1400 Mill Creek Road, Gladwyne 2.18 acres with three historic buildings Class I Historic Resource on Lower Merion’s Historic Resource Inventory/Mill Creek National Register District
The land where the Barker Mill sits used to be part of the property of John Roberts, a Welsh Quaker. Roberts sold the land to J. Abraham Nippes in 1807 for the development of a gun-manufacturing mill that operated until 1865 and produced rifles that were used in the War of 1812. Several years later, William Booth bought the mill with his half-brother Thomas Barker. The Booth-Barker Mill was converted to a carpet yarn mill. In 1924, the mill was sold to the Barker family, who ran it until 1956.
The building had a number of uses since then, including a recording studio and office space. O’Neill Properties purchased the building in 2003 with plans to convert it to a condominium complex. While an approved development plan does exist, the project has not yet begun.
Perched on the banks of Mill Creek, Barker Mill is one of the last visual reminders of Lower Merion’s industrial past — Mill Creek alone once had more than 20 mill buildings along its banks. It is one of the few rifle mills extant in the United States, and was the longest functioning mill in the area. This, along with its location on the edge of Rolling Hill Park, lends itself to being an educational tool for adults and children alike to convey the physical, economic, and social transformations that have taken place over time in Lower Merion Township.
This year marks the sixth time that the Barker Mill has been listed on the Preservation WatchList. Though the property is a Lower Merion Township Class I Historic Resource and a contributing property to the National Register of Historic Places Mill Creek Historic District, it is still at risk for loss due to long-term vacancy and continued deterioration.
A revised development plan proposed by O’Neill Properties includes a reduction in the number of units and the possible use as rental units. O’Neill is currently looking for a development company to either purchase their approved development plan or become equity partners to make the plan come to fruition.
Like all of the properties on this year’s WatchList, Barker Mill must be re-imagined to honor the past of the site, while becoming vibrant and useful for a new group of people. A new use for the building would offer an opportunity to save a historic resource and add another layer to Lower Merion’s already rich and important history.
The Lower Merion Conservancy will continue to work with the developer and Realtors to find a sensitive purchaser. Through public programming events and elementary education programs we will advocate for its sensitive reuse.
The Conservancy held a tour and lecture at Barker Mill on June 5th. Led by Rutgers Professor Richard Demirjian, the event highlighted the rich history of the mill and America’s early economy. Read more about it here.


Education Experts Talk Text Complexity
Education Update Online Extra
April 2012 | Vol 54 | No 4
Research identifies the ability to read, comprehend, and cite complex texts as a foundational skill upon which future college and career success is built. As the Common Core State Standards require opted-in states to teach and test students with more complex texts, how will educators respond to emerging needs like identifying appropriately complex texts, and building the foundational skills and persistence students will need to closely read complex texts?
The following interviews accompany the April 2012 Education Update article "It's Complicated: What the Common Core's Focus on Text Complexity Means for Your School." Read the article.
Matt Copeland, English Language Arts and Literacy consultant for the Kansas Department of Education, describes how he envisions schools will use text complexity analysis tools to take stock of their current curriculum and vet additions to the curriculum for appropriate levels of complexity.
Author Jay McTighe (Understanding by Design) explains how personal meaning making can support transfer goals in complex text comprehension.
Author Grant Wiggins (Understanding by Design) discusses the need to teach students resiliency when working with complex texts.
Researcher and education consultant David Liben of Student Achievement Partners addresses how teachers can shift from over-scaffolding to focusing on close reading, and put the text first, before strategies.


Frugal Tips for Music Lessons
- Friday, October 04, 2013
Giving our children a head start in their music education can go a long way in preparing them for more advanced or individual instruction later, saving time and money in the future. When that time does come, there are a few options to consider in making that financial investment as frugal as possible.
1. As a family, pray for wisdom and direction and provisions. It’s a given, but sometimes we forget that there is no part of our lives that is outside of God’s providential care for us and our children.
2. Ask for suggestions from others. Let your friends know you are looking for a music teacher. They might be aware of a teacher you should avoid or a teacher who makes wise use of her time (and your money) with her students.
3. If possible, put a notice in the church bulletin or newsletter that you are looking for a music teacher. It just might be the answer to prayer for a retired music teacher who is questioning her usefulness or someone who is considering teaching but isn’t confident that she’s equipped.
4. Consider taking less expensive group lessons. This might be a good option for a student who isn’t as motivated as others but would be inspired by the enthusiasm and interest of other students in the class.
5. Buy or borrow lesson books from other families with children who are more advanced.
6. Consider hiring a high school or college student to teach your children. Student teachers are usually not experienced enough for advanced students, but they are a less expensive way for beginning students to learn and for you to evaluate your child’s interest for continuing.
7. Consider self-learning options. A motivated student can use library or online resources to teach himself.
8. Barter for lessons and/or instrument rentals. Exchanging services (yard work for piano lessons, babysitting for voice lessons, housekeeping for guitar lessons, etc.) can be mutually beneficial.
9. Request shorter lessons or less frequent lessons to cut the cost in half. A diligent student can make up some of the gaps in progress by being disciplined to practice his lessons.
10. Rent an instrument before investing in a purchase. If your child quickly loses interest, your financial loss won’t be as great.
Finally, if private voice or instrument lessons are a priority and none of the efforts to reduce the cost are available, we should consider making adjustments in other areas of our budget to compensate for the cost of lessons. If the lessons are equally important to our child, it might be a good idea to ask him to help cover the costs in age-appropriate ways.
Molly Green is passionate about cheerful, creative homemaking on a down-to earth budget. Visit her online home, www.Econobusters.com for tips about frugal and tasty cooking, fresh decorating ideas, affordable family fun, simple but effective organizing, and much more! Sign up for her free weekly E-Newsletter and get a bonus menu-planning E-Book too!
Copyright 2012, used with permission. All rights reserved by author. Originally appeared in the November 2012 issue of The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, the family education magazine. Read the magazine free at www.TOSMagazine.com or read it on the go and download the free apps at www.TOSApps.com to read the magazine on your mobile devices.
Publication date: October 4, 2013
Recently on Resources
Have something to say about this article? Leave your comment via Facebook below!
Listen to Your Favorite Pastors
Add Crosswalk.com content to your siteBrowse available content


I’m surprised that with all the warfare under way about teacher tenure and performance evaluation, together with standardized testing and schools as dropout factories, there has been hardly any mention of the leading active educator among our founders, Thomas Jefferson.
Some know of him only as the creative founder of the University of Virginia, but when he was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, Jefferson introduced what he considered his most important educational effort, “A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge” in 1778. In the invaluable “The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Jefferson,” there is a chapter by Darren Staloff that I strongly recommend to present-day school boards, principals, teachers, students and members of Congress of both parties.
The chapter is titled “The politics of pedagogy: Thomas Jefferson and the education of a democratic citizenry.” In the primary grades, the goal of education was to ensure a citizenry that would be made “the safe, as they are the ultimate guardians of their own liberty.”
Not only would the young learn who they are as newly formed and self-governing Americans, but they would be taught, Jefferson wrote, “to think for themselves” and accordingly, “to participate as equals in political democracy.” This emphasis on thinking for themselves reminded me of a strong corollary point made many years later by another American educational reformer, Erich Fromm, a psychologist and social theorist, in “Escape From Freedom”: “The right to express our thoughts, however, means something only if we are able to have thoughts of our own.”
With regard to women, it was only after Jefferson was no longer here that women began to be full-fledged citizens of these more fully United States. But, beyond those base prejudices, shared by most of his fellow white male Americans at the time, Jefferson’s criteria for elementary education as the essence of American identity remain essential, and are missing in most of our public schools. Also vital to present needs is the revelation in “The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Jefferson” of a long letter he wrote during his second term as president to John Norvell on the need to go much deeper into learning beyond “history in general (which) only informs us what bad government is.”
Jefferson’s way of studying history was to learn the specific history of nations’ disrespect for individuals’ rights and liberties by finding “the patterns of usurpation by which regimes had undermined the liberties of the people.”
Once there was an American system of government, with the Bill of Rights added to the Constitution, those principles took root here and were, for a time, studied in our own public schools’ civics classes. But Jefferson would be dismayed at the absence now of those classes in far too many of our public schools. Moreover, the worst damage to our Constitution by Bush and Obama has been to the separation of powers.
For example, in a survey by the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, “The nation’s report card”), “Only one in 10 (students) demonstrated acceptable knowledge of the checks and balances among the legislative, executive and judicial branches.”
In 2012, far too many Americans, wholly ignorant of these things, are not aware of what they don’t know about what it takes to be an informed American. Alexis de Tocqueville did report that in the West or the South back then, “the instruction of the people diminishes.” But, he also said, “there is not a single district in the United States sunk in complete ignorance” of the singular identity of America. Will our next president know or care about this?
Thomas Jefferson would be dismayed by the range of our ignorance now. But how many of us, if we knew about the prevalence of so much ignorance among us, would be moved to demand that our educators — whatever their conditions of tenure — learn enough to know how to teach new generations who we are? How many teachers and principals or school board members could pass an individualized test in American constitutional history?
• • •
Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights.


Mercer, Neil; Fernandez, Manuel; Dawes, Lyn; Wegerif, Rupert and Sams, Claire
Talk about texts: using ICT to develop children’s oral and literate abilities.
Reading, 37(2) pp. 81–89.
This article describes the outcomes of recent research on children's talk while engaged in joint literacy activities in primary school (Year 5). The research is based on a conception of talk as a tool for 'thinking together', with computer software being treated as a resource for organising and focusing children's involvement in collaborative activities. The results are used to discuss the value of classroom talk and computer-based activities for promoting children's literacy development.
Actions (login may be required)


Changing the Voices of Teachers and Children: Singing and Elocution in South Australia in the Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Century
Southcott, Jane E., Journal of Historical Research in Music Education
In 1931 a new enrolee in the Adelaide Teachers' College, Isabel Kimber, began her two-year course. (1) At that time Olive Carter (known as Ollie) was the lecturer for elocution, voice production, and correct speech, and Frank Gratton was in charge of music, both at the college and in the Education Department. Kimber recalled that, "We all had to sing to Ollie Carter and she'd tell us whether we had a drawing room voice or what we had." (2) Those with a "drawing room voice" were encouraged, while those with something else received remedial attention. Regular lectures were given on music and voice production. Sometimes the content might overlap. Teachers and, for example, their fourth-grade students, were expected to practice the recitation of such poems as "The Land of the Counterpane" by Robert Louis Stevenson and "Hiawatha Goes Hunting" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (3) In 1900 South Australian school inspector Alexander Clark had noted the skills and importance of recitation of poetry that demanded "a great variety of treatment ... [which needed] not only pure and correct pronunciation of the consonants and vowels, but an effort to find an appropriate speed." (4) There had been concerns about vocal tone, singing tone, and elocution from the inception of state-supported education in South Australia during the second half of the nineteenth century, as elsewhere.
That Worrying Australian "Twang and Slang"
Concerns about the Australian accent were noted early on in the Australian colonies. In 1844 Mrs. Charles (Louisa Anne) Meredith noted that "a very large proportion" of Australians have "the same nasal twang as many Americans." (5) Mrs Meredith was not alone. In 1859 Richard Horne wrote of "the colonial twang." (6) After this initial flurry of concern, however, comment waned and for the next twenty-five years there was little public debate by authorities, governmental or self-appointed, about the "twang." Then the debate resumed. In the late 1880s music educator Samuel McBurney entered the fray, offering what Baker called a number of "semi-phonetic observations." (7) On January 18, 1894, the Bulletin published a poem, "The Austrylian [sic] Songstress," which concluded with the lines: "Twere [sic] better if thou never sang, Than voiced it in Australian twang." (8)
The Bulletin opined in a leader headed "Twang" on January 6, 1892:
The early English convicts, mostly from London, brought it [the accent] with them. Early Australian parents were too busy, and generally too uneducated, to notice that their offspring had caught the complaint, and said 'kike' for 'cake.' ... If the thing is to be eradicated the reformers must start upon State schools at once, for every year brings its thousands of recruits to the twang brigade. At present there is no effort made to raise the standard of State school accent, nor are the masters in general aware that it is a terrible thing to hear the youngsters reading. They read nearly as nasally themselves. The twang is everywhere ... If it remains on familiar terms with society for a few years longer, it will become the accepted pronunciation of the country. (9)
Disparagingly, this accent was ascribed as a "Cockney vulgarity" which was brought to Australia "long before rabbits, sparrows, snails and other British nuisances were grafted upon our budding civilisation." (10) Baker dispels the notion that the Australian accent is solely a variation of the Cockney dialect but also ascribes it to more northern English modes of speech, from which origins it has developed independently in Australia. He states: "The allegation that Australians talk like Cockneys must be regarded as one of the popular myths." (11)
The Educators' Response
Despite the debate concerning the provenance of the Australian accent, colonial educators heard the call to action. Once the decision had been made that there was only one way of pronouncing English, the South Australian "Education Department partook enthusiastically of 'the vulgar insolence of telling other Englishmen that they do not know how to speak their own language. …


Interesting Facts about Music Education
The publication "Academic Preparation for College: What Students Need to Know and Be Able To Do" states that preparation in the arts will be valuable to college entrants whatever their field of study.
The very best engineers and technical designers in the Silicon Valley are, nearly without exception, practicing musicians. This was found in "The Paradox of the Silicon Savior" by Grant Venerable.
Physician and biologist Lewis Thomas studied the undergraduate majors of medical school applicants. He found that 66 percent of music majors who applied to medical school were admitted, the highest percentage of any group. In comparison, there were 44 percent of biochemistry majors admitted.
Students who study music and the arts score higher on the verbal and math portions of the SAT than students with no arts coursework or experience.
- A survey of band parents found that 96 percent of them agree that "many people don't know or understand the benefits of band." In fact, 95 percent of the non-band parents surveyed felt that band provides educational benefits not found in other classrooms and that 78 percent of the same group felt that band is more educational than extracurricular.


School districts are not the sole determiner of the success or failure of our children.
After reading the Arizona Daily Star article on the Move On When Reading statute (“77 Tucson students may fail 3rd-grade reading,” June 8), United Way wanted to show support for the districts and explain some of the collective impact work happening around education.
The level of education and literacy that students reach is a community issue. In Tucson, numerous organizations work collectively to combat issues that negatively affect our students and can affect their literacy by third grade.
For 15 years, United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona’s (UWTSA) First Focus on Kids Coalition, with more than 80 partners, including the Tucson Unified School District, has been working on systemic issues such as the lack of school readiness and poverty that plague one in three children in Pima County. Recognizing that what happens to children from birth to age 8 lays the foundation for a lifetime, concerted efforts are continuously made to improve the education of early childhood educators, and early childhood learning centers.
One key funding partner for this effort is First Things First, which was created by Arizona voters in 2006 to make sure that young children and their parents have access to the interventions needed for healthy development, a crucial factor in the level of literacy achieved by third grade. First Focus on Kids’ goal is that children reach kindergarten healthy and have the skills necessary to be successful learners.
Realizing the crucial role parents play in education, United Way has also partnered with TUSD and Make Way for Books to provide quality pre-kindergarten learning opportunities in TUSD’s PACE (Parent And Child Education) preschools.
Tackling community issues in the realms of health and education, United Way’s Family Support Alliance, with its 31 partners, educates parents on early childhood issues through home visitation and community-based services. UWTSA is also involved in TUSD’s efforts to combat poor oral health, a significant cause of chronic absenteeism, which is one of the main reasons children may not read at grade level by third grade.
With funding from the Seimer Institute, UWTSA’s partner, Our Family Services, is addressing the issue of chronic absenteeism through the assistance of a caseworker who works closely with families in one TUSD elementary school to provide them with necessary services and resources to support their children staying in school and attending daily.
In addition to the lack of readiness and chronic absenteeism, children’s third-grade reading level is affected by summer learning loss, when children may not have access to summer programs or books. This can put children with high need more than three months behind their peers. Read On Tucson, United Way’s third-grade reading initiative, works with more than 40 partners representing government, business, nonprofits, faith-based agencies, institutes of higher learning, community organizations, and 19 schools in TUSD, the Sunnyside Unified School District, the Flowing Wells Unified School District and the Sahuarita Unified School District to combat these three main causes of third-grade reading issues.
United Way and its Women Leading United used an evidence-based practice of distributing 12 new self-selected books to 1,085 children in 12 schools to read over the summer to slow down the summer learning loss.
School districts need support from the Tucson community. We need to share a vision for change.
Collectively working on solving the systemic issues that ultimately cause the lack of literacy we are seeing in third-graders is the only way all of our children will read at grade level by third grade and succeed in school and in life.


"I then tried to explain to you my ideas, principles I ought to say, in regard to jurys of artists, I have never served because I could never reconcile it to my conscience to be the means of shutting the door in the face of a fellow painter. I think the jury system may lead, & in the case of the Exhibitions at the Carnegie Institute no doubt does lead to a high average, but in art what we want is the certainty that the one spark of original genius shall not be extinguished, that is better than average excellence, that is what will survive, what it is essential to foster--"
- letter to John W. Beatty, 5 September 1905
Mary Cassatt was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1845. Cassatt studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts until 1868. At that time, she went to Europe to complete her art education. After travelling extensively on the continent, she settled in Paris in 1874, and studied under Charles Chaplin. In that year she was accepted at the Salon, and in 1877 met Degas, who was to remain a close friend and mentor.
Cassatt was a talented painter and print-maker who excelled at intimate scenes of everyday life, especially the daily activities and realms of modern women.
Cassatt was the only American artist to be included in the Impressionist's exhibitions in Paris. She participated in the Impressionist exhibitions of 1879-81 and 1886. Financially, Cassatt was a great asset to the Impressionists by providing them with direct financial support and in her critical role as an art advisor to private collectors and public museums in the United States. It is largely thanks to her that so many marvellous Impressionist paintings are now in American museums.
Mary Cassatt died on 14 June, 1926, at the age of 82.
contributed by Gifford, Katya


Phonics Games Online
The internet abounds with literacy activities for kids, with a wide variety of phonics games online. These games offer a great resource for parents and teachers to supplement the reading instruction that kids are already receiving at school. Playing phonics games online can help your child learn how words are made up of individual sounds, known as phonemes. This will help develop their phonemic awareness – a fundamental skill for all reading beginners.
It’s important that skills gained from phonics games online are also developed within a wider learning framework where they can be applied, reinforced, and understood in a myriad of contexts. It is therefore a very effective learning strategy to couple phonics games with the reading of actual books, so that your child can apply their phonics skills to practical reading, as well as discover new words – words that they can learn to read by identifying its constituent letters and sounds – a key skill learnt from phonics games online.
Phonics games online are therefore a fantastic resource to build the most basic skills of an early reader. Not only do they develop a child’s phonemic awareness, but they are fun and easy to play. Kids learn most effectively when having fun, so playing phonics games online that feature colourful animations, characters, sounds and songs, are a great way to keep them interested and keen to learn more.
Some websites featuring phonics games
The BBC Schools http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/websites/4_11/site/literacy.shtml website has a range of literacy activities for children from age 4-11, including phonics games.
ABC Reading Eggs http://readingeggs.com.au/ offers a comprehensive reading program that features systematic, synthetic phonics instruction within a suite of literacy activities that focus on the five key literacy skill areas: phonemic awareness, phonics instruction, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension.
Starfall http://www.starfall.com/ offers a range of free literacy activities for children. The aim of Starfall is to teach kids how to read using phonics. The activities are most appropriate for children from preschool to year two.
Phonics Play http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/index.htm offers some phonics activities for children, as well as some phonics ideas for parents and teachers.
Phonics Hero http://www.phonicshero.com/public/ has a range of online phonics games for kids which kids can play after parents sign up to the site.
Things to keep in mind when choosing online phonics activities
While phonics instruction is essential for kids learning to read, it is only one of the five interrelated core literacy areas that contribute to early reading development, the others being phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Any emphasis placed over and above one of these areas will detract from the whole. So while phonics games online may capture the interest of your child, it’s important that they don't monopolise their complete focus, and that they learn phonics interdependently with the other aforementioned literacy areas.
ABC Reading Eggs offers a complete reading program that uses a wide variety of effective, research-based learning activities within a framework of lessons and rewards that keep young readers motivated and enthusiastic about learning how to read. Reading Eggs teaches all five of the key literacy skill to young readers, and helps kids excel at reading. Reading Eggs offers a synthetic phonics approach for young readers, framed within a larger literacy program that builds all the fundamental literacy necessary for your child to become a fluent reader.
This program is Brilliant!!! It keeps my students motivated (hard to do with special needs students) and allows them to achieve success immediately. I would thoroughly recommend this program to all Primary School teachers. Andrew Johnson, South Bunbury Education Support Centre
My daughter loves Reading Eggs! She is so excited by the progress she has made through the site. She enjoys the games and is learning so much. I highly recommend it. It is great for learning phonics and letter sounds. The games are fun and educational. We will continue to use Reading Eggs until she is reading on her own! Alycia A
Phonics Activities from Sadlier-Oxford Publishers http://www.sadlier-oxford.com/phonics/student.cfm
Starfall Phonics Puzzle Activities http://www.starfall.com/n/n-info/puzzles.htm?n=downloadcenter
Phonics Match Game http://www.cookie.com/kids/games/phonic-match.html
The Importance of Reading to Children http://trevorcairney.blogspot.com.au/2009/01/importance-of-reading-to-with-your.html


How To Tell If Your Child Is A Genius
Source: Open Talk Magazine 11/12/2010 10:05:00
Have you been told that your kid seems different from other children the same age? How can you tell if your little one is a budding prodigy? Here’s how to read the signs-
How does one define a prodigy? A child prodigy refers to a young person who can master one or more skills, usually shown by adults, at a very young age. We determine the level or extent of a child’s gift in relation to the age group that they belong to. These days, parents aren’t just satisfied with their child growing at a normal pace.
In fact, they love to brag about every little achievement of their children’s and believe that every little effort and investment made, will have lasting rewards. Not surprising then that many families believe in educational CDs like Baby Einstein or Brainy Baby and even make their kids watch such videos for a few hours every day. The truth however is; children have an open mind which absorbs different things that they see, hear, learn and experience. Here’s how to tell if your little one really is different from other children and is a budding genius-
- It has been found that little geniuses sleep lesser than other children. They are often unusually alert and display other signs such as talking early or have a huge vocabulary at a very small age.
- Such children develop different milestones at a very fast pace. In fact many of them have a long attention span which is highly unusual for a child, and may even have faster motor skill development.
- Many child prodigies have a gift for remembering even the most remote things and usually astound their parents by displaying far superior memory prowess than the parents themselves.
- Child prodigies have been found to progress at a pace that is far ahead than other children of the same age. If you have noticed that your child has a knack for solving problems, is highly curious by nature, a colorful imagination and an unusually fast speed for learning; these are signs that your little one stands out from the rest.
- A person who gets an IQ score of 140 is considered a genius. If you want to test your child’s IQ level, it’s best to allow him or her take a test on their own or visit a child specialist who can help you identify your child’s strengths. The Stanford-Binet IQ test can be given to children that are just three years of age.
- Such children prefer more difficult or challenging games to play. No crossword or jigsaw puzzle is too hard for them to handle. They may even prefer to play such games which challenge their thinking and creativity as opposed to other easier games that children of the same age often prefer.
- You may find your super-smart kid gets bored easily or finds that other children of the same age are boring. It’s important to understand why your child feels this way. Most children are happy being around familiar people and surroundings but these little prodigies love to learn new things all the time. You may find that your child is able to solve complicated math problems, learn languages or even a music instrument at a very fast pace.
If your little one fulfils one or more of the above criteria, then you can be sure you have a little genius on your hands. While it’s something to be proud of, remember that such gifted children need to be brought up and mentally stimulated the right way. It’s important to understand the strengths and limitations of your child without exceedingly imposing or pushing him or her to do better all the time. Such kids need as much love, patience and care as any other child.


- Shopping Bag ( 0 items )
In The Best Schools, Armstrong urges educators to leave narrow definitions of learning behind and return to the great thinkers of the past 100 years—Montessori, Piaget, Freud, Steiner, Erikson, Dewey, Elkind, Gardner—and to the language of human development and the whole child.
The Best Schools highlights examples of educational programs that are honoring students’ differences, using developmentally appropriate practices, and promoting a humane approach to education that includes the following elements:
*An emphasis on play for early childhood learning.
*Theme- and project-based learning for elementary school students.
*Active learning that recognizes the social, emotional, and cognitive needs of adolescents in middle schools.
*Mentoring, apprenticeships, and cooperative education for high school students.
Educators in “the best schools” recognize the differences in the physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual worlds of students of different ages. This book will help educators reflect on how to help each student reach his or her true potential, how to inspire each child and adolescent to discover an inner passion to learn, and how to honor the unique journey of each individual through life.


Objectives: In this unit you will
- Understand that writing is a process
- Recognize the three steps of the writing process: pre-writing, writing, and post-writing
- Become familiar with appropriate techniques to develop your learner's writing skills
In the previous module, Teaching Reading to Adults, the final activity was the Language Experience Approach. This combines reading and writing, and is a useful method of not only developing reading skills but also beginning to understand the writing process. At first, when you and your student share a Language Experience, you will write what she tells. Later, as she grows more confident and skilled, she can write as well.
Many of the reading comprehension strategies and the vocabulary and word recognition skills that the beginning reader develops will improve if the reader is also writing questions and summaries, new words and their definitions. Writing down the sight words as the list grows will help the learner to recognize them over time. These two skills reinforce each other.
Optional: Download checklist for progress
Click here to download a PDF checklist that will help you keep track of your progress. You may save the document in your files. It will not save in this blog.


When you think of art in the early learning years, most likely finger paintings and hand prints come to mind; however, there is so much more to it than that. Learning is influenced by art. When an idea is reinforced by action, we tend to remember it better, and children are the same way.
Art tools, such as coloring pencils and paint brushes, help young children learn how to grasp, just as they would a writing utensil. This is an important pre-writing step that cannot be missed. When using shapes to create a dinosaur or discovering the use of different shapes in daily activities lays a foundation for math topics that will come later in their education. Children love art because they can get messy and let their creative juices flow. The teachers prepare a variety of art activites each day that correlate with daily lessons, bible stories, and special events happpening in each child's day. In addition, our Kindergarten attend art class twice a week. The art class works on building understanding of art concepts and appreciation of the subject.
Art in Early Childhood Education
This article has a lot of great information on the importance of art education. It goes over the socio-emotional impact, the effects art has on cognitive and motor development, as well as the art experience for a preschooler.
Art Influences Learning
This article really breaks down how an art activity and process can enhance the learning process by reinforcing learning concepts.
This site has TONS of art project ideas from crafts, to clay, and anything inbetween. If you are feeling artsy and looking for a fun project to do with the kids, this is a great resource.


which of the following caused serious conflict among various groups of people in the west
cultural differences, econmomic -not enough jobs
which of the following called for african americans to pull themselves up from their own bootstraps
booker T. Wasington
some african american leaders responded to segregation by
establishing black newpapers, womens groups, colleges, universities
farmers opposed the gold standard because they claimed it would
decreas their income and drop prices
wich of the following encouraged president arthur to pursue civil service reform
many progressive reformers targeted city officials who built corrupt organizations called
what puprose was the Womenst christian temperence union formed
to persuade states to prohibit the sale of alcohol
which of the following resulted from the passage of the dawes act of 1887
reservations were divided into smaller plots
what happened within a year of united states navy commodore matthew perrys arrival in tokyo bay in 1853?
treaty to open trade with the us
when Filipinos rebelled against U.S. rule, the United States found itself...
shock. same tactics spanish used in cuba
how did world war one contribute to the african american great migration?
creating jobs in the north
why did congress pass the national defense act and the naval construction act in 1916?
to prepare for world war one
how did prohibition contribute to the growth of organized crime?
alcohol was illegal so there was a lot of money in the business and that created organized crime
what was a major resuld of Henry Ford's innovative manufacturing techniques?
sale price of cars went down and more americas could afford to buy them
during the 1920s american farmers as a group
decline in prices for their crops and increased production
in the 1920s how did most national leaders hope to go about avioding war?
avoiding close interaction with other nations
during the 1920s the unted states economy moved through which phase of the business cycle?
preisdnet hoovver responded cautiously to the great depression because he
thought it would correct itself
president hoover urges congress to institure the RFC because he believed the economy suffered from
a lack of credit
why did many americans decide that the country needed new leadership in 1932?
voluntary action and community support were not working for most people
why were banks one of the first institutions to feel the effects of the stock market crash?
people feared for their money
both african americans and mexican americans had an espcially difficult time during the great depression because they
why did the bonus army march on Washington, D.C.
they were injured soldiers who had no money and the government promised them money so they came to get it
what was the chief complaint of conservatives against the new deal?
made the government too powerful
which of the following extended job opportunities to Mexican Americans and other minority youth?
Civilian Conservatin Corps
Critics disaproved the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) because it..
gave government direct control of a business
network of farmers organizations that worked for political and economic reforms in the late 1800s
W.E.B. Du Bois
said blacks should demand full and immediate equality- opposite of Booker T. Washington
giving a goverment job to your friend because they helped you out but they have no experience and may not be qualified
Wilsons statement that the U.S. would not use force to assert influence in the world but promote human rights
goverment that assumes responsibility for providing for the welfare of the poor elderly sick and unemployed
federal art project
hire unemployed artits to creat artwords for public buildings and sponsored art education programs and exhibitions
FDR plan to add up to 6 new justices to the 9 member supreme court after the court had ruled that some new deal legislation was unconsitiutional
economic theory that favored public works projects because they put money into the hands of consumers who would buy more goods - stimulating the economy


The first molecules of water formed out in space, about 14 billion years ago, as part of the nebula left over after an early star exploded in a supernova. There were a lot of hydrogen and oxygen atoms floating around in these nebulae, and when they stuck together that made water molecules. Because hydrogen and oxygen were both very common atoms, they made a lot of water molecules.
Hydrogen and oxygen atoms stuck together because hydrogen atoms were able to share their electrons with oxygen atoms, and oxygen atoms wanted two more electrons than they had. We call this a covalent bond. When two hydrogen atoms shared their electrons with an oxygen atom, it made a molecule that was stronger than any of the atoms were on their own, so most of the oxygen in space is formed into water molecules.
There is still plenty of water all over space and other planets. There's water in nebulae today, and in comets, and on the Moon, and on Mercury, Mars, and Neptune, for instance. But the water in all of these places is frozen into ice. Earth is the only place we know of that has liquid water ( possibly Mars does too).
We don't know how water got to Earth, or whether it was here from the beginning when the planet first formed, but there has been liquid water on Earth for about four billion years. Water's an important part of heating and cooling the Earth, and also water is where the first living cells got started. All plants and animals need water to survive.
To find out more about water, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:
Science for Kids home page
Kidipede home page


A college professor’s notes on singing
Could your singing make the “X Factor” audition fail reel? When it’s time to sing “Happy Birthday,” do you stand in the back of the group and mouth the words? The problem probably isn’t that you can’t sing, it’s that you’ve never learned how to sing.
That’s what Joanne Rutkowski, a professor of music education at Pennsylvania State University, thinks, anyway. “A few people can’t sing in tune — that’s because they don’t listen,” she says. “For most people, though, the issue is how they’re using their voice.”
Humans actually have two different modes for voice use. “It’s like a manual transmission,” Rutkowski says. “You could get up to 30 [mph] in first gear, but it’s not good for the engine. Learning to sing is about finding your voice’s different gears and learning how to shift smoothly from one to another.”
She teaches a half-credit class for future music teachers. Each student picks a non-singing friend or relative and, over the course of the semester, teaches him or her to sing. “They record them singing ‘Happy Birthday’ at the beginning of the semester, and then again at the end,” she says. “The difference is always amazing.” And the guinea pigs, of course, are all delighted with their new skills.
“Successful music education would be if every high school graduate could sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to his or her children,” Rutkowski says, “But it’s never too late to learn.”
Places to practice
Would you like to learn to sing? Rutkowski suggests these resources:
Community music school
A university department of music education
Your child’s elementary or middle-school music teacher
“And just sing in the shower!” she says. “Explore your voice, relax and have fun with it.”


PirateBox wireless local fileserver
David Darts, Associate Professor of Art Education and Chair, Department of Art and Art Professions wanted to facilitate anonymous file sharing in his NYU classes. He was aware of the deaddrops project and wanted to design a WiFi based portable version which would operate separate from the Internet. “PirateBox is a self-contained mobile communication and file sharing device. Inspired by pirate radio and the free culture movement, PirateBox utilizes Free, Libre and Open Source software (FLOSS) to create mobile wireless file sharing networks where users can anonymously chat and share images, video, audio, documents, and other digital content.”
The basic system consists of a lightweight web server connected to a wireless device. David has posted various approaches to the construction of a PirateBox on his website, including tutorials using an OpenWRT router, plug computer, laptop and an Android mobile phone.This entry was posted in code, how-to, Linux and tagged fileserver, PirateBox.


The art of creating musical instruments by hand is probably as old as man's use of tools. In fact, instrument making may actually predate tool making because I'd be willing to bet that ancient man found it more enjoyable making music than digging holes. I have always found xylophones to be some of the funnest of all instruments because of the carefree nature of their sounds. It seems to me that the xylophone lends itself to the idea of building one of your own so I went in search of xylophone ideas and have brought you some of the ones that I find most noteworthy.
You can start by checking out a web page titled: Basic Xylophone Building, by Jim Dobel
of Elemental Design. In his web page, Jim gives you a good quick tutorial about what makes a xylophone tick. He gives a very basic description of the elements of a wood xylophone and how they are constructed and work. Jim also has some other interesting musical instrument links on his page that you might want to check out.
There's a fascinating article on Mother Earth News
describing how to make a pipe xylophone. The instructions are well explained and seem easy enough to follow. I believe that following their guide will produce a very nice home made instrument and they even provide you with a little fundamental music education also. I enjoyed their presentation of the concept and they carefully keep the project cost effective.
In contrast to the pipe xylophone instructions on Mother Earth News, eHow has "git er dun" type instructions for building a xylophone using two-by-four lumber
and an old dresser drawer. You might not make the concert tour with this instrument but it's a place to start.
If you are the DIY adventurous sort, or if you are already an accomplished xylophone builder, check out this link from Wannalearn.com . They have a cornucopia
of ideas about instruments that you can build for yourself
and they provide links that will lead you in endless musical directions.
You can build them out of wood strips, copper pipes, brass rods or even build a xylophone using wrenches
like the idea I saw on instructables. I even found a site which outlines making a xylophone out of bottles
but they want to sell you the plans for doing it . The point of the whole project is to make something useful and to have some fun in the process. Have you ever built a xylophone? If so, please tell us about it!


Inclusive pedagogies in music education: A comparative study of music teachers' perspectives from four countries
Burnard, Pamela, Dillon, Steven C., Rusinek, Gabriel, & Saether, Eva (2008) Inclusive pedagogies in music education: A comparative study of music teachers' perspectives from four countries. International Journal of Music Education, 26(2), pp. 109-126.
Amongst the many challenges for classroom music practitioners is developing inclusive pedagogies which celebrate difference, promote inclusive learning experiences and overcomes learner disaffection in reaching the young people most at risk of exclusion, topics which are globally receiving considerable public exposure and attention. The findings reported in this article form part of a wider comparative research project investigating the pedagogies of music teachers working in challenging contexts. This article highlights one strand of the study involving teacher perspectives from accounts of pedagogy documented through interviews and observations. The complex ways in which teachers achieve inclusion in their music classrooms is best understood in connection with the interplay of policies, structures, culture and values specific to schools, from what is country specific or culture bound, and how the particular school serves young people on the margins of society in trying to create an environment where students can succeed musically. Accounts offered by four teachers range from particular teacher and school strategies to management practices which promote pupil-pupil relations in and outside the classroom, to the way the school connects with its musical community. We conclude with what we can learn, as practitioners and researchers, from comparative accounts of pedagogy.
Impact and interest:
Citation countsare sourced monthly fromand citation databases.
These databases contain citations from different subsets of available publications and different time periods and thus the citation count from each is usually different. Some works are not in either database and no count is displayed. Scopus includes citations from articles published in 1996 onwards, and Web of Science® generally from 1980 onwards.
Citations counts from theindexing service can be viewed at the linked Google Scholar™ search.
Full-text downloadsdisplays the total number of times this work’s files (e.g., a PDF) have been downloaded from QUT ePrints as well as the number of downloads in the previous 365 days. The count includes downloads for all files if a work has more than one.
|Item Type:||Journal Article|
|Keywords:||comparative research, inclusion, music teaching and learning, pedagogy, values and teaching strategies|
|Subjects:||Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification > EDUCATION (130000) > SPECIALIST STUDIES IN EDUCATION (130300) > Comparative and Cross-Cultural Education (130302)|
Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification > EDUCATION (130000) > CURRICULUM AND PEDAGOGY (130200) > Creative Arts Media and Communication Curriculum and Pedagogy (130201)
|Divisions:||Current > QUT Faculties and Divisions > Creative Industries Faculty|
Current > Schools > Music & Sound
|Copyright Owner:||Copyright 2008 SAGE Publications|
|Copyright Statement:||The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, <International Journal of Music Education>, 26(2):pp. 109-126. 2008, © <SAGE Publications Ltd>|
|Deposited On:||13 Jul 2007|
|Last Modified:||11 May 2012 08:43|
Repository Staff Only: item control page


A Briefe Introduction to the Skill of Song, C. 1587
When, in 1584, William Bathe, then just a young student at Oxford, published a tract on the teaching of music, his work became the first musical text book to appear in the English language. No copy of this work now exists, but some years later Bathe produced a new version, now called A brief Introduction to the skill of song. In it Bathe sought to present a new, much simpler way to learn music, in open opposition to the traditional approaches of the day, the "manifold and crabbed, confused, tedious rules", as he puts it. This book, a facsimile of Bathe's work, describes musical methods old and new and will be of great interest to musicologists and players of early music. Introduction by Bernarr Rainbow and published in the series ClassicTexts in Music Education.
What people are saying - Write a review
We haven't found any reviews in the usual places.


Sidebar Site Navigation
Teaching Young Children: Early Childhood & Elementary Education
Areas of Interest:
Elementary Education majors
What characteristics exemplify professionalism in early childhood education? What is the role of teachers in advocating for children’s rights? How does society’s view of children and childhood impact how and what we teach? As a member of this FIG you will share experiences with others committed to improving the lives of children through work in schools. Together we will explore the concepts of professionalism, ethical practice, advocacy, activism, and service learning related to work with young children. Members of the FIG will engage in practical experiences in classrooms and communities that promote a deeper understanding of the roles and responsibilities of early childhood educators. Students will develop skills in critical thinking and reflection as they study current issues related to the education of young children. We will apply our knowledge and skills to serve the children, teachers, families, and schools within our community.
Special Note: This FIG is restricted to students who have declared a major in Elementary Education. This FIG also requires admission into the College of Education.
Mac 8th Floor
EDEL 1000 - Hot Topics in Elementary Education - 2 credits [I]
EDEC 1020 - Early Childhood - 4 credits [SB]


The Tenth Edition of this popular text from renowned educational psychologist Robert Slavin translates theory into practices that teachers can use in their classrooms with deeper inquiry into the concept of intentionality and a thorough integration of standards. This edition highlights current issues and emerging trends in the field of educational psychology.
This edition continues to have in-depth, practical coverage with a focus on the intentional teacher by presenting up-to-the-minute research that a reflective, intentional teacher can apply. An “intentional teacher,” according to Slavin, is one who constantly reflects on his or her practice and makes instructional decisions based on a clear conception of how these practices affect students. To help readers become “intentional teachers,” the author offers a set of questions to guide them and models best practices through classroom examples.
Firmly rooted in research, up-to-date theory, and classroom-tested applications, Educational Psychology prepares teachers as no other text does. It teaches them to think about how students develop and learn, to make decisions before and during instruction, and to consider what constitutes evidence that their students are learning and succeeding.
Educational Psychology takes a serious look at pertinent research and focuses on what works and how a reflective, intentional teacher can apply it in the classroom. Reflective questions, vignettes, and self-checks challenge students to think about and make decisions that drive successful instruction. The new edition builds on these established features and adds an emphasis on media effects on Learning, NCLB and the Achievement Gap, Neuroscience, and more interactive and engaged learning opportunities for students.
This edition includes a new focus <insert new to this edition topics and coverage>
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - Educational Psychology: A Foundation for Teaching
Chapter 2 - Cognitive, Language, and Literacy Development
Chapter 3 - Social, Moral, and Emotional Development
Chapter 4 - Student Diversity
Chapter 5 - Behavioral Theories of Learning
Chapter 6 - Information Processing and Cognitive Theories of Learning
Chapter 7 - The Effective Lesson
Chapter 8 - Student-Centered and Constructivist Approaches to Instruction
Chapter 9 - Grouping, Differentiation, and Technology
Chapter 10 - Motivating Students to Learn
Chapter 11 - Effective Learning Environments
Chapter 12 - Learners with Exceptionalities
Chapter 13 - Assessing Student Learning
Chapter 14 - Standardized Tests and Accountability
Purchase Info ?
With CourseSmart eTextbooks and eResources, you save up to 60% off the price of new print textbooks, and can switch between studying online or offline to suit your needs.
Once you have purchased your eTextbooks and added them to your CourseSmart bookshelf, you can access them anytime, anywhere.
Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice, CourseSmart eTextbook, 10th Edition
Format: Safari Book
$77.99 | ISBN-13: 978-0-13-703475-8


What ever happened to field trips to the children's museum? 57 British schools are participating in an art education experiment that loans their classrooms expensive paintings by artists like Monet so that the children can be exposed to and learn about them in a classroom setting instead of online. The project is called "Masterpieces in Schools" and is organized in part by the BBC. Teachers and coordinators have said that the reactions from the children makes the difficult logisitics of moving pieces worth millions of dollars back and forth worth it: "When the art handlers turned the painting around for the first group of kids, it was amazing, it was really moving, there was actually a gasp...It was a Christmas morning moment, just the presence of it here. It was such a crazy thing to do, but a good thing to do."
The program sounds like an amazing opportunity. Not all children are fortunate enough to live in a city like New York or Los Angeles where there are museums and galleries on every corner, so being able to bring them the real deal has to be the best feeling. It's hard to tell the long-term effects that the project will have on the children but that initial excitement is good enough for us.


LONDON – Despite fears about declining academic standards, Japan’s elementary school system is functioning well and can act as a model for other nations, a leading British expert says.
Peter Cave of Manchester University believes the Japanese way brings out the best in 6- to 12-year-olds, although schools in Japan do face a new set of challenges, including the need for more parental support for youngsters.
In math, for example, teachers like their students to learn by solving problems through active discussions among themselves with the teacher being a facilitator, he said.
This contrasts with the Western stereotype of Japanese kids learning by rote. And in Japanese lessons, students are urged to openly discuss the issues raised in the literature.
Japanese children also learn a broader range of subjects than in many countries and more time is given to creative studies, such as music and art, Cave said.
Teachers work well to instill a sense of community, he said, which means children feel more at ease to learn things in class through discussions.
This is not a new approach. Japanese schools have been encouraging children to learn through inquiry since at least the 1980s.
There are student-led meetings about classroom issues and lots of posters and artwork encouraging everyone to work hard and look after one another, Cave found during an extensive study spanning several years. Children and staff also clean the schools — something that startles many overseas observers.
He said each student is involved in the lessons and everyone moves at the same pace so no one is left behind.
“I do think that, on the whole, Japanese primary schools are doing well and that teaching practices are very good,” said Cave, who has recently published a book on his findings, “Primary School in Japan: Self, Individuality and Learning in Elementary Education.”
He told an audience at the Japan Foundation in London recently that although there are benefits, the Japanese approach should not necessarily be seen as a “magic bullet.”
For example, ensuring that everyone goes at the same pace may mean some brighter individuals are held back.
Splitting kids up into classes according to their performance in math — “setting” — has been introduced in Japan but not extensively, Cave said.
Much has been made in the Japanese media about declining academic standards in schools — even though Japan is regularly at the top of international standings — and this has led to further planned reforms in the curriculum.
These will involve more focus on core subjects and also studying English, a move welcomed by Cave.
He acknowledged that test results have declined in recent years, particularly among the bottom 20 percent of the student population.
Cave said this could be due to several factors.
For example, since the early 1990s, teachers have been encouraged not to focus exclusively on academic attainment but also on a student’s motivation.


William Edward Forster
Forster, William Edward, 1818–86, British statesman. He entered Parliament as a Liberal in 1861. As vice president of the council in William Gladstone's first ministry (1868–74), he introduced the Elementary Education Act (1870), which provided aid for existing schools, established supplementary nondenominational "board schools," and was the foundation for the English system of national compulsory education. In 1880 he went unwillingly to Ireland as chief secretary, but his opposition to Charles Parnell and his stern enforcement of the law made him so unpopular that attempts were made on his life. He resigned in 1882.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: British and Irish History: Biographies


A History of Music (1830) (Classic Texts in Music Education)
- List Price:
- Buy New: $34.12
as of 8/23/2014 10:42 EDT details
- You Save: $10.88 (24%)
- Sales Rank:11,601,573
- Languages:English (Unknown), English (Original Language), English (Published)
- Number Of Items:1
- Edition:Facsimile of 1830 ed
- Shipping Weight (lbs):0.7
- Dimensions (in):6.3 x 3.9 x 1.2
- Publication Date:August 7, 1997
Availability:Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Most music histories published in Britain during the nineteenth century amounted to little more than severely compressed and simplified versions of Burney's and Hawkins's mammoth treatises. Stafford's Historywas an exception to the rule. The emphasis placed there on both ancient and contemporary exotic music makes it a pioneer document in the literature of ethnomusicology. The text has been enlarged by three per cent for ease in reading.
CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’ AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME.


Site contains authentic video and audio material that is educational or culturally informative and includes cuisine, dance, the arts, and news. Intermediate through advanced students.
From CONACULTA (Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes), this site showcases authentic audio materials on cultural and educational news from Mexico (México). Advanced intermediate through advanced students.
From Dirección General de Culturas Populares, a section of a larger site focusing on holidays celebrated in Mexico and their wider significance. Intermediate through advanced students.
Writings, heroes, history from Educarchile (portal educativo chileno). The site surveys the history, literature, and cultures of Chile. Intermediate through advanced students.
From the Secretaría de Educación Pública (México), a searchable and downloadable online textbook on geography, including cultural geography such as human migration and world economy, as well as research assignments. Intermediate students.
From the Secretaría de Educación Pública (México), a searchable and downloadable online textbook with high quality visuals, vocabulary, and text on appreciating and analyzing the arts, both visual and performing, with activities that invite participation by students. Intermediate through advanced students.
From the Secretaría de Educación Pública (México), a searchable and downloadable online textbook on art education rich with images, to teach vocabulary and the appreciation of the arts, with spaces with activities for the students to analyze aspects of art education. Advanced beginning through intermediate students.
Created October 6, 2010
Students electronically recover and analyze artifacts from historic archeological sites in order to discover what these artifacts reveal about the people who used them.
Created September 28, 2010
Students study census data showing the names and occupations of early settlers of the English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. (Archaeology, U.S. Colonial History)


About two and a half billion years ago, the Earth finally cooled down enough for it to snow for the first time. Most of the time since then, the Earth has been warm enough that it didn't snow at all. But from time to time, the Earth becomes cooler, entering an Ice Age. We are in one of these Ice Ages now, though not at the coldest part of an Ice Age, and so it snows sometimes, in some places, but not as much as it would in the coldest part of an Ice Age.
Snowflakes, because they are made of ice, are really
Snow usually falls either in the winter (if you are in the Northern Hemisphere) or in the summer (if you are in the Southern Hemisphere) or on top of high mountains, where snow often lasts all year round. Near the Equator, it doesn't snow at all.
To find out more about weather, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:
Learn by Doing - Clouds
More about clouds
More about Thunderstorms
More about Weather
Science for Kids home page
History for Kids home page


The Meaning of Transfer in the Practices of Arts Education
Brown, Neil C. M., Studies in Art Education
Redressing the marginalization of the arts is often linked with attempts to redefine and broaden their cognitive structure. Recent evidence of transferability between knowledge in the arts and other curriculum domains is currently advanced as one useful approach. Taking a social realist approach to education in the arts this article argues that the meaning of cognitive transfer, including evidence of a cognitive structure shared with other domains, varies according to its representation within different values of arts educational practice. This article examines the impact of three frameworks of value on the evidence of cognitive transfer in the arts.
This study examines the role of cognitive transfer within the practices of education in the arts. Borrowing from the social realism of Searle (1996), Bourdieu (1977), and Boyd (1988) it takes an anti-reductionist approach to the explanation of institutional practice. Rather than reducing explanations of practical causation to raw evidence and theoretical ideas, social realists are more interested in the institutional terms under which evidence and ideas are applied. Understanding how evidence and ideas are put to work within a practice involves disclosing the ways in which meanings, values and intentions are ascribed to them by its institutions. Variations in these ascriptions explain how facts and theories are able to exert their influence over the conduct of practice within a domain. The value ascribed to scientific evidence by a practice is expressed as a function of its symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1977). The symbolic capital attributed to evidence are those of its properties that can be traded in exchange for the advantages they contribute to the field. Thus the symbolic capital ascribed to cognitive transfer is redeemed through the value of the role it transacts in the arts educational "economy." It is argued here that the redeemability of cognitive transfer, its meaning for practice in arts education, varies in significance according to the terms under which the arts are valued within the curriculum.
Educational Practice in the Arts
The arts are part of a wider group of practices historically referred to as the practical arts. The practical arts include fields such as medicine and engineering (Brown, 1997). It is rare to find any of the present-day practical arts, other than the visual and performing arts, represented in the curricula of elementary and secondary schools. Because the practical arts are vocational they have been historically separated from the education of children. Their tradition of apprenticeship relegates them in most instances to post secondary education. Practical skills need to be rehearsed and coached. Practices are not easily reduced to the sequential rules and principles commonly found in school subjects. Although children learned pattern drawing and choral singing at school in the 19th century, singing and pattern drawing were regarded as general accomplishments at a time when mechanical means of reproduction were limited (Smith, 1966).
Before the advent of child psychology there was no tradition of acknowledging children's spontaneous expression in practical domains (Fletcher & Welton, 1912). The psychological repositioning of the concept of childhood early in the 20th century, however, changed the role played by subject matter in children's education (Cunningham, 1995). Subject matter began to be chosen for its contribution to the development of the child (Thorndike, 1914). This created a tension between psychological evidence and standards of specialized knowledge in the arts that continues to resonate in the literature of arts education today.
Three Claims of Value for the Arts in Education Claims of Inherent Value in the Arts
There are three contemporary arguments supporting claims for the importance of education in the arts. The first claim argues that educating children in the arts exposes them to subject content, qualities of experience, conceptual structuring, ways of life, depth of participation, and forms of subjective reasoning that cannot be gained through other subjects or by accidental exposure to the arts in everyday life (Eisner, 1972; Clark & Zimmerman, 1978). …


This is an example of a "beginning of class ritual"
© Marvin Bartel, 2000Age Levels?
This ritual is probably appropriate for any age beginning from grade three through adults in senior citizen homes. Younger children may have some problems with the modeling method and the blind contour drawing methods used, but other parts of the experience work well with younger children. First grade children can begin to do some work from observation, but we need to be content with some "uneven" results.
Outcomes? what is learned?
A writing and drawing tool. Ball-point pens are good.
A piece of clay the size of a large hen egg wrapped in plastic or in a sandwich bag. Do not have it preshaped shaped like an egg.
A six inch square of brown paper (similar to old grocery bags) or anything similar.
A seven inch square "blinder card" or helper card (manila folder or tag board cards with small center holes to place on the ball-point so they can not see the drawing paper as they are drawing)
A wet paper towel to wipe clay off of hands.
A dry paper towel to finish cleaning.
Many examples from art history could be used after the above hands-on experience. Here we see a beautiful 54 inch abstract sculptural interpretation of a bird in flight. It is most appropriate to lead a discussion of works such as this after students have experiences such as the above modeling and drawing ritual. The experience of making and drawing increases the likelihood of intuitive knowing, identification with, and understanding. The imperative for abstraction becomes more a obvious and natural solution. Their experience heightens both their need to know and their ability to know.
Conversely, to have shown the historical
will limit their ownership in their work. Secondly, they will have seen
the object as something to imitate rather than something to know.
they will not have learned to create from their own insights and
of the world. They will be encouraged to be dependent on others and
confident in their own creative facility.
Bird in Space3by Constantin Brancusi
1 Lowenfeld, Viktor and Brittain W. Lambert. Creative and Mental Growth, 6th Ed. 1975 Maclmillan, N.Y. pp. 224-225.
"Two methods of working with clay can be observed. One is that of pulling out from the whole and the other is that of putting single parts together. . . . Pulling clay out from the whole means to have a concept of the total, however vague, from which details will be developed: this method is called the analytic method. The other method . . . . putting single representative symbols together into a whole means the child is building up a synthesis of partial impressions: this method is called the synthetic method.
2 Chapman, Laura H. Approaches to Art in Education. 1978 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, N.Y. p.54
"Changing Habits of Work. . . . The value of learning to 'shift gears' is widely acknowledged."
3Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 5th ed. revised
by de la Croix, Horst and Tansey, Richard G. 1970. Harcourt Brace and
N.Y. p. 720, figure 17-33.
All rights reserved.
Goshen College students may print a copy for their own use. Others must have permission to copy or publish.
Layout and text © 2000See these recently updated Links to many more essays and lessons by the same author
Contact Marvin Bartel
Updated 4 February 2004
Back to Art Rituals in the Classroom Essay
Link to a list of drawing rituals.
See other Art Education Essays by this author
See an example of a List Making Game to get ideas for artwork.
Back to Marvin Bartel Art for Children and Secondary School Art art education home page
Goshen College Home


Teach children the power of activity!
Teaching children physical education fulfills a unique role in their overall development.
Learn activities and games that provide kids with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for a healthy lifestyle. You'll learn from professors such as Kathy Haas, who says, "Our vision is to communicate the importance of balancing a healthy lifestyle that includes exercise, physical activity, or just play - a challenge in today's society!"
In addition to the Teacher Education Candidate Proficiencies, physical education candidates demonstrate their ability to develop and plan physical education curriculum (K-12) that includes developmentally appropriate instructional strategies targeting state and national standards.
"I know this is where I belong."
- Hannah McCormish
Elementary Education, 2012
A major in Physical Education consists of the following:
- PE 215 - Anatomical Structure and Function
- PE 265 - Introduction to Fitness, Physical Education, and Sport
- PE 282 - Individual Sport Instruction
- PE 283 - Team Sport Instruction
- PE 284 - Dual Sport Instruction
- PE 320 - Physical Education for Children
- PE 332 - Motor Behavior
- PE 345 - Sociology of Sport
- PE 383 - Curriculum and Instruction in Physical Education
- PE 424 - Adapted Physical Education
- EXSC 313 - Kinesiology
- EXSC 413 - Physiology of Activity
- HED 220 - Core Concepts of Health
- BIOL 273 - Introduction to Human Biology
Professional education courses totaling 35 hours are also required for licensure:
- EDUC 112 - Foundations of Education
- EDUC 232 - Psychology of Human Learning
- EDUC 262 - Instructional Technology
- EDUC 312 - Principles of Secondary School Instruction
- EDUC 357 - Content Reading Strategies
- EDUC 405 - Applied Instructional Technology
- EDUC 415 - Assessment in Education
- EDUC 460 - Student Teaching Seminar
- EDUC 472 - Teaching Physical Education in the Secondary School
- EDUC 495 - Multi-Age (PreK-12) Student Teaching
- SPED 243 - Inclusion and the Schools
- Valid Red Cross First Aid & Safety Certification is also required.
Acquiring licensure in both Physical Education and Health Education:
Acquiring licensure in both Physical Education and Health Education is an option that may enhance employability, particularly in the state of Ohio. With the following additional courses, a student will receive health education licensure valid for teaching health education in PreK-12. Careful planning with the academic advisor is encouraged. Two additional semesters will be required in order to complete both licensure programs.
- HED 200 - Philosophy and Foundations of Health Education
- HED 300 - Community and Consumer Health
- HED 330 - Organization of School Health: PreK-12
- HED 342 - Introduction to Illness and Diseases
- HED 361 - Drug Education
- HED 425 - Health and Sexuality Education
- HED 431 - Program Planning and Evaluation
- HED 442 - Biostatistics and Epidemiology
- EDUC 245 - Teaching the Young Child
- EDUC 436 - Methods and Materials in Health Education


Vietnam Development Report 2014 - Skilling up Vietnam: Preparing the workforce for a modern market economy
• A skilled workforce is central to Vietnam’s economic modernization.
- Over the past two decades, basic literacy and numeracy skills have helped Vietnamese workers move from low productivity agriculture into higher productivity non-farm jobs. This has promoted rapid economic growth and poverty reduction.
- Today, Vietnamese workers perform better in reading than workers in other countries, including wealthier ones. Looking ahead, continued strong economic growth will require increased labor productivity and a workforce with the skills to match the job market.
• Despite impressive literacy and numeracy achievements among Vietnamese workers, many Vietnamese firms report a shortage of workers with the right skills.
• The skills gap is particularly acute among applicants for jobs in technical, professional and managerial positions, while a shortage in applicants is common among more elementary occupations.
• Employers identify job-specific technical skills as the most important skill. But they are equally looking for cognitive skills, such as problem-solving and critical thinking, and behavioral skills, such as team work and communication.
• Cognitive and behavioral skills are formed in early years in life and continue through later stages. Technical skills are acquired later through technical and vocational education and training, higher education and on the job training.
RECOMMENDATIONS: A framework for strategic skills development in Vietnam
• Step 1: Promoting school readiness through early childhood development:
- Early childhood development for children aged 0-3: Promote breastfeeding and child stimulation; Provide social assistance and social work for poor parents to make better choices for their children.
- Preschool for children aged 3-5: Universalize access to full-day preschool; Translate modern and child-centered curriculum into quality provision, focused on building cognitive and behavioral skills, across all classrooms through upgrading of the competence of the current teaching workforce.
• Step 2: Building the cognitive and behavioral foundation in general education
- More schooling for all, with full-day instruction and expansion of access to secondary education.
- Better schooling for all, with a curriculum and teaching and assessment methods that foster the development of cognitive and behavioral skills in students.
- Schooling that involves parents and communities more
• Step 3: Building job-relevant technical skills through a more connected system between employers, students and universities, and vocational schools
- Better information: More partnerships between businesses and universities and vocational training institutions provide better information on skills needed and available job opportunities
- Right incentives: Increase institutional autonomy for universities and vocational training institutions and strengthen mechanisms for their accountability for results;, define quality and occupational skills standards and assess and certify graduates.
- Adequate capacity: Invest in teacher training; strengthen leadership and management capacity in universities and vocational training institutions to exercise institutional autonomy; and provide scholarships for disadvantaged students.


In 1997, Congress recognized that too many children were reading below grade level. Because children's reading ability is critical to their overall success in school, this was simply unacceptable. Congress directed the creation of the National Reading Panel to reevaluate educational research and give our teachers and schools a roadmap to address this problem.
The Panel found that for children to be good readers, they must be taught:
- phonemic awareness skills - the ability to manipulate the sounds that make up spoken language;
- phonics skills - the understanding that there are relationships between letters and sounds;
- the ability to read fluently with accuracy, speed, and expression;
- and to apply reading comprehension strategies to enhance understanding and enjoyment of what they read.
The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are a set of standardized, individually administered measures of early literacy development.
Below are links to many resources pertaining to DIBELS and literacy.


Difficulty Sounding out Words
My seven-year-old is having difficulties with sounding out anything but the most basic words, even though he tries very hard. The teacher wants him to repeat first grade if there continues to be no improvement. I worry about sending him the message that trying your best isn't good enough. Is there anything I can do to help him?Question:
Reading is a difficult skill to learn, no doubt about it. It is not a natural phenomenon, although it does seem to come more naturally to some individuals than to others. Still, becoming an independent reader can be a challenging task for most children. Because it is so difficult, research into how children learn to read is ongoing.
Current research on how children learn to read most successfully offers these conclusions:
- Children benefit from listening to others read aloud on a regular basis;
- Phonemic awareness is crucial in preparing a child to learn to read;
- Systematic phonics instruction is also necessary;
- Children need to read for at least 30 minutes every day at their instructional level in order to improve their reading skills;
- Sight word memorization is important in reaching reading fluency
Your son's difficulty may lie in a lack of understanding of intermediate phonics rules. He seems to need more explicit instruction in the next level, such as the consonant-vowel-consonant-e word pattern, vowel combinations, blends, diphthongs, and digraphs. Until he learns those rules and patterns, he won't be able to apply them. Even though he may have been trying very hard, he simply may not have the tools that he needs to be an independent reader.
There are a few options that might work for you. The teacher has suggested that he repeat the grade, which is one alternative. Retention may not be the best choice unless his birthday falls close to the cutoff date and you can have some assurance that he will get the instruction that he needs to be an independent reader. Retention is also not recommended for children with a learning disability, so if you suspect that he may have a learning disability, have him assessed at the school site.
Another option is to hire a tutor to teach him phonics. You may be able to find a college student to work with him, or ask his teacher for a referral. Also, the school may have a list of teachers who tutor afternoons, evenings or weekends. You may also want to consider tutoring him yourself. You can obtain quality materials from an educational supply store or even from your son's teacher. I recommend that you acquire leveled reading books, the types of basal readers that build on children's reading skills incrementally. You may be able to get these "phonics" readers at your local library. If not, ask your son's teacher if you can borrow some from her collection.
Continue reading nightly with your son. He will benefit from listening to you read aloud as much as he will from reading at his instructional level on his own. Talk with his teacher about his specific strengths and weaknesses as a reader and set up some realistic goals for your son. With both of you working to help him, not only will he reach those goals, but may also surpass them.Answer:


Informative articles, research summaries and papers focus on literacy in children. Highlights a special segment of Position Papers in “How Young Children Learn to Read in High/Scope Programs.” In addition, specific advice and suggestions for parents and teachers and a schedule of relevant trainings and conferences are offered. Literacy information applicable to infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and elementary school students.
Reading Comprehension: Teaching Reading Comprehension, Teaching Reading Strategies
in Education / Learning
A substantial collection of early literacy information. Includes information and articles on teaching reading strategies and reading comprehension activities to elucidate literacy and reading in young children. Other topics covered include bilingualism, developmental disabilities, phonics and technology and literacy. Features additional tips, advice, a parenting guide, and a schedule of trainings and conferences.
Reading Rockets is a national multimedia project offering information and resources on how kids learn to read, why so many struggle, and how adults including parents, teachers, librarians, school psychologists, etc. can help. Reading Rockets creates and disseminates information about reading through PBS television programs, online services, and professional development opportunities.
Zero to Three provides practical tips and research-based information on early literacy for parents and/or professionals such as child care providers and pediatricians. Topics covered include language and literacy development and book preferences. The site also includes tips of the week and "Parenting A-Z."
The Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement Provides academic, technical articles and instructional resources on early literacy. Provides information on teaching reading strategies, reading books to children and story writing. covers topics such as reading comprehension activities, story writing, home and school effects and staff development.
Offers practical and research information and online journal articles on child literacy. Includes literacy in the classroom with reading comprehension activities, articles on teaching reading strategies, technology and literacy and other topics.
Summaries of current knowledge prepared especially for parents, with links to other relevant web sites. Articles cover how reading skills develop, difficulties with reading, and parents who have trouble reading. From the University of Michigan Health System.
Colorín Colorado provides information, activities, and advice for Spanish-speaking parents and educators of English language learners (ELLs). The parent's section is completely bilingual. For educators, there are downloadable resources for PreK-3 teachers (most resources are also relevant for grades 4-8) who have one or more English language learners (ELLs) in their class. The educator's section provides practical, research-based, and best-practice information and strategies for teaching English language learners.
Dr. Barbara Foorman discusses research on a variety of interventions for literacy in early childhood and school-age children. She presents effective intervention options for classrooms as well as individual students in need of literacy intervention support.
This article discusses reading interventions for third graders. It also discusses Early identification, intervention, and the success rates of retention.
in Education / Learning
- After School Care
- Bilingual Education
- Charter Schools
- Child Care/preschool
- Early Intervention -Practices
- Early Intervention- Literacy
- Gifted Children
- Health Care in Schools
- Home Schooling
- Language Delays
- Learning Disabilities
- Multicultural Education
- Out-of-school Time
- Parent Involvement
- Parents' Rights
- Physical Disabilities
- Preschool Curriculum
- School Psychology
- School Readiness
- School Violence
- Special Education


June 30, 2014
June 20, 2014
June 02, 2014
April 02, 2014
October 24, 2013
Network With Us
Join us on Facebook to get the latest news and updates.
ReadWriteThink couldn't publish all of this great content without literacy experts to write and review for us. If you've got lessons plans, videos, activities, or other ideas you'd like to contribute, we'd love to hear from you.
News | October 24, 2012
IRA and NCTE Offer Resources to Address Common Core State Standards
IRA and NCTE are pleased to offer a wide array of resources to aid in the successful implementation of the English Language Arts (ELA) Common Core State Standards (CCSS).
IRA recently released guidelines to address the need for a link between reading instruction and the ELA CCSS. These guidelines provide teachers and educational leaders with recommendations on how to integrate many of the central ideas of the standards into effective practice. They represent a consensus of the thinking of literacy leaders in the field who support thoughtful implementation of the standards for student literacy achievement.
The guidelines from IRA capture the most pressing issues in clear language, point out their significance for those responsible for implementation, and then offer clear guidance on accomplishing the task at hand. Seven specific issues are addressed, including:
- Challenging texts
- Foundational skills
- Disciplinary literacy
- Diverse learners
Visit the CCSS guidelines webpage to download for FREE the guidelines white paper/statement entitled Literacy Implementation Guidance for the ELA Common Core State Standards and to join the IRA CCSS Resources mailing list for future notifications. To see IRA’s current offerings of CCSS-related materials, including books, journals, webinars, and more, visit www.reading.org/elacommoncore.
NCTE offers books, online courses and events, journal articles, and more to support the teacher’s focus on keeping students at the center of instruction. These can be found on the Common Core State Standards Resources page. These resources from NCTE show how to keep students at the center of every classroom, providing examples of upholding NCTE principles in a time of Core Standards, and supporting teachers and schools with interpreting the CCSS and planning units of instruction keeping students at the center and teachers as decision-makers.
In addition to general materials, NCTE also offers resources on the instructional shifts associated with the Common Core State Standards:
- Reading, writing, speaking, and listening are grounded in evidence from the text.
- All students need regular practice with complex texts.
- Students need to build knowledge through content-rich nonfiction and informational texts.
- Literacy is a shared responsibility.


|ECU Music Education professor Jennifer Bugos, left, works with student Patricia Griffith. Bugos is investigating the benefits of music instruction for the aging. (Photo by Cliff Hollis)
Music strikes chord with older learners
By Karen Shugart
Ann Flake wanted to learn how to play the piano that sat unused in her living room, left behind by a grown daughter. She’d had enough knowledge of music to sing along at church, but little more.
Three months later, Flake is set to perform “Danny Boy” at a May 23 recital for students participating in Dr. Jennifer Bugos’ study of how music instruction can prevent age-related cognitive decline. The recital is scheduled for 3 p.m. at the A.J. Fletcher Music Center.
“This course goes so quickly,” said Flake, 67, a retired radiology technologist, as she paused from a Tuesday morning practice session. “It’s mind-boggling.”
Mind-boggling may be one thing Bugos hoped the classes would be. As a doctoral student at the University of Florida, she witnessed the beneficial effect of music on her grandparents. Now an associate professor of music education at East Carolina University, Bugos is working to measure how music instruction, theory and performance can affect aging.
For three semesters, she has taught music appreciation, piano instruction and percussion ensemble classes to men and women ages 60 to 85. Participants have fewer than three years of formal training.
“Some people ask, ‘How can I learn this? I’m already 85. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,’” Bugos said. “That adage is not true. Everybody has the capacity to learn at any age.
“Certainly, ‘neurons that fire together wire together,’” she continued, citing a psychology axiom often used to describe the idea that synapses are strengthened the more often neurons “talk” to each other.
So far, the study’s outcome looks promising. Though it isn’t yet over, Bugos said, early indicators suggest that the courses have helped participants. “Generally, we’re noticing enhanced cognitive abilities in many areas, some of which are associated with Alzheimer’s Disease,” she said.
Musical study’s beneficial effects on older adults has been recognized and reflected in instruction programs around the country, but many programs assume some sort of existing knowledge on the student’s part. That leaves out many seniors who never had the opportunity to study an instrument, Bugos said.
Her classes were designed to be quick-paced tutorials that accommodate students who couldn’t read a note. They didn’t even have to have touched a keyboard or xylophone mallet. The students did, however, commit to almost four hours of cognitive assessments before training and more than two-and-a-half hours afterward.
Seventy students studied music appreciation, while 60 students each took piano or percussion instruction. Fine motor coordination has been studied in the piano group; in the percussion group, gross motor coordination.
“I think it really does help with your thinking ability,” said Stu Rosenstein, 61, of Greenville. He signed up to learn more about the theory behind the classical music he loves. After the course is over, he plans to continue his studies.
Musical knowledge can also help students’ bond with friends and family, Bugos said.
“The other day I had a student come by who said, ‘I just played for my great aunt who’s in a nursing home who used to play piano. She was delighted that I played her “Happy Birthday,”’” Bugos said. “I had another one play for her grandkids.”
Working with seniors differs from teaching more traditional-aged students, she said. “Older adults bring this excitement and energy,” Bugos said. “They bring prior experience to the table. They have their own particular preferences. They have their own interests. They’re very exciting to work with.”
The study’s $115,206 grant from the Retirement Research Foundation expires in August, but Bugos hopes to keep the classes going. Ultimately, she’d like to have programs in Greenville and towns across the country.
“People are interested in continuing,” she said. “I’m getting new calls every day from people who would like to participate.”
For more information, contact Bugos at 252-328-5721 or email@example.com.