, Columbia now offers The Shirley Chisholm Dissertation Award. Named after the history-making woman, the university award recognizes a scholar whose dissertation deepens understanding of the value and contributions of people of color in advancing the aims of democracy through racial and gender equality, immigrant rights, and access to improved education and healthcare in the United States.


The National Music Plan
The National Plan for Music Education will be rolled out across Wales from September 2022. The vision of this plan is for all children and young people across Wales, regardless of background, to have the chance to learn to play an instrument.
Experiencing the joy of music, in all its forms, should be at the heart of every school and setting.
The plan aims to
- Break down the barriers to access music provision by all learners
- Support schools and settings in their delivery of Curriculum for Wales
- Build stronger links with organisations to ensure a diverse range of opportunities for music-making and enjoying music
Merthyr Tydfilâs approach to realising the vision outlined in the National Music Plan is currently being developed in partnership with schools, community groups and a wide range of organisations.
A considerable amount of funding has already been invested in developing Merthyr Tydfilâs music instrument resource, in order to support the development of a loan scheme, giving access to all learners of musical instruments in and outside of schools and settings.
There are a number of programmes of work linked to the plan, which will be developed. These are
- First experiences and Live music experiences
- Music pathways
- Making music with others
- Music for health and wellbeing
The Music Service offer, currently outlined in MENU (Music Education Needs Us) will be built up in line with the National Music Plan. The current MENU consists of
- Whole Class Ensemble Tuition
- Small group lessons
- 1-1 lessons
- Use of âcharangaâ
- Techniques and Warm up videos
- Merthyr Tydfil Youth Music
- Expressive Arts Projects
- Outreach projects from the Royal College of Music and Drama
- External exam preparation and entry
To find out more about the service, please get in touch with email@example.com


Curriculum development, Developing countries, Lao, Literacy education, Multimethod techniques, Primary school curriculum, Professional development, Teacher effectiveness, Teacher improvement
The Government of Lao Peopleâs Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) is undertaking significant primary education reforms, supported by the Australian Government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) through its flagship Basic Education Quality and Access in Laos program (BEQUAL). The Australian Government has commissioned a study to investigate how the BEQUAL program is making a difference to improving teaching quality and student learning outcomes. This research is part of a multi-year study series undertaken by DFAT's Education Analytics Service to investigate teacher and learning development initiatives in three countries: Lao PDR, Timor-Leste and Vanuatu. In 2019, the new curriculum for Lao language and other subjects was introduced for Grade 1 and is being phased in across all five primary grades. The new curriculum promotes teaching practices that support pedagogies focused on student-centred approaches, active learning, assessment of student learning progress, and a phonics approach to teaching reading. Teachers are being provided with teacher guides and other teaching and learning resources, and receive face-to-face orientation on the new curriculum. In BEQUAL-targeted districts, education support grants are also available to facilitate additional in-service support for teachers and principals. This study has provided the opportunity to investigate teaching quality and student literacy outcomes in Lao PDR over two rounds of data collection, with another planned for October 2022. The Baseline Report captured âstate of playâ information in 2019 prior to major curriculum changes, as well as the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This summary provides an overview of findings and recommendations from the second year (2021) of the study, following two years of BEQUAL support for the implementation of the new Grade 1 Lao language curriculum.
Hollingsworth, H., Wong, D., Cassity, E., Anderson, P., & Thompson, J. (2022). Teacher development multi-year study series. Evaluation of Australiaâs investment in teacher development in Lao PDR: Interim report 1. Australian Council for Educational Research. https://doi.org/10.37517/978-1-74286-674-1
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright The Commonwealth of Australia, represented by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 2022
Place of Publication
Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Lao Peopleâs Democratic Republic


With the demand for nurses staying strong, the need for competent nurse educators persists. Nurse educators know how to deliver high-quality nursing education and how to evaluate curriculum based on relevant criteria. Nursing education has theoretical and practical components that help prepare tomorrowâs nurses for a range of different clinical challenges as they serve patients in different specialties and practice settings.
By introducing these students to the theoretical tools and practical skills of professional nursing, quality nursing programs develop new nurses into well-educated professionals capable of providing great nursing care and leadership. Graduates with MSN in Nursing Education degrees shape the future of nursing by serving in important academic, research or curriculum design roles. These professionals must understand how to educate and inspire others through great nursing curricula.
What Is Nursing Curriculum?
New nurses need to learn the theoretical basis of nursing care, and they need to understand how to practice clinical nursing skills. Nursing theory helps nurses understand why specific best practices and techniques are used and how nursing research developed these practices. Nursing curricula are designed to support these skills and foster critical thinking, empathy, research capabilities and other competencies nurses need to be successful. To accomplish these goals, classes are designed to encourage understanding and student interaction with the course material.
A great nursing curriculum successfully prepares students for the challenges and opportunities of todayâs nursing field. Beyond simply preparing students for nursing jobs, great curricula impart the professional commitments, ethical principles and resilience needed for success in this challenging and rewarding profession. Curricula should also reflect nursingâs diversity and celebrate the fieldâs multicultural perspectives. Nursing curricula that accurately address current issues and challenges in nursing help develop graduates who are ready for the challenges facing healthcare professionals.
Nursing Curricula Components and Challenges
Most great nursing programs balance nursing theory with practice. Nursing theory provides students with strong foundational knowledge such as the scientific principles behind nursing. Foundational skills and practices, such as infection prevention, are supported by nursing theory concepts and have specific procedural steps to follow that are typically taught in a clinical setting. Taken together, this knowledge enables new nurses to succeed as generalists and prepare for future specialist training.
Most practice settings are not ideal and nurses confront a wide range of challenges during the course of a typical work day. While new graduates may feel well-prepared for the challenges of nursing, many employers claim that schools need to improve nursing curricula. Patient care coordination, case management, information technology, leadership skills and even basic clinical skills top the wish lists of many employers and should be a priority for nurse educators and curriculum designers. The challenges nurses encounter in their jobs may stretch and test these skills, so nursing students should be well-prepared and know what to expect in their new roles.
Healthcare changes rapidly, with new delivery models being tested and implemented on a regular basis. Healthcare information technology has a more significant role in healthcare now than ever before, and nurses must be able to successfully transition to new computer systems, types of programs, and uses for technology as clinics and hospitals continue to implement new technology into healthcare practice. With many areas and specialties experiencing nursing shortages, nurses must also be ready for the challenges of working with limited support. High-acuity settings also present a challenge as nurses must respond to rapidly changing and uncertain patient conditions. Nurses must be prepared to work efficiently as members of multi-disciplinary teams and maintain strong communication skills. Nursing curricula should prepare students for these and other challenges by providing them with the skills and knowledge they will need. Well-educated nurses are more likely to succeed and meet employer demands.
Evaluating Nursing Curricula
As healthcare continues to change, the nursing profession experiences changes in how nurses are educated. Nurse educators must look closely at curricular effectiveness to ensure that essential skills and knowledge are properly taught. As more new nurses complete nursing school, employers and practicing nurses must be able to provide feedback to nursing educators. More communication between academic programs and practice environments may be necessary to ensure that more nurses receive the quality preparation they deserve.
As nurse educators, MSN in Nursing Education graduates understand what nursing curricula are designed to teach, how nursing programs teach knowledge and skills, and how to recognize well-designed curricula. A strong nursing curriculum teaches essential nursing skills, clinical decision-making, critical thinking and other important practices alongside foundational theoretical knowledge. The best curricula develop nurses who can meet the needs of todayâs healthcare system. The best programs prepare nurses to enter a rapidly changing healthcare system as well-educated professionals who are ready to be strong leaders.
Learn about the Lamar University online MSN in Nursing Education program.


In todayâs society, technology is fundamentally embedded in the everyday learning environments of children. The development of educative interactive apps is constantly increasing, and this is undoubtedly true for apps designed to facilitate musical development. So much so that computer-based technology has become an integral part of childrenâs musical lives, with music apps as present in their musical development as pencils and paper. One artist who not only intimately understands this evolution, but also knows how to harness its potential, is Icelandic singer/songwriter BjÃ¶rk.
In 2011, BjÃ¶rk released a concept album entitled Biophilia, presented as the first âapp albumâ ever to be released. It has subsequently made its way into the Museum of Modern Art, New York, as the museumâs first downloadable app in its permanent collection. Four years in the making, Biophilia explores the intersection between music, nature, and technology, with each of the ten songs on the album connected to its accompanying app, linking the songâs theme to a particular musicological concept. In an attempt to redefine how music is made in the 21st century, the ultimate aim of the Biophilia project was to develop a way of making music that is more intuitive and accessible than traditional academic approaches to music education.
The Biophilia project became the subject of a 2013 documentary entitled When BjÃ¶rk Met Attenborough, originally produced for and aired on Channel 4. During this interview, BjÃ¶rk explains that her quest to transform the way we understand music originated in her own childhood struggles with her classical music training:
âWhen I was in music school, when I was a kid, there were a lot of things that rubbed me the wrong way. It was hard for me to connect with, being in Iceland, and we were basically getting curriculums from Europe, based on 17th century German classical music. As much as I adore that, but at that time I wanted to connect more with Iceland. And also just how it had become really academic, and was removed from the physical.â
BjÃ¶rk argues that an overly academic approach to music education can be an obstacle to the intuitive act of music-making, particularly among children. This sentiment is echoed during the documentary by the celebrated neurologist, Oliver Sacks: âWith the music we have now, thereâs something intimidatingâ¦if there was some way of drawing anyone into acting with music or creating their own music, I think that would be extraordinary.â To counterbalance the historical approach, BjÃ¶rk harnessed 21st century technology to invent a new means of visualizing sound, providing children with novel resources to explore the ways in which music works.
The apps contained in Biophilia take our intuitive understanding of natural phenomena as a foundation, on which new and novel explanations of musical principles are constructed. They can be categorized as functioning either like conventional video games, or musical instruments. âMutual Coreâ is a video game that sets out to explore the theory of chords, by allowing the user to arrange geological layers that can then be played, much like a piano accordion. Chordal tension is illustrated through the differing strata, while the user tries to unite two detached hemispheres, driven apart by energy.
âThunderboltâ works more like an instrument, where tapping on the screen generates electrical sparks, and using two or more fingers at the same time produces arpeggios. These arpeggios can be played as backup to BjÃ¶rkâs same-titled song, or independently. The idea behind this app was to depict arpeggios to children in the simplest of manners.
BjÃ¶rk and her team of computer programmers set out to modify the visual representation of music, with the hope of revolutionizing the way children think about and create music. Biophilia is now a standard part of Icelandâs music curriculum, and several successful music workshops for children have been held around the world. Ultimately, what is incontestable is that children must be encouraged to create their own musicâthat through experimentation and exploration they can form their own aesthetic judgments. In this respect, music apps like those showcased in the Biophilia project must be applauded and adopted as essential tools in a childâs musical education.
Featured image: Music Class USA. Photo by ì¸í¸ ì¡° (Sungmin Yun). CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.


"To be successful, you have to be able to perform when it counts. You have to be able to handle the pressure. You need to not wilt in the competition."
We live and work in a world where competition separates the haves from the have-nots. Succeeding in our jobs and moving up the corporate ladder frequently involves going head-to-head with a colleague in what amounts to a âfriendly competition.â To be successful in life, to advance in your career, the authors of Top Dog argue that you have to be comfortable and able to stay focused when competing.
Many of us donât view ourselves as competitive. We are not the type to try to win, no matter the cost. Bronson and Merryman term this type of competitiveness as âmaladaptiveâ competitiveness, and they distinguish it from âadaptive competitivenessâ which is characterized by a determination to rise to a challenge while maintaining respect for the rules. Adaptive competitiveness, the healthy type of competitiveness this book explores how to motivate, is marked by âconstant striving for excellence, but not desperate concerns over rank.â
Aretas and the Benefits of Competition
"The Ancient Greeks did not fear that competition bred immoral behavior. They believed that competition taught moral behavior. Only by competing could people come to attain the full nobility of the human spirit. In simplest terms, they learned to fight fair, with honor and mutual respect for opponents. Aretas meant that competing had shaped you into a better person: competition challenged you to become the best you could be."
Bronson and Merryman provide evidence contradicting many of the commonly held beliefs about the dark side of competition. In particular, they pay a good amount of time showing how competition doesnât hurt creativity, rather, it enhances it. Taking the view of the Ancient Greeks, the authors argue that attaining excellence through competition is a supreme virtue, that competition challenges you to become the best you can be.
Bring Out Your Competitive Fire
"Healthy competitiveness is marked by constant striving for excellence, but not desperate concerns over rank. Itâs adaptive competitiveness that leads to the great, heroic performances that inspire us all."
To reap the benefits of competition, we must be sure to remain competitive in the adaptive sense, as discussed by Bronson and Merryman. That is, we must remain determined to improve ourselves and rise to meet a challenge head on. Rather than focus on what we could potentially lose, people who perform the best and benefit the most from competition are those who remain gain focused while maintaining a healthy respect for the rules.
Citing study after study in fields as varied as elementary education to professional sports, Bronson and Merryman note that it is the competitors who remain gain-focused that continue to improve their performance. Those who are gain-focused play to win; they increase their effort and take smart risks. Those who become loss-focused tense up, dwell on mistakes, and are unable to recover from those mistakes.
The key to maintaining a gain-focus is to train yourself mentally to accept that mistakes will be made, but to realize that just because you made a mistake, it doesnât mean you have lost the competition. In most competitions, an early mistake is hardly enough to cause you to lose the whole thing. Those who are able to learn from mistakes, adjust, and move on are those who will perform the best (and grow the most) in a competitive setting.
Creating a Competitive Workplace
"A workplace can be egalitarian and noncompetitive, but it will repel the stars, who fear they wonât get the recognition and compensation for their superior value."
How do you structure competition in the workplace to motivate greater effort from your employees? Bronson and Merryman argue that to âreviveâ someoneâs competitive spirit, all they need is an âequal match and a fighting chanceâ. The authors point to research showing that the smaller the competitive field and the closer the competition remains, people will continue to increase their effort, as long as they still believe they have a chance at winning.
The prize structure is also important; if you set the first prize too close to the second, it will not create enough competition, but if you make the first prize too much greater than the second, you may encourage cheating and other forms of âmaladaptiveâ competitiveness.
Top Dog explores many other dimensions of competition, exploring the benefits that can arise from healthy competition while also acknowledging the potential for competition to elicit maladaptive behaviors that, despite increasing effort, might actually hurt performance in the long run. I recommend Top Dog for any manager that utilizes competition to motivate his/her employees, as well as for any individual who would like to learn to thrive in a competitive environment.


I have been designing for the four Câs (critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity) throughout my career. Developing these four skills has become a focus of next generation education in order to prepare students for the rapidly changing workforce. Itâs true that advancements in technology and new social trends are changing how we work, but theyâre also having effects on our mental and social health as a society.
As an educational designer, my goal is to prepare students for the future, both in terms of career prep and overall wellbeing. While the four Câs support developing a comprehensive skillset for the future workforce, I have incorporated two more into my own design philosophy to support the overall wellbeing of students: community and compassion.
Designing for Community
At a time when mental health issues, bullying and school shootings are regularly on news, it is clear there is a need for a sense of community within our schools. In a past visioning session with Beaver Local Schools in Ohio, the word âcommunityâ rose to the surface to describe an ideal school environment. To deliver this for the district, I introduced Learning Communitiesâstudent centered areas with open visual connection between spaces, displays for student work and lots of natural lightâas an educational concept in my designs for their new K-12 school.
Designing for community and for collaboration are different concepts. While collaboration serves to teach students to work with their peers toward a common goal, designing for community involves creating an overall togetherness of body and mind through architectural layout, interior design and furniture. Student work galleries, quote walls and wall graphics serve to generate this feeling of togetherness within a transparent and visually connected layout. Natural light also goes a long way in positively affecting mood and creating a sense of wellbeing within the space.
The Case for Compassion
Emotional intelligence (which Iâve dubbed âcompassionâ) is the ability for students to recognize their own emotions and those of others, and to use that information to guide their thinking and behavior. Studies have shown that people with high emotional intelligence have greater mental health, job performance and leadership skills, making it a vital ability for todayâs student. And emotional intelligence is only expected to become more important in the future. World Economic Forum projects it will be one of the top 6 skills sought after in the workforce by 2020. So how do we design to foster compassion and emotional intelligence?
The best way to develop empathy in students through design is by offering them choices. In todayâs curriculum, teachers serve more as a âguide on the sideâ rather than a âsage on a stageâ, and the school design must support that. By offering students different environments (small group, large group or individual study) to complete their work, and various technologies to solve problems, we create choices that foster emotional intelligence.
For me, community and compassion are necessary additions to the 4 Câs in school design. It is not enough to focus on developing skills for the future if ideals of mental health and wellbeing are left by the wayside. As school designers, it is our job to keep up with the changing needs of todayâs students, as well as the students of the future, in order to deliver environments that nurture them in every way.
The tragedy at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, has once again brought the issue of school security into the national conversation. In 2020, Fanning Howey hosted a school security webinar featuring Michael Dorn, ExecutiveFull Article
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Social-Emotional Learning & Art Education Art education is integral to the way in which students learn about self-expression and develop their creative interests. It is well suited for addressing elements of social-emotional learning including, butFull Article


Like most vocations, male artists largely dominated the history books of ancient times in relation to art and fine works. For generations, only a select few women ever become featured in art literacy or history.
Although it is true that until around 1860, women were discouraged from attending art school, whereby excluded from fine art education and often restricted to painting flowers, fruits, and still life, often subjects not held in much esteem in the early 19th century.
This doesnât mean women were not trailblazers, pushing the boundaries on social norms of the time, creating works of art often under a false name to allow for their artwork to be shared amongst society of their specific time.
Thanks largely to the womenâs movement and feminism, recognition of female artists started to become apparent and today that legacy of those âtrailblazersâ is showcased in the many female artists dominating the art scene.
Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 â 1656)
One of the most accomplished painters in her generation, Artemisia Gentileschi was an Italian artist known for her powerful naturalistic style, portraying women not has the âweakâ or âdowntroddenâ, but in positions of power and dominance. This can be seen in per famous work Judith Slaying Holofernes, which shows a bloody encounter of two women overpowering and slaying a man, which is at odds to many other paintings of the same scene that depict Judith as weak.
Elisabeth Louise VigÃ©e Le Brun (1755-1842)
Elizabeth was a portrait painter, who painted some 660 portraits and 220 landscapes, some of which hang in Londonâs National Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Louvre! By the age of 19, Elizabeth joined the AcadÃ©mie de St Luc, at a time when very few women were admitted, and by the age of 20, she was established at court.
Formally the official portrait artist to the Queen of France, in a time where only male artists were traditionally featured, Elizabeth embodied the gift of being able to recognise and depict poise and stature in her portraits and landscapes â her stunning works speak to her tenacity, as well as skill.
Dame Laura Knight (1877 â1970)
The first woman ever accepted into the Royal Academy, however, as with many women of the era, experience poverty for many years, which, in fact, inspired her to paint. Dame Lauraâs focus was in art was depicting the marginalised, the downtrodden and often misunderstood communities and individuals of the time.
One of her more contentious works was that of a portrait of herself painting a nude â at the time, taboo for females, who were expected to only paint from drawings of nudes or plaster casts!
Tamara de Lempicka (May 16, 1898 â March 18, 1980)
A Polish-born artist Tamara was born into an extremely wealthy and prominent family in Poland. This female artist embraced a very distinctive style of âsoft cubismâ in her works, which could be considered art deco and cutting edge in terms of portrait paintings for the times. With a clean, elegant style, her works and Tamara de Lempicka as an artist become the most fashionable of her generation!
Historically women in art were largely pushed back and behind their male counterparts, not for lack of skill, nor a lack of works, but due to the misogynistic nature of history. While the 1960âs saw a revolution of sorts, and today some of the most well recognised domestic and international artists, art historians, curators and industry leaders are indeed women â it wasnât always this way, and it was by no means easy.
There are many important female artists throughout history and today, from all over the world. To learn more, invest or purchase art by great female (or male) artists, contact Art Works today for a catalogue and artist listing.


There are numerous academic journals mentioned about how small-class teaching could help catering for the learning differences in âmainâ subjects under the curriculum. For the rising awareness in music education in Hong Kong, more attention should be given to the approaches of taking care of the diversity in school music lessons. The purpose of the research paper is to discuss whether implementing small-class in music lesson is a suitable method to cater for the diversity. What learning differences existed in school music lessons and what strategies may small-class music lesson used to help taking care of the diversity in class will also be considered in the project. The effectiveness of small-class teaching in general lessons will be mentioned by using literature reviews. Moreover, qualitative research has been adopted as the main methodology that using interviews on music teachers, in order to focus on the music teachersâ opinions and comments on small-class music lesson. Concrete examples on designing small-class music lesson and suggestions of proper adjustment in small-class music lesson would be given. It is hoped that the awareness of universalizing small-class music lesson would be aroused.
|Qualification||Bachelor of Education (Honours)|
|Publication status||Published - 2016|
- Honours Project (HP)
- Bachelor of Education (Honours) (Music) (Four-year Full-time)
- Programme code: A4B042
- Course code: MUS4900


What did you learn in school? Typically, colleges offering courses in Elementary Education promote their programs with statements like this one from the well-regarded Michigan State Universityâs College of Education:
âIn order to meet the goals and objectives of the Elementary Teacher Preparation Program, you will progress through the program by taking the following Teacher Education (TE) core courses:
- In TE 150 and TE 250 (or TE 240), you begin to consider issues that are foundational to teaching diverse learners, working to understand how concepts such as equity vs. equality, the hidden curriculum, and cultural capital can help them make sense of schools as organizations, teaching and learning patterns, and classroom life. These courses can be taken during your freshmen and sophomore years.
- In TE 301, you begin to work on thinking like a teacher, in a careful study of classroom management, motivating students to learn, and lesson planning.
- In TE 401 and TE 402, you work on knowing like a teacher, integrating subject matter knowledge, curriculum, and pedagogy.
- During your internship year, TE 501 & TE 502 and TE 801, TE 802, TE 803, and TE 804, help prepare you to be engaged in the work of practicing like a teacher, putting it all together in actual supervised and mentored practice.â1
Unfortunately, many teacher preparation programs â I feel â do not adequately prepare teachers for success in the classroom. Obviously, some institutions do a better job than others do, of course.
When you look back over the courses you have taken to prepare to enter the elementary school classroom, can you think of any skills or knowledge that you might need that you have not yet acquired?
Do you know how, for example, to organize a grade book so that you can mark it âon the flyâ and correctly assess all your students by the end of the school day? Can you use an electronic grade book? Teachers in our district are moving away from paper-grade books to electronic ones!
Are you able to track a studentâs progress over the course of a week, month, term, or year? Are you comfortable with lesson planning? Can you make a poster, cut a straight line, and think of creative ways to recycle âfoundâ (free) items into educational materials? Are you able to quickly grade a pile of student homework so that you do not have to stay up all night to finish? These are going to be the real practical skills you will need â and some may come as a surprise!
You may be surprised, too, by the issues that you will have to face whenever you join the faculty at a school that is new to you. You will need to become familiar with the building layout, the people in the administrative offices, your colleagues, the school policies, rules, and the customary ways of doing things. You will encounter the local âschool culture.â
You will also need to do what you can to âtake ownershipâ of the classroom (or several classrooms) where you teach. Have your academic studies adequately prepared you for the day-to-day practice of teaching?
I look back on my own college experiences. Granted, we took the usual âMethodsâ courses and did the educational labs at various elementary schools. However, it seems to me now that they were not at all âin-depthâ in the way that I needed them to be.
For example, our âClassroom Managementâ course barely skimmed the surface of what a teacher needs to know about the mechanics of running a class. There was no discussion of how to take roll or how to utilize a grade book. These are essential and take up time in every class.
Other time-consuming items, to mention just a few, include adjusting window shades and room temperature, dealing with audiovisual equipment, and distributing supplies including helping students to locate lost pens or pencils. Construction noise, broken alarm systems or public address speakers, doorknobs that fall off or chairs or tables that break, people who go missing, get sick, or are simply lost â the list of possible disruptions to class time can be seemingly endless. These can take up the minutes of the class.
Adding up all the âtime-wasters,â by the time the bell rings signaling the end of the class, you can find you have had very little time to actually teach, or more importantly, for your students to learn. You may have had little or no preparation in college courses for how to deal with these ongoing (and often irritating) problems.
This is the only profession that I am aware of that expects a teacher fresh out of college to perform like a 20-year veteran â which to me is ridiculous.


Nathan Sheets has been living in the land of milk and honey since 2010. Now, he and his company Nature Nateâs Honey Co. want to share the sweetness with young studentsâand show them how to keep the liquid gold flowing.
This McKinney-based honey company worked with five educators to create its âLong Live The Beesâ lesson plan. The team hopes that teachers and other educators will use these tools to show kids how they can keep the bees buzzing.
Keeping honey bees healthy
The educational program has five parts to it. Some of the topics include how bees communicate with one another, why they need a hive, and what makes honey have different flavors. But the most important component is about what people can do to keep bees buzzing.
âItâs our hope that â¦ kids will be excited about protecting bee populations and have a greater appreciation for all the ways bees help us live healthy, happy lives,â Sheets said in a statement.
Although this is its first venture into elementary education materials, Nature Nateâs is no stranger to the classroom. They conduct bee health research at four different universitiesâCornell, University of Georgia, Texas A&M, and UT Dallas. Through a company and university partnership, Nature Nateâs helped UTD create an eight acre âno mow zone.â As the local plants flourished, it became a pollinatorâs paradise.
The big picture
Lesson plans are only part of Nature Nateâs âLong Live the Beesâ initiative. It was launched to start a conversation for people to know how the pollinators are essential to the worldâs ecosystemâand be aware of their times of trouble.
The National Agriculture Statistics Service reported that between 1947 and 2008, beehives decreased from 6 million hives to 2.4 million. Along with that 60 percent decrease, Nature Nateâs website states that honey production has declined by nearly 50 percent in the last 20 years.
In order to try and turn these trends around, their initiative focuses on a show and tell of sustainable choices. Nature Nateâs only partners with responsible beekeepers, uses recyclable and BPA-free bottles, and has biodegradable labels. They also provide an e-book for additional educational materials.
The initiative even has its own hashtag for people to add their bee thoughts to the social media buzz with #longlivethebees.
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States must be more inclusive in the treatment and use of minority and indigenous languages, the UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Fernand de Varennes, said today ahead of International Mother Language Day. He issued the following statement:
âLanguages are essential tools to communicate and share knowledge, memory, and history, but they are also key to full and equal participation. One of the most effective ways of empowering minorities and indigenous peoples is to guarantee the use of their language in education â particularly as medium of instruction â as long as it is practical, and to provide public services and employments opportunities in these languages.
Language rights are also important human rights matters for both minorities and indigenous peoples. Special Rapporteurs, including my own mandate, have already been critical of the reduction, and in some cases exclusion, of education in minority and indigenous languages which are discriminatory and thinly disguised efforts to assimilate minorities and indigenous peoples.
Rather than reducing or even eliminating the use of minority and indigenous languages in education, States should invest in the development of teaching materials, the training of teachers and the promotion of mother tongue as a medium of instruction â where feasible â to ensure that minority and indigenous children are provided with the literacy and numeracy skills that will be most useful in learning other languages, including official languages. This is the most effective way of guaranteeing equality and non-discrimination with respect to international law.
In celebrating the richness and beauty of the global linguistic tapestry, it is essential to move away from new forms of nationalist majoritarianism that assume that societies and states should have only one language to the exclusion of all others. This is inconsistent with inclusive societies that are respectful of the human rights of linguistic minorities and indigenous peoples. International Mother Language Day and the International Decade of Indigenous Languages are opportunities to promote and celebrate the worldâs linguistic and cultural diversity â and to fully recognise and protect equally the human rights of minorities and indigenous peoples and their languages.â
Dr Fernand de Varennes, the UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues, is Adjunct Professor at the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland-Galway, and Visiting Professor at the UniversitÃ© catholique de Lyon, France and Vytautus Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania. He is one of the worldâs leading experts on minority rights in international law, with more than 200 publications in some 30 languages.


Associate Professor Tanya S. Wright is the lead author of a new professional book that aims to improve literacy learning for children from birth through age 5.
The book, âLiteracy Learning for Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers: Key Practices for Educators,â is available now through the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).
âIn the last few decades, there has been an enormous amount of research about what literacy instruction looks like for very young children and how early childhood education supports that development,â said Wright. âIn these settings, children are having fun and playing and communicating in the classroom and learning aspects of literacyâbut it is educators who are setting up and planning those experiences in purposeful ways so children can have positive literacy learning experiences. Our book shares how educators can do that even more effectively in their classroom spaces.â
The bookâco-authored by Sonia Q. Cabell (Florida State University), Nell K. Duke (University of Michigan) and Mariana Souto-Manning (Erickson Institute of Chicago)âis intended for educators who work with infants, toddlers and preschoolers to learn about the latest research, resources and strategies. Wright says parents and other caregivers may also find inspiration in its pages.
Using practices of knowing, sharing, designing, including, engaging, explaining, observing and responding, the authors expand upon five key elements of early literacy learning in the opening pages* of their book:
- CLEVER COMMUNICATORS â Both language and knowledge are critical for understanding texts and for learning about the world. In Chapter 1, early childhood educators learn to support young children in building knowledge and in developing language, including vocabulary, to talk about the concepts they learn and texts that are read.
- PRINT NAVIGATORS â As children interact with different types of written text, they learn about how print is used to convey meaning. In Chapter 2, early childhood educators learn to support childrenâs print awareness and understandings about print through intentional teaching and by encouraging children to engage with literacy materials in meaningful ways.
- SOUNDâLETTER LINKERS â The understanding that oral language can be broken into smaller sounds is a critical building block for literacy development. Understanding the relationship between these sounds and the letters we use to represent sounds in named languages (such as English or Spanish) is foundational for both reading and writing. [In Chapter 3], early childhood educators learn to use games and activities that encourage children to play with sounds in words as well as developmentally appropriate ways to teach young children to recognize and associate letters with common sounds.
- RESOURCEFUL WRITERS â In the early childhood years, children can begin to represent their ideas using pictures, symbols and eventually letters. In Chapter 4, early childhood educators learn to encourage and support childrenâs attempts to share their ideas through writing.
- TEXT COMPREHENDERS â Young children can understand, enjoy, learn from and apply ideas from texts and images. In Chapter 5, early childhood teachers learn to engage children in read alouds and other interactions with written text that facilitate text comprehension and higher-order discussion.
Wright, a former kindergarten teacher, and fellow co-authors share how teachers can support these areas of development in ways that lead to purposeful immersion of literacy in the classroom.
Each section of the book includes teaching tips on how to enact practices, questions to guide lesson planning, and games and strategies.
âI hope, as individuals read this book, they understand that they are literacy educators. If you are talking to, reading with and playing with children, you are a literacy educator,â Wright said. âLiteracy is in so many elements of our day-to-day lives. This book captures even more ways educators can purposefully support our youngest learners.â
The bulleted list describing the five critical areas for young childrenâs literacy development is shared verbatim from the âLiteracy Learning for Infants, Toddlers & Preschoolersâ book. It is shared here with permission from the authors.


Winifred Berge is a passionate crafts lover and a devoted preschool educator. She holds a degree in Art Education and is a firm believer in integrating arts and crafts into her teaching curriculum. Winifred is convinced that art allows children to express their emotions and learn about their environment in a stimulating and enjoyable manner.
Hey there! I'm Sophie, and I'm here to help you discover some popular children's songs that are sure to get your little ones singing and dancing. Music is a powerful tool for learning and development, and it's a great way to engage preschoolers in a fun and interactive way. So, let's dive into some of the most beloved children's songs that you can enjoy with your little ones!
1. "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star": This timeless classic is perfect for soothing bedtime routines or for sparking your child's imagination during playtime. Sing along and encourage your child to join in on the twinkling actions with their fingers.
2. "The Wheels on the Bus": All aboard the musical bus! This song is a hit with preschoolers as they love imitating the sounds and actions of different parts of the bus. Encourage them to move their hands like wheels or honk like a horn.
3. "Old MacDonald Had a Farm": Get ready to sing about all the animals on the farm! This song is not only fun, but it also helps children learn about different animals and the sounds they make. Encourage your child to make animal noises and even act out the actions of each animal.
4. "If You're Happy and You Know It": This song is all about expressing emotions and having fun. Sing along and encourage your child to clap their hands, stomp their feet, or even shout "hooray!" when they're happy. It's a great way to get them moving and grooving!
5. "The Itsy Bitsy Spider": Watch your child's face light up as they follow the adventures of the itsy bitsy spider. Encourage them to use their fingers to mimic the spider climbing up and down, and even make raindrop sounds during the "down came the rain" part.
6. "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes": This song is perfect for teaching body parts and getting your child moving. Sing along and touch each body part as you go. You can even make it a game by singing faster and faster!
7. "Baby Shark": Dive into the ocean with this catchy tune that has taken the world by storm. Your child will love singing and dancing along with the shark family. Encourage them to make shark fin movements with their hands and swim like a shark.
8. "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep": This nursery rhyme is a classic that children have been singing for generations. Sing along and encourage your child to join in on the "baa, baa" parts. You can even extend the learning by talking about colors and counting sheep.
These are just a few examples of popular children's songs that preschoolers love. Singing and dancing to these songs not only brings joy and laughter but also helps develop language skills, coordination, and creativity. If you're looking for more song ideas, be sure to check out Preschool Playbook, where we have a wide range of educational songs for preschoolers.
Remember, the key is to have fun and create lasting memories with your little ones. So, put on some music, let loose, and enjoy the magic of music together!


Perhaps youâve said it yourself. Often people make the statement with pride, almost implying itâs âcoolâ to be bad at maths.
Imagine if the same number of people claimed âIâm not good at readingâ. I donât think it would be deemed socially acceptable â in fact, most people would be embarrassed to make that claim.
So why is it okay to by openly negative about mathematics? Why do so many openly claim to dislike mathematics, and why is mathematics seen as a domain only accessible to an elite group of âsmartâ people?
Research has proven humans are born numerate, so what happens in those few years when children are in school to make them hate maths?
A new report by the Australian Industry group claims that low literacy and numeracy skills in the Australian workforce are affecting business.
It calls for a renewed focus on literacy and numeracy skills to ensure we are able to address economic needs.
Does this mean teachers arenât spending enough time on literacy and numeracy, or are there other issues?
The mere mention of mathematics within a social situation often strikes fear into the hearts of young and old. A lack of confidence with basic numeracy and mathematics has significant implications in any workplace that ultimately result in decreased profit and productivity, yet issues surrounding confidence and ability with mathematics can be addressed early.
Negative attitudes can impact on subjects children choose
With the new school year looming, we need to promote more positive attitudes to mathematics and numeracy and turn things around for Australiaâs economic future.
Parents need to think carefully about how they talk to their children about mathematics. Regardless of how they experienced school mathematics and how they perceive mathematics, claims like âI was never good at maths when I was at schoolâ are not helpful. Children notice.
Molly, a year 6 participant in my research on student engagement, made this comment when asked about what her family think about mathematics:
âMy mum doesnât really like me asking her because she thinks she doesnât have a maths brain. She thinks that sheâs got more of an English brain than anything else.â
Not surprisingly, Molly was not the only child who made that kind of comment.
Parentsâ negative attitudes or beliefs do have the potential to negatively influence children â ânot having a maths brainâ can be used as an excuse for opting out of mathematics in the senior years of schooling.
Evidence of this influence on childrenâs thinking can be seen in this quote, where Kristie, another participant, was describing her friendsâ attitudes towards mathematics:
âMaybe some just donât enjoy it the way I do, they just think maybe itâs not their subject. They might enjoy English.â
Promoting positive attitudes to maths
So what can parents do to promote positive attitudes towards mathematics?
Above all, they should never make negative comments about the subject.
If you are a parent and you are having difficulty with helping your child, seek help. In the primary years, many schools are happy to provide parent workshops to help parents understand new teaching methods. Workshops could also be held to help parents âbrush upâ on their own mathematics skills.
If your child is in secondary school and the mathematics they are learning requires more than a quick revision, donât panic. Itâs okay to say âI donât knowâ or âI donât remember how to do thatâ.
Try and find a way to assist your child in finding an explanation. This could be by seeking help online, encouraging them to seek help from their teacher, or, if required, finding an appropriate tutor who may be able to provide some remediation. Itâs better to seek help early.
One of the challenges with mathematics is that the concepts are hierarchical. That is, if children donât develop a deep understanding of foundational topics such as place value, gaps in learning begin to occur.
When mathematics becomes more complex, children who struggle with the foundations of mathematics cannot keep up with their peers and fall behind, often leading to negative attitudes, poor self-efficacy, and disengagement.
We need to stop allowing those around us, in our lives and in the media, to make such negative statements about mathematics â if we donât take a stand things will never change.


Beitrag gepostet von Sandra Annette Rogers
Problem-based learning (PBL) in simulated environments such as massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORGs) offers a variety of language-based scenarios with nonplaying characters providing model language support for cultural, vocabulary, and literacy development. Gaming provides situated learning of content in a PBL format (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989). For example, the U.S. Department of State designed Trace Effects, a video game (also a MMORG), for juvenile English language learners (ELLs) in 2012. The levels of the game take you to different American communities for rich situated learning among the varied cultural settings. (See my logic model for Trace Effects.)
I plan to investigate the use of a general MMORG as a language-learning vocabulary tool; it was not designed for ELLs. I will extend a study by Rankin, Gold, and Gooch (2006) that only had four college-aged intermediate and advanced level ELL participants. They reported that participants improved their English vocabulary by 40% from playing EverQuest II (EQ2) for four hours a week for four weeks without instructional supports. Nonplaying characters provided support by modeling language; in fact, the more they modeled, the higher the accuracy in vocabulary meaning. The authors acknowledged their small sample size and called for larger investigations of this type given the positive outcomes. I would like to verify and extend their findings using mixed methods to produce a more robust understanding of this phenomenon.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the proposed study is to determine whether college-aged intermediate and advanced level ELLs can learn vocabulary in a short amount of time from playing MMORGs. EQ2 provides opportunities for the characters (a studentâs avatar) to speak. The nonplaying characters (embedded support system) verbalize the rules and alerts to players. All the components in this game are labeled, which serves as an English language support mechanism. In their study, Rankin et al. (2006) found there was sufficient support for ELLs within the game; however, their findings were based on an extremely small sample. My study will include at least 50 participants with random assignment to control and treatment groups (experimental design). If college-aged ELLs could significantly increase their knowledge of English vocabulary by playing a free MMORG like EQ2, then this could be an important extracurricular activity for language teaching programs or informal learning agendas.
A special thanks to Dr. Burke Johnson for getting me started on my dissertation in his course this semester (Advanced Research Design).
Note: These are my humble beginnings. Iâve already begun the literature review and written about 22 pages.
See my PowerPoint presentation on MMORGs for Language Learning that I presented at SITE 2014 in Jacksonville, FL.


At some point even the most experienced musicians come across music notation symbols that they do not recognize off hand. Whether the strange marking is found in a symphony or a piece of percussion music, note symbols and other markings all have a specific meaning. To read them you just have to know where to go look to decipher them.
Visual Music Notation Symbol Dictionaries
By far the best and most reliable place to find the meanings of almost every music notation symbol ever written is to get ahold of one of the many different music dictionaries available today at your local music store or online through retailers like Amazon. There are literally dozens of these out there, but some are easier to navigate and find things in than others. One of the better visually oriented music dictionaries is the Essential Dictionary of Music Notation by Tim Gerou and Linda Lusk. The original book was so well received it also appears to have been reprinted by the large music publishing house, Alfred and is also available under their brand as well.
Music Symbol and Music Theory Definition Web Sites
For those looking for more web based guide to music notation symbols an excellent, and free, web site to look at is Dolmetsch Online. This well established music education site has a long and solid history of teaching people to play the recorder but their online music education tutorials and information is top notch as well. Their Dolmetsch Musical Symbols page shows a large variety of images of musical symbols and other music notation elements, each one descibed or at the very least named for further research.
Of course, I would be remiss if I did not point out good old Wikipedia's rather extensive image based list of music notation symbols and other markings. Their list is quite detailed, and provides additional information about each marking aside from just providing the name of it as several other guides do.
Music Notation Software Programs With Additional Symbols and Markings
Although all of the resources mentioned above are useful, there are still times when you will see a musical marking that you cannot easily discover the name of. In these cases it may be necessary to do something a little out of the ordinary. My experience has been that the newer, more robust music notation software programs such as Finale, Sibelius, MuseScore, and Maestro Composer all have a rather extensive list of markings and music notation symbols built into their programs. If all else fails download a copy of one of these free music notation programs or a trial copy of one of the commercial products and search through their menus until you find the correct musical symbols. Then, if need be use the dictionary or another source to find out a definition of what it does or how to play it.


The increasing number of students who enroll the Visual Art Department from year to year opens opportunities for increased art activities in Fine Arts. This increasing lead to activity as the core provision for prospective art teachers. Unfortunately, only few students who take advantage of this valuable moment as an effort to explore their future career. This phenomenon is important to be follow up as a consideration, due to opportunities for future students to run the business, becoming an artist, or even a curator. With such open chance career span they may live, basically when they are study in S1 Visual Arts, all of their knowledge and skills must be obtained from lecturers theoretical and practical. Lecturers are required to develop a suitable learning model, approach, instructional media, learning strategies, as well as reliable visual arts learning techniques. This theoretical paper will explore and summary several findings done by the expert and researcher (lecturers) about preparing instructional technology of its development for prospective art teachers in junior high school, high school/vocational school level. Finally, the paper describe how can students and lecturer gain beneficial from art activities carry on each semester.
instructional technology, prospective teachers, art education


Read Rightâs Unique Methods Produce Rapid Results
Are you frustrated with claims that the only path to reading success is intensive phonics instruction and the ability to quickly name words? Have your children or students been there, done that (e.g., DIBELS), and failed to grow in reading ability as promised?
YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Parents, teachers, and school systems across the country are wondering, âWhy arenât recommended methods working?â FACT: Two-thirds of all American students (Grades 4 â 12) read at or below a basic level by the time they reach Grade 4 (Source: National Assessment of Educational Progress data, 1992 â 2020). Hard-working teachers are not the cause. FACT: The condition has existed for decades â and Read Rightâs success with alternative methods explains why.
Read Right Reading Intervention is a REVOLUTIONARY APPROACH to reading improvement grounded in multiple areas of brain science and documented to work with all ages, all levels of reading difficulty, and most disabilities, including dyslexia. Over a 30-year period, Read Rightâs founder applied multiple areas of brain science to a unique approach to reading development, then documented its rapid success (months, instead of years) with elementary students, middle school students, college students, workforce adults, and a wide variety of reading issues and disabilities. Often, Read Right students attain grade level reading within one-half to one school year. Source: A comparison of 2010 Striving Readers Final Report data with comparable findings produced by Education Northwest in Evaluation of Read Right in Omaha Middle and High Schools, 2009-2010.
HERE IS THE PROBLEM: In the Year 2000, the National Reading Panel launched the idea that reading can be systematically taught through just five explicit instructional areas: phonemic awareness, phonics and decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension (in that order). However, in its original report, NRP members acknowledged there was not sufficient time to study more than the named five. The panel even named other areas of reading development that needed further study. Thus, they acknowledged what many reading experts know: reading is a far more complex neural activity. The most outspoken National Reading Panel member on this topic was the author of the NRPâs Minority View, Dr. Joann Yatvin.
HERE IS THE READ RIGHT SOLUTION: For decades, the field of cognitive psychology has recognized that all learning involves two distinct memory systems: explicit or declarative memory (this is all knowledge that can be stated; thus, it can be readily taught through explicit instruction) vs. implicit procedural memory (all the complex neural processing that must occur to perform any process, such as talking, walking, playing an instrument, performing a sport, reading, math, and much more. Procedural knowledge cannot be âtaughtâ because it occurs below the level of conscious awareness. Instead, it must be developed through a strategic process of continual trial and error by the individual student, until success is achieved. Read Right methodology is the first to unite the explicit components necessary for the development of excellent reading ability, with highly structured strategies to compel successful implicit procedural learning. We define excellent reading as reading that always sounds as natural as conversational speech when performed aloud (proper pace and intonation with no miscues or awkward pausing) and always producing full comprehension (with sufficient background knowledge).
Read Right is a Game-Changer
CONTACT US or VISIT OUR Video Library to hear from students, parents, teachers, specialists, and school and college administrators whoâve all observed the rapid results weâve described. Choose from dozens of testimonial videos. More than 100 people asked to participate during the single week we created these videos â and no one was compensated for their participation.


A practical toolkit for supporting students with handwriting difficulties at key stage 3 and key stage 4. Dysgraphia toolkit is intended to help young people develop the fine motor skills they may be lacking and offers a full dysgraphia intervention programme targeting specific areas of need. Â£15.00
Our EAL toolkit is designed for teachers and teaching assistants who don't have a background in teaching English as an additional language to support EAL students in mainstream classrooms at key stage 3 and key stage 4. Â£15.00
Fix it reading - teacher handbook and student workbook
Designed to support struggling readers aged 11-14 whose reading attainment has fallen behind their expected level, Fix it reading is an intervention programme based on practical, evidence-based reading comprehension strategies. Â£30.00
Fix it reading supports struggling readers, by building their confidence and enjoyment in reading.
The Fix it reading teacher handbook, for experienced English teachers, non-subject specialists and TAs, will take you step-by-step through the 12-week programme, with detailed lesson plans and practical CPD guidance on how and why these reading comprehension strategies work.
The Fix it reading student workbook provides everything students need, including engaging texts to read, classroom activities and worksheets.
Perfect for supporting Pupil Premium students, as well as students whose progress in reading has been negatively affected by Covid-19, the lessons are devised for 1:1, small group and whole group intervention sessions or as a complementary resource in English classes.
Fix it writing - teacher handbook and student workbook
Structured intervention support to improve students' writing. Â£35.00
Fix it writing has been designed to support English teachers, non-specialist teachers and teaching assistants in identifying and 'fixing' problems in students' writing. It's ideal for targeted support and intervention sessions at KS2 and KS3.
The photocopiable, downloadable teacher handbook provides a structured sequence of 26 teaching sessions and resources, with detailed guidance on how to deliver these sessions to develop students' core skills. It includes chapters on: writing and punctuating sentences; planning, organising and linking ideas and paragraphs and choosing effective words.
The photocopiable student workbook includes all the classroom activities and resources to accompany the teacher handbook, enabling students to improve and build on their core writing skills.


To help us make great music for everyone please choose your amount and click Donate
Or, become a Supporter, Benefactor or Champion!
Why is Sound World needed?
Following years of neglect from successive governments, music eduction is gradually disappearing from schools. It is increasingly becoming the preserve of a privileged elite, while those most in need of its social and developmental benefits are missing out.
Yet music can contribute so much to addressing many of the fundamental issues facing disadvantaged young people today.
A wealth of research conducted by academic institutions across the world demonstrates, conclusively, the wide ranging benefits of music education to child development. In particular, research cites benefits to mental well-being and self-confidence as well as improvements in:
- cognitive ability
- numeracy & literacy
- critical thinking
- communication & leadership
- social cohesion
We believe that music should play a central role in education and through practical means, such as mentoring schemes, concerts and workshop programmes, we try to make this happen for young people today. But we also campaign and lobby government about this invaluable resource with the aim of improving the longterm status of music within our educational system.


Request access by completing the form at the bottom of this page.
By definition, Soft Skills are the transferable skills needed by an individual to make them âemployable.â Soft skills may also be known as employment, work-readiness, or foundational skills.
Why are they so valuable?
- Employers are not only looking for individuals with good technical understanding and subject knowledge; they are often looking for candidates with developing expertise, knowledge base or mindset that will make them a more valuable employee.
- Individuals with soft skills can continually improve their performance, minimize errors, collaborate with coworkers, and perform their roles more effectively.
- A candidate with a broader set of skills will stand out against other candidates with similar qualifications and experience.
Soft Skills Curriculum
The curriculum consists of six units covering the most sought-after soft skills. Unit lessons can take anywhere from 10-30 minutes. Feel free to adapt the outline to fit your classroom style!
- Problem-solving and Decision Making
- Social Skills
- Planning and Organization
- Time Management
- Customer Service
- Etiquette and Ethics
- Social Media
- Dress Codes
- Putting your skills to the test
- Cover Letter
- Putting it all together
Request Access Here:
Questions? Please feel free to contact the Farm Credit Knowledge Center at firstname.lastname@example.org.


Mantra - repeat daily before brushing teeth.
Reading makes you smarter.
(So what you read matters very much.)
Writing helps you think.
(It helps you clarify your thoughts.
It is like having a conversation with yourself and
it helps you put ideas in order.)
Icons suggest the readability of each book:
--1st (start here--big print and/or clear pictures),
--Next Read (slightly more difficult with fewer pictures or smaller print),
--Support Here (support means context clues, audio books, videos, or other books in the collection build background knowledge), and
--Challenging (the brick wall book icon represents text best read to the adult or teen).
Do you want to establish a classics library collection? Start here.
"I know about that pain.
I'm in the seventh reading group.
There's a special room for the seventh reading group.
They watch us go in there and they laugh at us.
They all know I'm stupid."
Chapter 4, In Forsaken Hands
In Forsaken Hands:
How Theory Empowers Literacy Learners
In Forsaken Hands is designed for the teacher, tutor, parent, or spouse of someone who does not read or write well.
The literacy coach may read these gripping stories to the adult or teen learner. Each case provides clues into how reading develops and what the older learner can do to get past experiences that have thwarted them.
Each chapter is designed to lead the reader into an understanding of how literacy develops and what the terms are that are used by professionals in the fields of reading and literacy.
Each chapter is story about an adult, teen or child the author has taught. Details of the lessons help the reader understand the process.
This book is not a utopia. Adults who have grown up non-readers in a literate society have many problems they have had to combat through compensation. Even the very young acquire these skills, skills that do not help them learn to read.
In Forsaken Hands will give the reader both tools for supporting literacy development and understanding of why it has not happened.
Two factors appeared 100% of the time
in the early childhood profile of the
1. No memory of being read to for pleasure either during the pre-school years or during the early elementary school years.
2. A history of child abuse, either profound neglect or physical violence or both during the time the child should have been leaning to read.
You'll find more about this in In Forsaken Hands.
The process of placing the power of theory into the hands of the learner is demonstrated here.
The concept of the Disempowering Significant Other (DSO) will help the tutor or reading teacher comprehend negative influences that may foil even the best of methods.
Readers may expect to acquire the theoretical terms and concepts related to reading while they are reading about these very interesting adults.
The annotations include anecdotal information and tips for use.
The book also has a collection of teaching methods appropriate for reading and ESL.
Other Literacy and Language Publications
Early reports of literacy and language research are published in journals years, sometimes decades, before they show up in books. My research and teaching methods have been published in many of the leading education and reading journals including:
Phi Delta Kappan
Early stories of the child Arthur and the man Harry appeared in this journal. It was in the Arthur story that the concept and term of the Disempowering Significant Other (DSO) was first seen.
The story of the very young pre-literate mother of six and her child who could not read appeared here. The spelling lesson reveals a dichotomy between how children of literate families learn phonics in context and the phonics practices imposed in isolation on the poor.
The Journal of Reading
My research first telling of the early childhood profile of the adult non-reader (mentioned above) was published here.
The Reading Teacher
A short edition of Irma of the ghetto was here. Irma was given library books to take home to a chaotic situation where they were lost. As a result, she spent a year in school without books.
About case study participants
Although the people who participate in my research do so willingly and usually see my work in progress, I do not use their actual names in published papers.
Any case study participant names that appear here or in my books and articles are made up.


International Day of Persons with Disabilities 2021
December 3rd is International Day of Persons with Disabilities; a commemorative day observed each year on December 3rd when people around the world take time to understand and support those living with disabilities. This Day was first promoted by the United Nations in 1992 and has been observed every year since.
On this special Day of awareness, CURE International is both proud to have made a difference in the lives of so many and humbled by the need to extend care to more people suffering from a treatable disability.
According to a recent report published by UNICEF, nearly 240 million children today are suffering from at least one disability. For perspective, 240 million is roughly equivalent to the populations of Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and Malawi â combined.
The UNICEF report used an advanced research method known as The Child Functioning Module to perform the first-ever cross-national survey with comparable data on children with disabilities to estimate the total number of children with disabilities.
In addition to the total number of children suffering from disabilities, the report also shed light on how children with disabilities perform in life compared to their healthy peers.
Children with disabilities are:
- 53% more likely to have symptoms of acute respiratory infection
- 49% more likely to have never attended school
- 42% less likely to have foundational reading and numeracy skills
- 24% less likely to receive early stimulation and responsive care
âThe extent to which children with disabilities are deprived, feel discriminated against and lack hope for the future makes it clear that societies are not doing enough to realize the most basic human rights of all children,â the UNICEF report states. âAs a result, the vicious cycle of exclusion and disadvantage that leaves children with disabilities behind continues.â
When CURE International treats a disabled child, we not only treat a debilitating health condition but also get the world closer to ending the social exclusion that children with disabilities face.
Every one of these statistics represents real, breathing children. We must also remember that there is something that can be done today to alleviate treatable disabilities in children.
CURE Internationalâs hospitals provide world-class care by highly-trained surgeons and caregivers who provide life-changing treatment for children with disabilities. The generosity of CUREâs donors allows the nonprofit organization to provide free pre-surgery evaluation, surgery, physical therapy, and mobility device fitting options for children in the poorest countries in the world.
âWhile CURE International has long recognized the pressing need to treat children with disabilities, this new report demonstrates just how much work there is still to do,â said Justin Narducci, President, and CEO of CURE International.
CURE staff not only treats the physical ailments of its patients but also shares the love of Jesus Christ with patients, caretakers, and their communities. Through your support of CURE International, our hospitals can continue their life-changing treatment of children living with treatable disabilities. To donate or learn about other ways to give, click here.


As India celebrates 75 years of Independence and embarks on the journey to a new India@100, as an Educationist, itâs imperative to look at education sector of the country which will play a key role in nation building and lead the country towards a better and a brighter future.
Education is our fundamental right. According to 93rd Amendment, Education for all has been made compulsory. The elementary education is a fundamental right of all children in the age group of 6-14 years which is also free. To fulfill this obligation Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) has been launched. Education is the only tool that can drive the country out of exploitation and poverty and for that the Government has always given importance to education. From a country with 19 percent literacy in 1951 to a country with around 75 percent literacy in 2011 (As per Census 2011) is a great achievement of which we can always be proud of.
To streamline the Education system, the successive governments implemented the recommendations of Kothari Commission under âNational Policy on Educationâ in 1968 to the NEP of 1986 which was updated in 1992 and finally the New Education Policy of 2020 has brought in a range of changes in the sector. There is absolutely no doubt that our public education system has grown many folds over the years where we can see the expansion of General Education, Development of Technical Education, Women education, Vocational education, Growth of higher education, Non-formal education, Encouragement to Indian Language and Culture, Adult education, Improvement of Science education, Schemes for Elementary, Secondary and Higher Secondary Education and so on. And all these efforts are getting the results but not as desired or it should have been. All these are on the piece of paper but practically the Education is the most neglected area of our country.
Lack of funds, Expensive higher education, Neglect of Indian languages, Problem of Brain drain, Mass illiteracy, Wastage of resources, Problems of primary education are some of the areas one has to really work on with the real desire of bringing a change in this sector.
We are making people literate not educated. For that whole mindset of the people in general and the society in whole has to change. And it will not come in a day or two. For that we have to start from NOW else it will be too late and then only we can celebrate Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav in real sense.


If youâre considering enrolling your child in an independent school, then youâve probably put a lot of thought to figuring out just what makes an independent school education different than a public school education.
Free Downloadable Guide: Take a Closer Look at Friends' Central School
Itâs true that independent schools usually ofer quite a number of benefits over a public school education, from smaller class sizes to more personalized curriculum to a wider breadth of extracurricular activities, and much more.
These are all incredibly important considerations. But what really sets an independent school apart from their public school counterparts is a commitment to their own unique educational philosophies and organizational missions.
When it comes to how and what they teach, public schools are limited. They are limited by bureaucracy, by a lack of resources, and often by the law, which dictates the material that teachers must cover from year to year (and which establishes proficiency levels that students are measured against).
Independent schools, on the other hand, are much freer to pursue educational practices that better align with their core missions, philosophies, and values, which very often aim to not only educate their pupils, but transform them into creative, civically-minded leaders.
Below, as an example of this in action, we explore four educational principles, each of which supports Friends' Central's mission, To Cultivate the intellectual, spiritual, and ethical promise of our students.
Four Principles of a Friends' Central Education
Joining the Friends' Central community is more than simply enrolling in a school. At Friends' Central, we cultivate the intellectual, spiritual, and ethical promise of our students. This shared mission serves our greater vision, which is to awaken courage and intellectâand peacefully transform the world.
We pursue our mission and vision every day by integrating these four principles into every aspect of life at Friends' Central:
- We are guided by our Quaker Values
- We educate for excellence
- We inspire tomorrow's leaders
- We honor the individual
Guided by Quaker Values
Our Quaker commitment to truth seeking and belief in the idea of Continuing Revelation drive an intense commitment to an education that is intellectual, thoughtful, and diverse. This includes our dedication to building a globally engaged community of students and faculty from different racial, religious, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds and an educational philosophy that is grounded in reflection, integrity, and a willingness to accept responsibility. Meeting for Worship and community service are at the very center of teaching these core values.
Educating for Excellence
Challenging, intellectual, and engaging, Friends' Central's curriculum builds foundational skills within an education that is innovative, thoughtful, and dynamic. At every level, our students are encouraged to ask questions and to seek answers that push beyond their impressive accumulation of facts. Never satisfied by âwhatâ, our students are always asking âwhyâ âhowâ and, perhaps most importantly, âwhy not?"
Friendsâ Central students distinguish themselves while at FCS, in college where they are known for their exceptional preparation, and in the world where their contributions are extraordinary.
Inspiring Tomorrow's Leaders
From nursery to grade 12, our curriculum requires students to amass knowledge and skills as individuals as they learn and collaborate in teams. With creativity fueling their progress, our students learn to adapt to new situations and ideas and to work hard to achieve their goals. Throughout their transformation from playful, eager children to skilled, self-possessed, socially conscious teenagers, they remain intellectually curious, independent, and engaged thinkers.
Friends' Central students gain both the academic skills and the personal qualities they draw upon to succeed in a rapidly changing, global world.
Honoring the Individual
At the heart of everything we do is the belief that each individual is valued and that each voice is important. Our students thrive because we approach every child as an individual and encourage his/her social and emotional development as well as academic growth. With a confidence that grows out of a community built on respect and individual value, our students find the courage to express their convictions and the empathy to listen respectfully to divergent viewpoints.
Building a Stronger Foundation for Personal Success
Public schools do the best they can to ensure success for their students, but they are limited in ways that independent schools just arenât. Whereas bureaucracy and law dictate not only what a public school teaches, but how they teach it, independent schools are allowed more freedom, which ultimately leads to a stronger foundation for a studentâs lifelong success.


Art and design
Statement of Intent
Our aim is to provide an Art education which enables children to reach great heights in their creativity and skills whilst appreciating and understanding the creative world in which we live. We want children to know more, understand more and remember more about art and design so that they can express their ideas with increasing creativity and sophistication.
At Horfield we consider art and design to be a vital part of every childâs education and therefore has a significant and valuable role in our curriculum. We intend to we aim to facilitate meaningful, memorable learning experiences within our vibrant, varied curriculum. Through effective teaching and a clear progression of learning children will develop their understanding of the visual language of art, allowing the children to flourish whilst producing creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences in their sketchbooks. Their sketchbooks are a personal space to try out ideas & techniques and to describe and annotate their thoughts, ideas, learning, discoveries, opinions, strengths and areas for development.
A clear understanding of the visual elements of art and design (line, tone, texture, colour, pattern, shape and 3D form) will be firmly rooted within a clear progression of knowledge throughout the following strands: drawing, colour, sculpture, printing and textiles.
Through our careful choice of artists studied we want to develop children's cultural capital with the inclusion of classic artists such as Gaudi or Da Vinci. We also want to help children understand that artists come from a variety of cultures and backgrounds including right here in Bristol. Through studying a mix of local, classic and diverse art we want children to know that artists can come from any background and help them to understand that they could be the artists and designers of the future.
Children will always be encouraged to: think critically, develop their understanding of art & design and learn about great artists (craft, design, architecture, textiles, sculptors etc) from a variety of backgrounds and cultures (past and present) and understand the historical and cultural links. What they learn will influence their own art. Children will also learn about local Bristol artists and experience some of the amazing art and culture that Bristol has to offer. Overall our intention is to provide an art and design curriculum which will enable all children to reach great heights whilst appreciating and understanding our vibrant and creative city and world that we live in. I
Inspired by The Little Ships of Dunkirk by Louise Borden, Year 5 embarked upon an exploration of different media to capture their âlittle heroic boats.â They developed their skills in water colour, textural direct press print, oil pastel and mixed media collage using acetate and torn layers of tissue paper.
Imagination Station, a cross-curricular, creative writing strategy that was created here at Horfield, blurs the lines between Art and Design and English, sometimes truly merging the two. In Imagination Station lessons, children combine Art and Design and English to create truly unique, inspirational, innovative pieces of work. Imagination Station can provide an additional opportunity, beyond Art and Design lessons, for children to develop key Art and Design skills. Laurel Steel, our Creative Arts Lead, has delivered Imagination Station training throughout Bristol and beyond and now many schools have also adopted this exciting, creative strategy.
âHorfieldâs Imagination Station sketchbooks are truly stunning. The combination of Art and English is so inspiring. Iâm taking it back to my school immediately! The books are clearly evidence of outstanding, imaginative teaching and inspired children.â
Delegate feedback from a Headteacher at Mrs Steelâs training, Sharing Best Practice Conference in Cornwall,
Inspired by the illustrations of Eric Carle in Mister Seahorse, Year 1 children developed their understanding of primary and secondary colours and experimented with brusho dye and oil pastel mark making to create wax resist. They then created their own descriptive writing to capture the magic of Mister Seahorse floating through the water.
In response to The Island by Armin Greder, Year 6 developed their skills in using directional mark marking to create texture, tone and depth. Their dramatic, expressive characters inspired superb first person narratives.
Our Art & Design Curriculum by Strand
Our Art & Design Curriculum by Year Group


Dr. Shubhashish Sircar
In Jharkhand, about 40% of the people live below the poverty line, and about half the children younger than three are considered malnourished.
Hilly terrain hampers outreach efforts in some areas of the state.
Until recently, many families followed an old traditions that unwittingly threatened childrenâs lives. Believing the colostrum to be dirty and useless they would give their newborns goatâs warm milk dripped into their mouths from a cloth.
Old traditions and beliefs required new mothers to discard their colostrum, the first, nutrient-rich breast milk instead of giving it to their newborns. Colostrum is rich in antibodies and protects the baby against many infections and diseases. But, tradition differs and poses a challenge.
Other Challenges and Opportunities:
â¢ Three quarters of young children and adolescent girls are anaemic, and many are deficient in vitamin A â¢ One-third of Jharkhandâs children do not have full immunization against childhood diseases.
â¢ The stateâs literacy rate is 66%. Dropout rate among poor, female and tribal children at the elementary education level is high.
â¢ Child marriage is still prevalent in tribal communities.
â¢ A large number of households in rural Jharkhand donât use toilets. The common village practice of open defecation in neighboring fields is responsible for much ill health and contaminated water supplies â¢ Improved sources of drinking water are not available to 38% of the stateâs population. Arsenic and other pollutants are present in many wells in some of the districts.
â¢ About half the families in the state do not use adequately iodized salt, which is important in preventing iodine deficiency that can result in physical and mental retardation.
UNICEF in action
UNICEF is prioritizing reducing the high malnutrition and maternal as well as child mortality rates, and reaching out to the most marginalized families in Jharkhand to address these concerns.
The Dular strategy, which trains village women to counsel new mothers about breastfeeding and proper nutrition, is a successful approach that is already expected to prevent about one quarter of newborn deaths and save the lives of thousands of older babies and children.
The Dular initiative is of particular importance to tribal children who are most vulnerable to disease, malnutrition and education disparities, as prejudice, isolation and misunderstanding make it difficult for these families to access services.
Water and education initiatives are also the focus of UNICEFâs efforts in the state to help disadvantaged children attend school and ensure that all communities have access to safe drinking water.
UNICEF initiatives include:
â¢ Child Survival is an issue of utmost importance to UNICEF.
The Dular programme was successfully initiated a decade ago to train thousands of volunteer village women, called LRP (local resource people), to teach new mothers about the benefits of proper breastfeeding. These volunteers also help local anganwadi or female childcare workers provide information on health and nutrition for older children and mothers.
Now, women in Dular villages are three times more likely than other women to exclusively breastfeed newborns and avoid traditional practices about colostrum.
The percentage of underweight children is much lower, too. The programme has been so successful that plans are afoot to expand the Dular network across Jharkhand. UNICEF and the Government of India also started a three-year project in 2009 to further extend it to 22 million children across India. Parents and health care workers are learning lifesaving childhood diarrhoea treatment methods with oral rehydration salts and zinc tablets.
â¢ UNICEF supports efforts to distribute iron folic acid supplements to adolescent girls at all schools in the state in an attempt to control anaemia.
â¢ The Weekly Iron Folic Supplementation (WIFS) Programme reaches 3.5 million adolescent girls (both in school and out of school) in all districts through schools and anganwadi centres.
â¢ Vitamin A supplementation for children aged one to five is helping to prevent blindness and disease.
â¢ Families and children are learning about proper hygiene and toilet building through schools, community and government initiatives supported by UNICEF.
â¢ UNICEF supports campaigns to promote handwashing and provides kits to test water for arsenic and microbiological contamination.
Child Protection and Education .
â¢ UNICEF is supporting a plan to eradicate child marriage and human trafficking. Its emphasis and concentration on expansion education opportunities in the state, particularly for poor, tribal and female students, is aimed at this.
(Ranchi based Dr. Sircar is a very uncommon physician whose love for the people has always inspired him to dare even the most inclement and rough terrains in the mission of healthcare. His Face Book friends have immensely benefitted from his postings on related to health and Nature.)


Number bond charts to 30
8,000 schools use Gynzy
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1,600,000 students use Gynzy
Students practice decomposing the numbers 21 to 30 by completing number bond charts.
It is useful to decompose numbers to know what is left of a number. If there are 23 people and 12 men, when we decompose the number we discover that there should be 11 women.
Ask students to write down which numbers together compose 20. Check their answers by drawing lines between the correct numbers.
Explain how you can easily decompose 30 with an example in a restaurant. You have 30 people. Half of the want coffee. How many then want tea? Compose to the ten from the given number and count on to 30. Make the jumps on the number line visible to the students. How many did you count on? This is the number that you put in your decomposition. Show the number bond chart of 30. Show that in the left column the number always goes up by one, and in the right column that the number always goes down by one. Ask if students can com up with other decompositions of 30. Practice in the same way with decomposing 23. Ask students to complete the number bond chart without context (images or support story(.
Check that students understand number bond charts to 30 by asking the following questions:
- How do you complete a number bond chart?
- What are tips for decomposing numbers bigger than 20? (skip counting and counting on)
- Why is it useful to be able to decompose numbers?
Students first practice completing number bond charts with half of the numbers (left column) completed. Then they practice decomposing with either column, and finally with non sequential numbers in the number bond charts.
Students complete a number bond chart with the numbers out of order. Discuss why it is useful to be able to decompose numbers and remind them that they can use skip counting to help them count on.
Students who have difficulty completing the number bond charts can be supported by representing the number on a number line or using MAB (blocks). Some students will be able to see the decomposition without counting.
Save time building lessons
Manage the classroom more efficiently
Increase student engagement
Gynzy is an online teaching platform for interactive whiteboards and displays in schools.
With a focus on elementary education, Gynzyâs Whiteboard, digital tools, and activities make it easy for teachers to save time building lessons, increase student engagement, and make classroom management more efficient.


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Make Science for Kids More Fun!
My Sawyer is all about animals right now. So weâve been embracing that passion and are following his lead for homeschool science. We read The Magic School Bus Chapter Book, Food Chain Frenzy for bedtime over the last few weeks. They loved the book, but science for kids should be more hands-on, donât ya think? So I put together a sort of Animal Geoboard for the kids to make their own food chains and food webs. Check it outâ¦
DIY Food Web Geoboard Science for Kids
This activity was super-easy to set up and entertained the kids for nearly an hour.
The Hands-On Science for Kids Setup:
I just printed some free animal picture cards from The Swedish Teacher on Teachers Pay Teachers (all you need to do to download them is sign up for the free membership) and cut them out. Then presented the kids with the animal cards, some rubber bands, push pins, and a cork board. My clever Sawyer knew right away that it was perfect for making a food web!
First, they sorted through the animal cards. In retrospect, I would have given them far less. The amount of them was a little overwhelming. But sorting them was a great activity for the kids, too.
Then they got to work making their food web by using the pushpins to stick the animal cards onto the board and connecting them with the rubber bands. Sawyer quickly realized that there werenât any plants in the cards. And one NEEDS plants in a food web! So he grabbed his colored pencils and made some plant cards. The kids did get a little frustrated at times when their web got so big that the rubber bands pulled the push pins out. So using string would be a good option, too. But I liked the fine motor practice that they got with the rubber bands.
They loved this Food Web Science for Kids Activity! And weâll be saving the animal cards for more learning, too.
What fun science for kids have you been having lately? Iâd love to hear about it in the comments below!
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