This course is planned for students aged 12 to 16 who want to learn the fundamentals of drawing or work on portfolio pieces. The course will cover the basic drawing principles and techniques such as proportional measurement, perspective and shading. The mediums used in the course are graphite, conté, and pen. Genres will include still life, portraits and figure drawing. The focus is to build perception skills and hand-eye co-ordination, because all drawing is an active way of SEEING.
Kathy Chelin has a wealth of experience teaching art with both teens and adults. For the past 25 years, she has taught enriched classes in Drawing, Painting, Illustration and Sculpture at Unionville High School, the designated School for the Arts in York Region. She teaches a variety of drawing and sculpture classes throughout the city to adults and teens. In addition, she regularly does figure and portrait drawing workshops for OSEA (Ontario Society for Art Education) and she continues to teach studio classes to art teachers at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.


Younger people are earning bachelor’s degrees in education at a far lower rate than older age groups, and gender gaps in science and engineering have narrowed, new Census data show.
Nationwide, just 8.9 percent of 25- to 39-year-olds with bachelor’s degrees studied education, compared with 12.7 percent of 40- to 64-year-olds and 23.5 percent of people aged 65 and older, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 American Community Survey five-year estimates.
The Census Bureau groups degree fields into five broad categories: science and engineering; science and engineering related fields; business; education; arts humanities and other. (More on the different categories below).
Science and engineering, which is the most popular degree category for all three age groups, has gained share from 32.1 percent among those aged 65 and older, to 34 percent among 40- to 64-year-olds, to 37 percent among 25- to 39-year-olds.
In Connecticut, 25- to 39-year-olds hold education degrees at among the lowest levels in the nation: just 7.5 percent, compared with a national median of 10.3 percent among all states. In Connecticut that 7.5-precent figure compares with 10.3 percent among 40- to 64-year-olds and 19.7 percent among those 65 and-older.
All combined there were 925,607 people in Connecticut aged 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher, with 36.6 percent studying science and engineering; 8.5 percent, engineering-related fields, 19.7 percent, business; 11.1 percent, education; and 24 percent, arts, humanities and other areas.
The data, a new Census topic, shed new light on a challenge educators have faced for years. In Connecticut, 250 teaching positions went unfilled in the 2014-15 school year because of a lack of qualified candidates, and the number of candidates per position went down, according to state Department of Education data.
In Connecticut and most states, more women hold bachelor’s degrees than men. There are an estimated 441,828 men and 483,779 women with bachelor’s degrees, a difference of about 4.5 percent.
A gender gap in the sciences has narrowed. While men 65 and older were once more than twice as likely as women to study science and engineering, men 25 to 39 were 1.3 times as likely.
Among Connecticut degree holders aged 65 and older, 20.7 percent of women had studied science and engineering, compared with 47.2 percent of men. But among 25- to 39-year-old women, 35.5 percent studied science and engineering, while 45 percent of 25- to 39-year-old men held degrees in this field — a rate to that for men twice their age.
Similarly, younger women are gravitating more toward business. Just 6.1 percent of women 65 and older held business degrees, compared with 15.9 percent of 25-39-year-olds.
The gender split among educators has remained tilted toward women, who are about three times more likely than men to study education in all three age groups.
Categorizing fields of study
The broad categories of degrees are broken into 15 more specific fields. Perhaps the least intuitive distinction is between “science and engineering” and “science and engineering related fields.”
Science and engineering includes fields computer science, biology, physical sciences, psychology, mathematics, engineering and multidisciplinary studies.
Science and engineering related fields includes fields that employ scientific fields, including such majors as nursing, architecture.
Arts, humanities and other very generally covers majors as broad as criminal justice and social work to literature, visual and performing arts.
Business includes majors such as accounting and management.
Education includes majors such as general and elementary education.
The source material and code used to analyze this data is available on our GitHub repository. In order to promote transparency and accuracy, Trend CT encourages you examine our work and use it to enhance your own analyses.


We will support efforts to increase the ability of Nunavummiut to improve their own food security by gaining and utilizing life skills, including language, literacy and numeracy.
The choices we make about food affect our health. We have concerns that younger Nunavummiut are not learning the skills they need to obtain, store, prepare, and consume country food. We also have concerns that Nunavummiut are not learning or using the skills they need to make good choices with store-bought food.
To help increase food security, it is important for all Nunavummiut to strengthen and use skills related to country and store-bought foods. This includes language, literacy, and numeracy skills.
|4.1||Create a network of people involved in the development and transmission of life skills, including content experts and educators.|
|4.2||Support the transfer of life skills using both formal and informal methods of learning.|
|4.3||Promote the development, sharing, and distribution of learning resources.|
|4.4||Support Nunavummiut by providing resources, training, and encouragement.|
|4.5||Incorporate life skills into existing programs wherever possible.|
|4.6||Make life skills programming available to broader audiences that include a diversity of ages and genders, with a specific focus on marginalized community members.|


So I've talked about me possibly having NLD - non-verbal learning disorder - but I couldn't provide you guys with a lot of info. Now I've found some, so I decided to show you:
NLD is a neurological disorder which originates in the right hemisphere of the brain. Reception of nonverbal or performance-based information governed by this hemisphere is impaired in varying degrees, causing problems with visual-spatial, intuitive, organizational, evaluative, and holistic processing functions.
The syndrome of Nonverbal Learning Disorders (NLD) consists of specific assets and deficits.
The assets include:
- Early speech and vocabulary development
- Remarkable rote memory skills
- Attention to detail
- Early development of reading skills and excellent spelling skills
- Eloquent verbal ability
- Strong auditory retention
The three categories of deficits are:
- Motoric: lack of coordination, problems with balance and graphomotor skills
- Visual-spatial-organizational: lack of image, poor visual recall, faulty spatial perception, and difficulty with spatial relations
- Social: inability to comprehend nonverbal communication, difficulty adjusting to transitions and novel situations, and deficits in social judgment
People with NLD can be affected in varied levels of severity in each of the categories, so that each person with NLD presents a unique clinical, behavioral, and educational picture. People with NLD can be helped by many forms of therapy, but their world is filled with confusing sensory stimuli. For some, their physical endurance is challenged by generally low muscle tone. Some need support throughout life with cognitive and organizational skills, motor skill development, pragmatics and social skills.
Children with NLD have advanced verbal and auditory memory. Some are precocious readers with advanced vocabularies. Nevertheless, NLD is a problem of language. People with NLD have rote language skills but when it comes to functional daily use of language, they have difficulties with tone of voice, inference, written expression, facial expression, gestures, and other areas of pragmatic speech.
People with NLD have difficulty understanding patterns and lining up columns of numbers. Spoken instructions can be troublesome due to difficulty picturing consecutive directions and poor visual memory. NLD can also affect coordination, causing clumsiness, poor balance and a tendency to fall. Many people with NLD have poor safety judgment.
We are not sure what causes NLD, but we know that the earlier the intervention, the better the prognosis.
There...did you understand any of it? I did...a little bit anyways. Well, that's all for now.
Ja mata ne mina!


At Langdale, the whole school works together to provide high-quality education within a stimulating, challenging, secure and caring environment that grants equal opportunities for each child irrespective of gender, race or creed. Our children will then be ready to face the challenge of their next steps in education.
We are proud to deliver a curriculum that is;
Our curriculum is based on the National Curriculum for England.
At Langdale, our Reception team provides high quality, integrated early education for 4 – 5 year olds, ensuring that our children have solid foundations on which they can build their future learning.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum that we follow encourages the children to enjoy success and achievement in an atmosphere of care: Langdale children feel included, valued and secure.
The Foundation Stage gives children the opportunity to learn through structured play and through hands-on tasks and challenges which match the children's needs and abilities. Learning opportunities are planned for indoors and outdoors and, as a result of being part of a broader learning environment, the children all have access to extension activities that allow each child to maximise his or her potential.
The Early Years programme develops key learning skills such as listening, speaking, concentration, persistence and learning to work and cooperate with others, as well as developing early communication, literacy and numeracy skills.
Early Years Curriculum is organised into 7 areas of learning and the following descriptions briefly highlight the key learning outcomes for each:
The main school teaches children ages between 5 and 11 years, and follows the National Curriculum for England Programmes of Study for the delivery of the core subjects (Literacy, Numeracy, Science and ICT) and the foundation subjects (Art, Music, Geography, History, Religious Education, Physical Education, Personal Health and Social Education).
Classes are small and the staff to pupil ratio is low, resulting in greater opportunities for the staff to ensure that learning is relevant, individualised and enjoyable. In addition to the curriculum options mentioned earlier, the children also have access to Speech and Drama coaching as well as specialised music lessons.
The Langdale teaching staff work together as a team, planning and sharing ideas and providing a supportive, caring and stimulating learning environment that encourages children to become independent learners. The curriculum is designed to enable the children to grow in confidence and ability.
In Key Stage 1, reading and spelling homework is given on a regular basis and serves to reinforce class teaching. There is a balance and range in other homework activities, although these often reflect the topic that is being taught at any given time. The Key Stage 1 Phase ends with Standard Assessment Tests which are administered in Year 2.
In Key Stage Two (KS2), the emphasis is on "learning how to learn". Learning is seen as a process; education as an adventure and a journey that is both exciting and rewarding!
KS2 children are ages between 7 and 11 and are encouraged to be receptive to new concepts and to evaluate their own progress when dealing with them. They have access to a wide range of information and media and are taught the value of effective communication as a tool for furthering understanding.
For those children who have completed Key Stage 1 at Langdale, we aim to build on and enhance the wide variety of knowledge, skills and experiences that the children have already learned and to equip them for the future. For children who are new to Key stage 2, we hope to ensure that they have access to everything they need to ensure that their learning journey is both highly successful and highly rewarding. Activities are differentiated to meet the needs of individual children.
Throughout the whole school and across all curriculum areas we hope to foster these attributes as part of the Langdale ethos;


Areas of Difficulty
Most children who rely on schooling to learn to read and who receive good reading instruction do, in fact, become successful, lifelong readers. However, there are some children for whom good instruction is necessary but not enough.
- Failure to understand or use the alphabetic principle, that is, the idea that written spellings systematically represent the sounds of spoken words in reading and writing
- Failure to acquire and use comprehension skills and strategies to get meaning from text
- Lack of fluency
These three can combine to decrease children's motivation for learning how to read.
All over the United States, countless interventions strive to help children who are doing poorly in reading. In tutoring sessions, special education classes, free book programs, family literacy projects, and remedial instruction, there are educators, paraprofessionals, and volunteers who are trying to help struggling children to catch up.
Provided that they are designed to help children learn what they need to learn, programs with vastly different approaches show positive results.
Reading is an accomplishment that depends not just on discrete skills, but on a wide range of developmental supports and cognitive achievements. Mending an early language link is not by itself likely to have any effect on word reading if other connections in the net are frayed. Because reading is such a complex activity, children need an environment offering rich support and varied learning opportunities for every successive stage of their literacy development.
Some children are far more likely than others to have difficulties in learning to read. This may seem a simple and obvious fact. Yet it is a fact that is overlooked far too often.
If our goal is to ensure that all children in America can read, then we must target prevention efforts to the children who we know will need them the most. We must do this as early as possible before children fail in school, before they are labeled, and before costly remediation is necessary.
Click the "References" link above to hide these references.


Counting out fruit and vegetables at the grocery store. Talking about the shape of the wheels on the bus. Asking, “Are you growing bigger and taller?” These actions by caregivers are the building blocks of numeracy skills.
“Numeracy” is a term that refers to all the math that young students learn, including number, operations, and geometry and measurement concepts.
Research has shown that children are capable of learning math concepts at a much earlier age than has been previously recognized, and that children’s mastery of early math concepts by the time they enter kindergarten is the strongest predictor of future academic success.
But in Washington state, we know that not all kids have the opportunity to learn these concepts before they come to school. Our state’s kindergarten entry assessment, Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS), shows that math is the area of greatest challenge.
- About half of entering kindergartners demonstrate the expected math skills for their age
- Children of color experience an opportunity gap in math, and they’re less likely than their white peers to enter kindergarten with the expected skills
Supporting Families and Providers
We already know that making counting, shapes and measurement part of children’s everyday experiences will help them develop the numeracy skills expected to enter kindergarten with the expected numeracy skills. While there is no one model or curriculum that is best for all families and environments, offering science-based tips for caregivers and resource-rich trainings for providers have been effective strategies in some Washington communities.
The state’s Early Learning Regional Coalitions offer the following ideas, based on their successful engagement strategies, to focus on early math in the materials and services offered to families:


Here’s an article from the 2007 NIE Literacy tab. The article "Around the World and Home Again: A Literacy Journey Through the News" was written by Gail J. Price, Multimedia Specialist from the National Center for Family Literacy. NCFL is a nonprofit organization recognized worldwide as the leader in family literacy development. For more information, visit www.famlit.org. The tab was produced by the Newspaper Association of America and funded by Idearc Media.
When it comes to learning about what’s happening around the world and in our own back yards, there’s no better resource than the newspaper. Right at your family’s fingertips is a wealth of information about places, events and people – and opportunities to expand your child’s knowledge and improve his reading skills.
The journey can begin simply with a conversation about something you see or read together in the world news section or maybe something from the Sunday edition. Asking questions is a good way to start the conversation, create a focus for reading and help build comprehension.
Incorporate your child’s interests in the conversation. What does he/she think the national sport of that country is? What kind of music do people there listen to? What are the major industries? Who are the famous people from that country? If the article doesn’t answer these questions, look for more information on the Internet or at the library.
Datelines in newspapers (usually found at the beginning of an article) identify where the article originated. With your child, take a trip using the datelines you find in the world news section. Pick one to begin with and then, using three or four others, plan a trip together.
Consider the best way to get to the next location – train, airplane, car, boat? Talk about how the weather might change from location to location, plus food you might find, places to see, things to do and the different geographic features of each country.
Mark your trip on a map and keep track of the miles you travel. Use each new location as an opportunity to “file a news story” about the country to someone “at home.” Make sure to answer the “W” questions – who, what, where, when and why – in the report. And of course, include the dateline.
Places aren’t the only feature of interest in world news stories. These articles also tie the names of people from all over the world to particular events and countries. Talk with your child about some of the people you read about in the newspaper. Who are they? What jobs do they hold in their own countries? What is an equivalent job in our country: president, army general, member of Congress? How does the writer feel about the person, and why? Why is this person in the newspaper – what events are also reported in the article?Is there a recent U.S. event your child knows about that is similar or connected? Helping children connect world events to their own experiences increases their understanding and deepens their knowledge about what they are reading.
After your tour of the world, you’re probably ready to come home and find out what’s happening in your own neighborhood. The local news section of the newspaper provides lots of opportunities to show your child how learning and reading are relevant to daily life.


Text and photography by Marvin Bartel , Ed.D., Professor of Art and Art Education , Goshen College Other essays in Art Education by this author can be found at this link .
Can I teach art in a ways that makes my students take pride in their own cultural identity while gaining respect and appreciation for the art of other cultures? Those teaching in international schools are likely to have students with more diversity or at least more understanding of cultural diversity than an art teacher in a national school.
In North America, I frequently see school displays of projects based on tribal art of Native American Tribes. Some of these are dolls that are felt to have magic powers in their traditional settings. Some are totem pole projects that are copies of Native American Totems.
Is it right to imitate what might be sacred or at least traditional in another culture? How do I teach art in a way that makes my students take pride in their own culture while gaining respect and appreciation for the art and customs of other cultures? Is imitation really flattery? Might there be more authentic ways to be creative while developing appreciation for the art forms and artworks of another culture? What does imitation teach about the role of artists? What should be the role of artists in today’s world? What is critical thinking in art? Shouldn’t we teach that artists interpret and create meaning rather than copy that which is already created?
WHAT ARE THE UNDERLYING CONCEPTS?
May I suggest some ideas about how we might teach about multicultural attitudes while teaching art with integrity? As a teacher, I must first familiarize myself with the intention of the “other” artist. In the case of the Northwest Native American Totem Pole maker, I must understand the role of the Totem pole as an identity symbol for the family or tribe that it represents. I must have some appreciation for the Totem’s cultural role in helping tell the spiritual stories of the tribe’s interdependence on nature, animals, and their deep respect for their ancestors. If I know the artist’s intentions, I have prepared myself to motivate my students to create art based on similar intentions related to the culture of the students in my class.
Many art lesson are started by the teacher employing what is called image flooding. In image flooding the teacher shows many examples of completed work by artists and former students. I do not think much of image flooding because it works by giving many answers to the problem before the students have even considered the problem or worked at their own solution finding skills. Image flooding results in skillfully produced imitations, but does not teach much about problem finding and problem solving. Teachers who depend on image flooding may pride themselves on achieving skillfully slick student artwork, but I wonder whether students are learning how their art can create visual meaning and feeling in response to their own lives.
For the art projects each group could work together to develop an assembled sculpture that would represent the important aspects of their particular set of interests, values, or beliefs. Media might be heavy paper or card stock that is cut, folded, and glued into three dimensional forms to represent the symbols. Their colors, sizes, textures, shapes and their juxtapositions would help produce dominance and subordination of various inclusions. Artistically and aesthetically they should strive for unity with interesting variety.
THINKING AND CREATIVITY
When the groups complete the artworks, they could be given a writing guide and asked to write a statement or viewer’s guide articulating the work’s intentions. Other class members should be asked to respond without seeing the statement to point out what they first notice and explain why they notice it.
Better yet, a group of students does research. They then
and present a drama they have written about being members of the
Their roles include art-makers and art-users in the selected culture.
education research has shown that this method of learning art history
multicultural art is one of the favorites among high school
We live in an age of spectator sports and spectator culture. There is too much indiscriminate learning by imitation. By learning to be creators with integrity about ourselves and our own identities, we can better understand, empathize, and respect the honest efforts of those other than ourselves.
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back to top of article
Other essays in Art Education by this author can be found at this link .
Haida Tribe Information and Images can be found at these links
An essay on the life of the Haida Tribe
Some images and infomation about the making of Haida Totems. This is a Washington State University site.
about the Haida Tribe
Links to other essays by Marvin Bartel
They are located at: http://www.iteachnet.org/
Permission to copy for non-profit classroom use may be secured by e-mail from the author. Contact


Bridges to Kinder Early Childhood & Parent Education Program is designed to help children & their families make an easier transition into elementary education. Our classroom location, on Westlake Elementary School campus, provides students and their parents the opportunity to:
- Observe and interact with K-5 students through attendance and participation in school wide assemblies.
- Become recipients of peer mentoring from older students on campus through structured and supervised activities of play, reading, art, gardening, etc.
- Use the library and media center for weekly story time and book checkout.
- Take part in hands on science through active participation in the Life Lab Garden Program.
Bridges to Kinder strives to maintain a close relationship between home and school, parents and staff, teacher and child.
Bridges to Kinder offers a full, developmentally appropriate academic curriculum, for Pre-K/Preschool students which include early literacy and mathematical concept activities, as well as an exploration of the arts and sciences. Unit blocks, puzzles, manipulative toys, simple board games, picture books, audio recordings and musical instruments, art materials such as markers, paint, glue, and safe scissors, dramatic play materials such as dolls, dress up clothes, props and puppets, sand and water toys are available. Opportunities for cooking, gardening, creative movement and dramatics are also offered.
Teachers provide a variety of activities and materials that are selected to: encourage children to think, reason, question and experiment; encourage language and literacy development; encourage social development skills; enhance physical development and skill; build upon their curiosity to initiate discoveries in all academic areas; encourage sound health, safety and nutritional practices; and respect cultural diversity. Circle times and small group times are part of the daily routine so that the students have the opportunity to share, to listen, to participate and to care for one another.
The Preschool Program is paced appropriately for the younger students and is nurturing and responsive to each child’s needs. The Pre-K Program is designed to meet the transitional needs of the older students and to help prepare them for a successful entrance into kindergarten.


Description of Occupational Therapy Services
Occupational therapy at The Keswell School follows educational, health and rehabilitative service professional guidelines focusing on helping young children and adolescents to successfully participate in all aspects of life through the therapeutic use of everyday activities (occupations).
Among one of the most common areas of challenge for individuals with an ASD is their ability to effectively receive, process and respond to sensory information that may be both external and internal. Occupational therapists possess extensive professional training and a unique overall ability to identify and address such challenges. Through a variety of techniques and approaches we help children and adolescents become more tolerant of and comfortable with challenging sensory experiences. By identifying calming and/or stimulating sensory experiences that are particular and unique for each child we help create supportive programs that increase their coping abilities, improve frustration tolerance and maximize their learning potential. Progressively students become more aware of their bodies and sensory needs and are helped to discover and incorporate helpful strategies that provide positive paths to expresses and deal with discomfort and distress.
At the same time we work with children, and adolescents to develop physical, mental, and perceptual skills that will help them be successful during self-care tasks, activities of daily living, academic learning, sports and recreation and to develop prevocational and vocational skills. By addressing difficulties with overall large and small muscle strength and coordination, muscle tone, motor planning and dyspraxia, ocular motility and/or visual attention we work on the development of foundational skills that are necessary components of efficient daily performance


At BedRock Preschool, we recognize that the children’s developmental needs should be the foundation for every choice we make in planning our curriculum. By understanding the developmental continuum between ages infant through six, teachers create age appropriate opportunities to promote positive experiences for all children to learn at their own pace while aligning to New York State Standards. Lesson plans follow standards for learning in areas including social/emotional, physical, creative expression/aesthetic, language/literacy, mathematical thinking, scientific thinking, critical thinking, and social studies.
Each classroom is physically safe, socially enhancing, emotionally nurturing, and intellectually stimulating. Our teachers recognize that
children learn best when they experience the world firsthand utilizing all of their senses to participate in learning. Various classroom strategies help promote independent
decision-making and self-selection while maintaining good classroom management. During learning center time, teachers encourage self-exploration by asking students various questions that focus
on who, what, when, where, why and how. Centers include math, science, reading and writing, library, sand and water table, block building, dramatic play, and art area.
The nurturing, progressive educational environment where children can play and grow builds a strong sense of community. Our teachers reinforce
the fundamentals such as respect, courtesy, and good manners is part of each school day. We encourage an attitude of mutual respect and acceptance of diversity.
From three to twenty-four months, infants and toddlers begin to display a spurt in growth and curiosity. The class is uniquely designed to promote this spirit of inquiry. Mobile toddlers are shifting from feeling secure to exploring their environment and eventually to developing an identity. We understand the natural developmental of children and develop our curriculum according to their needs... Read More
Two-year-olds are at an “in-between” age in early childhood education. This is an exciting developmental stage where a child is trying out new ideas, exploring his or her surroundings, and finding possible solutions to problems, but all awhile staying close to a parent or teacher as the child needs base of support and trust. Our two year program provides many opportunities that teaches a child on how to manage conflicting feelings of separation—the “push-pull” between the pleasures of oneness with the parent along with the exhilaration of growing independent... Read More
Three year olds are full of wonder and spend a lot of time watching, observing, and imitating. Their imagination is working at all times. They are particularly interested in perfecting their fine motor skills that they once found it challenging when they were two years old. A three-year-old loves to pour, mix, mash and squeeze. At this age, a child will learn to hold his or her crayon better; thus our classrooms are equipped with fat pencils and crayons to help with pretend writing and drawing. The gross motor skill development of this age group will learn to throw and catch a large ball... Read More
BedRock Preschool is committed to providing an excellent education that meets each student’s interests, abilities, and needs and promotes an
appreciation for diversity in our community as an integral part of school life. BedRock challenges each student to develop intellectual independence, creativity and curiosity and a sense of
responsibility toward others both within the school and in the community at large.
Story time is particularly important for this age group. The child’s imagination and the increased ability to remember the past make the child an interesting storyteller. Teachers give students opportunities to recite familiar stories that they have read. Children learn that reading is about playing with words and sounds through rhymes, songs and stories... Read More


Using ICT in Music Education
Music is central to our experience as human beings and forms the basis of our sonic environment, allowing for expression and communication across styles and cultures. Musical experiences enrich our lives. There is no doubt that technology has become more and more important in education all over the world. And there are still many exciting developments in the area of music technology that only can be anticipated at the moment.
ICT provides the means to access a wide variety of sources of information and provides the opportunity for investigation of the creation of music at various stages, right up to the appreciation of the performance. It provides access to musical experiences from a range of cultures and time periods. This serves to encourage citizenship and the exploration of sameness, difference and diversity.
Studying music develops understanding, skills and values that enhance our cognitive, affective and psycho motor abilities and enhance our perception of the world around us. Trainees learn about the symbols used to represent sound and develop a deeper understanding of music making and appreciation. Through performing, listening and composing they develop their imagination and aesthetic sensibility and engage intellectually in the study of music.
It is essential that students are empowered to take leadership and responsibility in fostering positive and inclusive virtual environments. On the other hand one of our aim is to get the target groups aware of how little impact it sometimes needs to get a great outcome, no matter what cultural background or social state you are in – you can give as much as you can and you get back something which makes you richer in mind and enriches your knowledge, no matter who you are. We want to enhance the quality and reinforce the European dimension in adult education. We would like to motivate our trainees to learn languages, use ICT and enrich knowledge about the variety of European culture.
Studies in Music Education show that:
– Through technological applications in music training music classes become more interesting for individuals
– More efficient and effective learning can be achieved
It is observed that with active participation individuals have more fun from music. In the light of this information, through the SW programs that will be used in this project, the notes and lyrics can be monitored in their duration, loudness and musical expressions. All this will be presented to students and teachers in an accurate and understandable way. The compositions on paper will be played with their melodies so will provide great convenience for people who do not know music.


In this subject, students experience, through engaging and topical content, a stimulating blend of traditional and contemporary Geography to suit all abilities. Students study physical and human Geography in discrete, self-contained topic areas that focus on physical processes and factors that produce diverse and dynamic landscapes over time.
Studying Geography gives students of all backgrounds the opportunity to develop communication skills, graphical and cartographical skills and technological skills including ICT and GIS. Students also practice interpersonal skills through debate and discussion.
Throughout Key Stage 3 Geography there is a heavy emphasis on literacy, numeracy skills and problem-solving skills.
Units studied and a brief description of their content
What is Geography? how and why do urban areas change? Map skills. What processes are involved in the formation of river landforms? What do humans interact in urban areas? What factors influence weather and climatic conditions?
What different types of economic activities do people engage in and why? what are ecosystems?
What processes are involved in the formation of coastal landforms? What are natural hazards and how do they impact people? How are natural resources managed? What is international development?
Students are formally assessed at the end of each topic with an end of topic assessment. The assessments reflect the type of questions that students will eventually be asked on their GCSE examinations.
Other useful information
These are a broad outline of what students at Manor study and all schemes of work are available from the Head of Department.


Helen Keller is a source of inspiration for all the visually challenged. But very few people know that Keller’s teacher Anne Sullivan taught her the first letter ‘doll’ by spelling it on her hands which frustrated her at first. Reason? Keller did not understand that every object had a word uniquely defining it. While Keller succeeded in finding her answers with the help of her teacher there may be many visually impaired children going through similar problems.
Tania Jain, a graphic designer and a student from the National Institute of Design (NID), has designed a unique toolset, Fittle, that has words embossed in braille on different blocks. What’s so different about it then? These blocks when put together mimic the shape and silhouette of the object, thus helping the children visualise the word.
“I had attended a workshop called Design In You (DIY) - Engineering the eye conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at the BITS Pillani Campus in Hyderabad in July this year. The workshop aimed at inspiring young graphic designers to come up with solutions that could help the blind to overcome their day -today tasks.
An interactive session with the visually impaired was a turning point in my life. I interacted with a man named Venkatesh. I was moved when he told me that he grew up asking his friends and family members to describe the object for him which he was curious knowing about as touch was the only sense that he relied upon to feel the object. It was then that I decided to do something for the visually challenged,” says Jain.
While Jain initiated this project, there are a few more people who have joined her team for this noble cause. The designer and her team comprising Dr Anthony Vipin Das, an eye surgeon based in Hyderabad and Dibanshu Bhoumik, a student at NID, are planning to introduce sound interaction for this project. Bhoumik, explains, “We are trying to integrate this project with electronic sound interaction. Consider the example of a ‘cat’. Kids will learn how to spell a ‘cat’, try to visualise what it looks like by organising the blocks and also hear what it sounds like through our integrated sound interaction technology.”
“We wanted to keep Fittle as an open source that could be accessible to all. Hence we did not patent it. Our aim is to bring maximum people together and use design and technology to enhance this toolset so that it can reach even remote places. To source funds for this project, we started a campaign on Indiegogo, an international crowdfunding platform and created awareness about our project.
People across the world came forward and donated generously and we collected $3,000 which helped us kickstart our project,” explains Dr Das, who is also a senior TED fellow. Team Fittle has finished working on eight words such as fish, cat, dog, bat and aim to complete the 26 words by March 2014 so that it can be introduced in the primary school curriculum for the visually impaired children.
Help bring smiles
Jain tells us that Braille has a specific dictionary for each language. The Fittle toolkit in is English Braille but their aim is to make this initiative global by providing this toolset in several other languages. You can also contribute monetarily for this cause. “The toolkit can be created in Hindi easily, but we need help from foreign linguists for the global project. We have collaborated with Asha de Vos, a blue whale biologist who is helping us to come up with our Ocean Fittle series. We are also in talks with a Spanish eye surgeon who has shown interest in developing Fittle for the children in Spanish,” explains Jain.
Finding new horizons
Fittle has introduced this concept in Akropong School for the Blind in Ghana and are trying to make a 3D printer set for them. They have also collaborated with Yahoo! Japan’s project called Hands On Search by providing them part of 3D data to provide an opportunity of visual perception to the visually impaired kids. Hands On Search has installed their special stations across blind schools in Japan. A child has to search in for a word through voice input whereby he gets a 3D printed model of the object.
“We plan to give the first 100 toolkits free to blind schools across India. We are also open to working with more young engineers to expand our initiative and make it bigger. We are blessed with vision but visually-challenged kids just have the sense of touch. The least we can do is enhance the imagination power of these children through the sense of touch,” concludes Jain.
For more information log on to: http://www.fittle.in


Influence and Enchantment
As part of a new series on advocacy in school libraries, regular Bright Ideas contributor Catherine Hainstock shares her reflections on how school librarians can assert their place at the heart of the school.
The School Library Association of Queensland in partnership with the Queensland University of Technology has recently published research on the important contribution that school libraries and teacher librarians make to literacy development. This excellent report reinforces the findings of decades of research on the positive influence a well-resourced library with a qualified teacher librarian has on student achievement.
I read this report in tandem with Guy Kawasaki’s book, “Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions”. His book is about promotion and customer service and even though a school library is not a business, I believe it’s a useful model to explore. At the end of the day, as a teacher librarian I feel I am here to help others. The better our service, the better the result. I am also interested in how we promote what we do because no matter how much research is released, how well supported a school library is, how well it is resourced, or how qualified the teacher librarians are, there is no immunity from decisions to down-size or side-line a library service.
We must make our contribution to school life and student outcomes evident and our influence felt by everyone who comes into the library. Kawasaki’s book helped me understand that my ultimate goal is not about improving customer service, it’s about enchanting people with our service.
[Enchantment] is more than manipulating people to help you get your way. Enchantment transforms situations and relationships. It converts hostility into civility. It reshapes civility into affinity. It changes skeptics and cynics into believers.
— Guy Kawasaki
Kawasaki’s book goes right back to basics (and that’s not a bad thing). He reveals the foundation of enchantment as ‘Likeability’. You can’t enchant people if they don’t like you or your service. (I still haven’t forgot the tyrannical librarian in the public library when I was a child!) Those lady-dragons in pearls may be extinct now, but we want students and teachers not just using our services, but raving about them. Here’s a short list of points from the book that I found relevant to school Library/Information Services (and check out this infographic for more):
- smile (and be polite)
- accept others (and sometimes give them a break)
- get close (get out of the library and make contact)
- project your passions/find shared passions
- create win-win situations
- adopt a Yes attitude
Kawasaki also points out that likeability only goes so far – people need to be able to trust you and your service. In a chapter on the importance of trustworthiness there’s some excellent food for thought about:
- focussing on goodwill
- living up to and fulfilling promises
- giving people the benefit of the doubt
- the importance of expertise and competence (like keeping abreast of basic ICT skills for us)
- showing up (physically and virtually interacting with our clientele)
Reading these two publications at the same time brought into focus the influence we have (or can have) as teacher librarians and how important it is that we recognise and actively cultivate opportunities no matter how big or small.
We used to say the library was the heart of the school; a place for students to learn, inquire, read and enjoy. But with all the technological changes occurring in education, school libraries are no longer contained within four walls. Perhaps the focus can finally shift from the physical space to the real heart of the library – teacher librarians and the services they provide. Over the next few posts, I hope to explore the idea of teacher librarians at the heart of the school. I’d like to reflect on what that can mean for us and how we can continue to grow our influence.
Other posts in this series:
Image Credit: (ca. 1910), Interior of The Queen’s Hall, showing a member of staff sitting at the Enquiries window, State Library of Victoria Pictures Collection.


The autonomy of private instrumental teachers: its effect on valid knowledge construction, curriculum design, and quality of teaching and learning.
What constitutes valid knowledge in the context of private instrumental1 teaching?
How is the private instrumental teaching curriculum designed in order to facilitate the construction and realization of valid knowledge?
How does the autonomy of the private instrumental curriculum support and challenge the quality of teaching and learning?
This research examines the issue of control and choice within the private instrumental teaching context. Whilst one-to-one instrumental teaching has been the focus of music education research in the past, the autonomous nature of private teaching has remained largely hidden from view. Yet, for many, learning an instrument with a private teacher will form the primary developmental basis of their instrumental skills.
Private teachers find themselves in an almost unique position in education, for within the bounds of legality, they can operate in any way they see fit. Issues of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment are outside of institutional control. As the master-apprentice model appears to continue to dominate, the divide between instrumental teaching and the wider sphere of music-making and education appears to deepen. Recent suggestions of an increasing demand for private lessons makes it all the more important that we understand, embrace and challenge the place occupied by private teachers within the wider sphere of music education.
Due to the lack of existing literature, the research employs an approach rooted in Grounded Theory, a methodology which is considered highly useful when little is known about the subject being investigated. An initial literature review was followed by a series of semi-structured interviews with private teachers which explored a number of the core issues raised. As well as providing highly useful data, these interviews steered the next stage of the research process. The data was coded and analysed allowing it to be compared with existing literature; the result of this process formed the basis for an online survey of private teachers to explore a number of pertinent themes on a much larger scale. One of the important features of Grounded Theory is that the review of literature is an ongoing process as data is gathered and new themes emerge. The main survey data will be analysed in such a way as to compare it with both the existing literature reviewed, and the data already gathered.


Contact: Science Press Package
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The not-so-big, bad Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus
Life cycle of the predatory bacterium Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus (yellow). For reproduction it depends on a bacterial prey cell (blue).
Image courtesy of Stephan C. Schuster, Snjezana Rendulic and Jürgen Berger.
Click here for a high resolution photograph.
If you were a bacterium, you wouldn't want to meet Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus in a dark alley. This bacterial bug has an unusual way of preying on other bacteria -- it squeezes itself inside its prey and sucks up their guts.
Snjezana Rendulic of the Max-Planck-Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany, and her colleagues in Germany and the United Kingdom have sequenced the genome of B. bacteriovorus. Identifying the bacterium's genes and the jobs they do helped the researchers understand how the bacterium does its nasty work on its prey.
When B. bacteriovorus invades another cell, it goes through a full life-cycle. After it reproduces, the offspring burst out of the cell and set off to find more unlucky bacteria to invade.
When it finds its prey B. bacteriovorus attaches itself to the host cell wall, punctures it and works its way inside. There, it uses a variety of enzymes to break down the cell's contents and digest them, putting together its own molecules from the component parts. After B. bacteriovorus replicates, the offspring secrete more enzymes that break down the host cell wall, allowing the new bacteria to escape.
These enzymes may be useful ingredients for other types of antimicrobial substances. The authors also propose that it might even be possible to somehow use B. bacteriovorus as a sort of "living antibiotic," since it doesn't seem to harm any organisms besides other bacteria.
This study will appear in the 30 January 2004 issue of the journal Science.
Back to Science for kids
Science is published by AAAS, the non-profit science society.


“Is the rich world aware of how four billion of the six billion live? If we were aware, we would want to help out, we’d want to get involved.” This is a famous quote by Bill Gates – one of the greatest philanthropist of our times.
Good evening, my fellow ToastMasters and esteemed guests!
Would you believe, nearly half of the world’s population — more than 3 billion people — live on less than Rs. 100 (2.5 $) a day. According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty.
Poverty figures are even more alarming in India. In 2010, the World Bank reported that 75% live on less than Rs. 100 per day – out of estimated 1.27 billion Indian population, around 1 billion are still poor. And disgracefully, Every third poor person in the world is an Indian.
Let me try to explain what is Philanthropy. The word ‘Philanthropy’ is derived from Greek word which means love and compassion for humanity. Philanthropy can be understood as a form of Charity. The words charity and philanthropy are often used interchangeably, but there is a significant difference between the two. Charity tends to be a short-term, emotional, immediate response, focused primarily on rescue and relief, whereas philanthropy is much more long-term, more strategic, focused on rebuilding. Charity is giving today…philanthropy is doing forever.
Let me take instances of some of the greatest Philanthropist in the current generation.
The first name that comes to the mind when we talk about Philanthropist is of Bill Gates – the richest person in the world. He founded the largest philanthropic foundation in the world – Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill Gates has already given $28 billion to philanthropic activities, and has plans to eventually donate 95% of their wealth . The primary aims of the foundation is to enhance healthcare, reduce extreme poverty, and to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology.
In India, the concept of Philanthropy is not matured as in western nation, hence we don’t find many here. But still Azim Premji – Chairman of Wipro has set an example by donating $2 billion for improving school education in India, which is largest of its kind in India . Premji founded Azim Premji Foundation, which works in the area of elementary education for systemic change in India’s 1.3 million government-run schools.
Lastly, I would like to mention the name of the greatest living Philanthropist – Warren Buffet. He is sort of flag bearer of philanthropy and has encouraged other wealthy individuals to pool part of their fortunes for charitable purposes, including Bill and Premji. His thoughts about Philanthropy are revolutionary. He is against dynastic wealth and calls people who grow up in wealthy circumstances as “members of the lucky sperm club”. He has set his own example by declaring that his children will not inherit a significant proportion of his wealth. Rather, he has already donated $ 31 billion and plans to donate much more for Philanthropic activities.
There are hundreds of similar Philanthropists in western countries who work arduously for the benefits of mankind. However, we do not find much instances here in India even though we are one of the most poverty-stricken country in the World. I tried analyzing the reasons behind it and found that although we Indians already have some degree of compassion, at present it is very biased and limited. When our family and friends are suffering we easily develop compassion for them, but we find it far more difficult to feel sympathy for people we find unpleasant or for strangers. Wealthy individuals hoard money for their next generations instead of giving back to society, hence, not many people believe in Philanthropy in India. This is when India is called the land of most compassionate people like Lord Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vivekananda etc.
Philanthropy is also very rewarding. Those who participate describe a tremendous feeling of satisfaction. That feeling, propels people like Warren Buffet, Andrew Carnegie, Bill and Melinda Gates, or Oprah Winfrey, Mark Zuckerberg, Azim Premji to set up huge foundations and try to solve major world problems. And they don’t do it because they have to, but because they want to.
I also want to do something of real high impact so that I can make this planet a better place, hence becoming a philanthropist some day is a obvious choice.
Rather, aren’t we all capable of becoming philanthropists?
P.S. – Delivered this speech as my P2 (CC2) project at Toastmasters.


There are plenty of websites that provide science news for kids. With the latest updates on research findings, cool inventions, and scientific expeditions in various fields, these websites provide scientific content that would interest kids in a manner that they can understand. Scientific news stories are always interesting, and it is understandable that the public would want to read about them.
But why all the focus on kids? How much difference does it make to a ten-year old what Curiosity is doing on Mars? There are various ways in which kids can benefit by staying up to date on the latest science news stories. Here are just a few of them.
It promotes scientific thinking.
When you were growing up, you were taught that there are nine planets in the solar system. But then a few years ago, the definition of a planet was refined, and Pluto didn’t make the cut. Science news stories for kids as well as adults all proclaimed the big development, newer science textbooks made a small correction to their chapter on the solar system and kids today are taught that there are only eight planets in our solar system.
This change in what was always accepted as a scientific ‘fact’ does not just mean that today’s kids have one less planet to memorize. It means that every single thing we accept as a ‘fact’ is open to questioning. When your child sees a story like this appear in their daily dose of science news for kids, it makes them realize that they don’t have to accept any ‘fact’ as an absolute truth.
It encourages them to question their understanding of the universe and to look for answers to things that they don’t understand. These are two behaviours that are at the base of all scientific thinking and enquiry.
It encourages inventiveness.
Websites that publish science news for kids often have stories about cool new inventions and ideas for future inventions. Reading about these imaginative ideas encourages children to think out of the box. It teaches them that there is always room for a better idea. It helps them realize that they don’t have to be satisfied with the gadgets and machines already at their disposal; they can always come up with an improvement that will make the quality of life even better for their fellow humans.
It encourages kids to make healthy lifestyle choices.
Scientists are always doing research in the field of health and medicine, and their findings regularly make their way to the science news for kids column. These news stories deal with topics like the benefits of eating certain types of food, the importance of getting regular sleep and exercise and the negative effects of reduced outdoor play. Kids who are exposed to such news stories on a regular basis are more inclined to making healthy lifestyle choices on their own.
It encourages kids to take care of the environment.
Reading science news for kids informs children about the changes happening to the Earth as a result of man’s irresponsible actions. Kids learn what kinds of behaviour are harmful to the Earth’s ecosystems and how drastic the resulting changes are. They are also kept informed about alternative lifestyles and products that help reduce man’s burden on the planet. This type of information equips children to make better choices and help save the planet.
It increases scientific vocabulary and understanding.
When discussing scientific concepts, people all over the world use a set of commonly accepted terms. By reading science news for kids, children familiarize themselves with these terms and their meanings and increase their scientific vocabulary. Also, by reading about the experiments and experiences of scientists, kids get an increased understanding of the scientific world and various science concepts.
Fortunately for parents, it doesn’t take much to get children reading science news for kids. Just find a website that publishes interesting science news stories edited for kids, show your kids a few of the fascinating science stories, and let them know where you found them. Very soon, you will have your kids keeping you up to date on the latest science stories from the website.
Catherine Ross is a full-time stay-at-home-mum who believes learning should be enjoyable for young minds. An erstwhile elementary school teacher, Catherine loves coming up with creative ways through which kids can grasp the seemingly difficult concepts of learning easily. She believes that a ‘fun factor’ can go a long way in enhancing kids’ understanding and blogs at Kids Learning Games.
Science for Kids Resources:
Science News for Kids
Time Magazine for Kids: Science
EurekAlert! Science Report
Scientific American Book Club for Kids


Critical Reflection Prompt: Art Education for Democratic Life, Inspiring the Imaginer, & Muses in the School xi-21. Due 10/1
Arts, Education, and Access to Our Humanity
This week we will being a deeper exploration of the 2nd guiding question in this colloquium:
WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION & THE ARTS?
In Olivia Gude’s “Art Education for Democratic Life” she makes a compelling argument for the relationship that is the centerpiece of our guiding question above.
In “Inspiring the Imaginer,” Peter Hockings describes a program that manifests many of the concepts in Gude’s piece.
In Muses in the Schools you will read Rosie Perez’s story and Michelle Fine’s response. The idea of writing a letter is an interesting form of written dialogue.
“If you become an empathetic human being, you become a better member of society”. — Rosie Perez (15)
“What I love about your essay is the cowering behind shameful anger to activism derived from righteous anger, the journey from silence and rage to voice and entitlement, from isolation to community.” — Michelle Fine’s letter to Rosie Perez (19)
Use this critical reflection to write a letter with the What, So What’s and Now What’s? of what you have learned from these 3 readings in regard to the guiding questions. You can write a letter to someone you know or one or more of the authors, if you are so moved. As always, use quotes substantively for the texts to support your interpretation.


Doctor of Philosophy
DR. RUTH WRIGHT
This study investigated informal learning practices in music education as a pedagogical approach within the primary classroom setting. It aims to explore and expand knowledge in the new field of informal music pedagogy through an investigation of its application with Grade One students (ages 5-7). Using the new sociology of childhood as an analytic tool, this study examines children as agentic beings within the structure of childhood, interpreting and reproducing childhood culture. It therefore places emphasis on the importance to primary music education of providing spaces within which children can experiment with and re/create peer musical cultures.
Qualitative case-study methodology was used with two classes of Grade One students (n=35) in a Roman Catholic elementary school in Southwestern Ontario. Audio/visual data were collected and analyzed along with researcher-participant observation, teacher observation, field notes and semi-structured interviews. The researcher was a participant-observer and designed three informal learning units delivered by the teacher as part of the study. Data were collected on social and musical behaviours of children, musical skills achieved or emergent (pitch-matching, specific rhythms, etc.), and child and teacher comments on their experiences.
Findings suggest that the integration of informal learning in the Grade One music classroom inspires creativity in students and motivates independent and collaborative learning. Expectations of students and teachers are challenged, shifted and adapted as they work collaboratively with flexibility towards new goals. Harwood & Marsh (2012) have drawn significant connections between children’s playground learning and informal music learning as researched by Green (2008). Drawing on this comparison assists in bringing primary students’ musical cultures into the classroom, as Green (2008) has successfully done with adolescent musical culture. Building on childhood culture that takes place through playground and out-of-school practices may result in an innovative pedagogical approach with the potential to revolutionize how music teaching and learning is interpreted in the primary music classroom. This could possibly include an expansion of philosophical perspectives relating to music education of younger pupils and allow broader possibilities for students and teachers to engage in new pedagogies, thereby helping to redefine primary music teacher discourse and practice through informal learning approaches.
Linton, Leslie S., "Interpretive Reproduction and Informal Music Learning in the Grade One Classroom" (2014). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 2059.


New research shows parents can help improve their children’s literacy and numeracy skills by having a greater influence on the type of games they play in their free time, according to Macquarie University.
The study shows the type of toys or activities adults present to children can influence what they want to learn about and children are influenced by what adults are doing in the background while we think they’re not watching.
Researchers exposed four-year-olds to demonstrations of literacy and numeracy in everyday life, while a control group had the same materials to play with but no demonstations. While children were doing other things, parents and educators did activities linked to literacy and numeracy in the background. After four weeks, the children began to play more with literacy and numeracy concepts and reading abilities improved.
Lead researcher Dr Yeshe Colliver, lecturer at the university’s Institute of Early Childhood, said the study aimed to reverse traditional thinking that the best way for children to learn is to link education to their existing interests.
“We know early learning is centred around the child’s interests - that is, for children to learn things, they have to be interested in them. Playing is a key way for children to begin learning, but it’s hard to see what benefit playing with Spiderman or Barbie can bring. Even more difficult is creating a link between a super hero and, say, maths.
“So rather than looking at how adults can ‘follow the child’s interests’ and link them to learning, we wanted to know ‘What if adults could change what children are interested in?’”
The basis of the study comes from the idea that children want to learn the skills they see as important in society and that if they observed problem-solving literacy and numeracy activities among adults would come to value those skills and want to play and therefore learn about them.
“Our findings indicate the common view that parents and educators have little influence on what kids are interested in is untrue. So as Christmas approaches, educational toys - such as chalkboards, coloured blocks for patterning or tool sets - may be a good option after all, if adults also use similar tools in everyday life.”


Early childhood care and education is the first stage of lifelong learning and development. It lays the necessary foundation for building higher-level cognitive and non-cognitive skills and has the potential of breaking down inequity in learning from the beginning by leveraging the tremendous capacity of early brain development and function. Most importantly, it can have a serious impact on the education of adolescent girls later on in life.
That’s why I was honoured to share a panel on the importance of early childhood education and care with UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake and Nobel Laureate Economist Professor James Heckman at the World Education Forum from May 19-22 in Incheon, South Korea. For me, learning started when I was a baby. I know this because I know my parents – and education has always been their number one priority.
Even before I was old enough for kindergarten, my father and I frequently went to the library together to read. My parents were still recent immigrants in Canada, where we live. At the library, there were literacy and support programmes. I remember that I loved the maps and photographs in geography books – especially pop up books with pieces I could touch.
My parents encouraged my interest and they sacrificed a lot so I would have a good education. I have no doubt that these early experiences formed my interest in books and the world and set me on my current path as a student and an advocate for education.
I know from my own journey that there is a direct connection between what a child learns early in life and what happens later. As an advocate for adolescent girls, I have travelled a lot. I have met girls my age and younger who are mothers. For very young mothers, it is incredibly important that they have knowledge, resources, programmes and support to help them provide their children with a good start in life. If we support these young mothers, we are also providing their babies with a fair chance to grow into young people and adults who can make the world a better place.
I think it is up to youth advocates like me – advocates who see the benefits of a strong early start in life – to speak about the issue.
Unfortunately, one of the reasons we are discussing this topic today is because not all children have access to early learning and care. Most of the children who go to pre-primary school live in more wealthy countries. In low-income countries, pre-primary enrollment ratios are only 19 per cent.These disparities in early childhood learning between wealthy and poor are not fair.
Over time, they also compound and the children who miss out early face ever greater challenges as they get older. Investing in learning from a child’s very earliest days is one of the best ways we have to make sure that all children – no matter where they live or who their parents are – have a good start in life.
Many of the individuals gathered at the World Education Forum for important discussions about investment in education and the Sustainable Development Goals. I came to the Forum to ask all to start early – to start investing and prioritizing learning for all children from the very earliest days of their lives. I can tell you from my personal experience: Those very first learning experiences make all the difference – they can change a girl’s life.


History of the madrasas in India goes back to the advent of Muslims to the subcontinent. They played an important role in the eco-cultural life of the Muslim society. In the medieval India, they used to provide with the manpower to the government to run its huge and vast machinery. A chain of these madrasas were spread in the length and breadth of the country. They were instrumental in imparting education to the masses. They were marked with the secularism in their nature. This, including with other characteristics of the madrasas, attracted a good crowd of the children even from the non-Muslim majority. This situation continued up till late 19th century. The luminaries like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Dr.Rajendra Prasad and Dr.Sachdanand Sinha and thousands of others got their elementary education in madrsas.
by Shreya Shah, indiaspend.com


Art Brochure (pdf)
The visual arts curriculum encompasses the four components of Comprehensive Art Education (Discipline Based Art Education), art production, art history, aesthetics, and art criticism which encourage students to see and think about the world from different perspectives. Every student is entitled to a quality education in the visual arts. Such an education will provide students with the means to:
- Value art as an important realm of human activity, and a lifelong source of insight and understanding
- Offer self-reflective opportunities focusing on expression and development of personal style
- Provide opportunities to develop interpersonal skills through collaborative work
- Improve perceptual skills and strengthen their knowledge base
- Enhance their critical and creative thinking abilities as well as problem solving skills
- Develop visual literacy skills
- Broaden their career opportunities and possible application
- Foster development of 21st century skills
Course offerings provide guided learning experiences with two-dimensional and three-dimensional art forms and concepts. A variety of subject matter, materials, tools and production techniques are explored. The courses encourage students to make connections with other disciplines through class discussions, assignments, research, readings, lectures, guest speakers and field trips.
Drawing I, II
Painting I, II
Sculpture I, II
Survey of Visual Arts Processes,Media and Techniques I, II
Design in Everyday Life: A Personal Perspective
Design in Everyday Life: A Global Perspective
AP Studio Art
CONARD ART IN THE COMMUNITY
Conard Student's Artwork on Display at High School, Inc.
Jensun Yonjan Wins first Place Prize in the 31st Annual Congressional Art Competition
Ryan Martin and Jensun Yonjan Recognized for Excellence at Connecticut Association of Schools Awards Banquet
Conard Art Department recognized two outstanding seniors, Ryan Martin and Jensun Yonjan, for their excellence in the visual arts at the Connecticut Association of Schools annual awards dinner on April 1, 2013.


Columbia Embury, Dusty and Clarke, Laura S. (2017) Turning Teachers into Action Researchers in their Classrooms, Kentucky Teacher Education Journal: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Kentucky Council for Exceptional Children, 3(2),1-10. Available at: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/ktej/vol3/iss2/2
Action research is often called the teacher’s research and often feels like a common sense approach to solving problems, but not all pre-service teachers begin careers knowing how to use this methodology to improve their own practice. This article offers a rationale for teaching pre-service teachers the skills and action research methodology as a tool for professional improvement based on the experiences of the authors engaging in a reflective process for teaching. While not generalizable, it is hoped that lessons learned may be applied by other faculty in teacher education programs.
Kentucky Teacher Education Journal: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Kentucky Council for Exceptional Children
Article Starting Page
Article Ending Page
Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons, Disability and Equity in Education Commons, Early Childhood Education Commons, Educational Administration and Supervision Commons, Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons, Educational Leadership Commons, Elementary Education Commons, Higher Education Commons, Secondary Education Commons, Special Education and Teaching Commons, Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons


Setting the Record Straight on Common Core and Algebra I
Recently parents and education columnists have raised concerns that Common Core State Standards’ call for “general” eighth-grade math classes instead of Algebra I will “restrain” the ambitions of students who want to reach the highest levels of high-school math. The change is “inscrutable,” Jay Mathews wrote in the Washington Post this week. Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution suggests participation in eighth-grade advanced math classes has declined over the past two years.
Such claims are deceiving. Common Core State Standards emphasize the fundamental math skills that students need to succeed at high levels of learning, starting in the early grades. That includes the building blocks of Algebra. In eighth grade, students learn algebraic concepts alongside geometry and statistics to reinforce the core math skills.
The purpose is to ensure that students have a strong grasp of foundational skills so they are able to successfully move on to higher level material. That’s an important shift. Dr. David Bressoud, former president of the Mathematical Association of America, explains in a video by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics:
“What we see in college is a lot of students who went rushing through the earlier preparatory material are lacking the foundation that they need in order to succeed. They’re lacking the skills in algebra, and often, they’re lacking the expertise they should have picked up in middle school…Unless you really understand what you’re doing and have that foundation, once you get to that fast pace of college and university mathematics, you’re really going to stumble.”
In another video, Gail Burril, a Michigan State University academic specialist, adds:
“I’m really excited about the Common Core State Standards as an opportunity for more kids to take more and better mathematics. In particular, I’m really excited that more kids will have the opportunity to get a solid foundation for taking calculus…It’s really important that kids have this grounding, that they understand the key, fundamental ideas in mathematics before they embark on calculus. The Common Core State Standards provide that opportunity.”
A statement by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics points out, “The widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics presents an unprecedented opportunity for systematic improvement in mathematics education in the United States. The Common Core State Standards offer a foundation for the development of more rigorous, focused, and coherent mathematics curricula, instruction, and assessments that promote conceptual understanding and reasoning as well as skill fluency.”
We have also pointed out that, “No matter what the class is called, students will be learning the material that will prepare them for success in advanced math classes in high school and beyond.” That doesn’t mean students are restricted from taking accelerated courses. But it ensures all students will have the opportunity to build strong fundamental math skills that prepare them for success in college or a career.


Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT)
This paper examines the elementary teacher’s role as a moral educator. The context is the Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) in New Mexico. I have investigated the Character Counts! program, the moral education program which has been adopted and utilized by the school district. I describe the goals and rationale behind the Character Counts! program, as written about in existing documentation and literature. In addition, I have conducted interviews with individuals in APS in charge of creating and disseminating such information. I have reported on the perceived effectiveness and shortcomings of the Character Counts! program as described by the people in charge of such program implementation, school administrators (i.e. vice-principals and principals), classroom teachers, resource teachers, and other school personnel. Through information gained from surveys and taped interviews, I report what these school personnel see as their roles with regards to a.) moral education and b.) the Character Counts! program. I provide insight into how they see this role being perceived in their teaching. Finally, I provide information about the school personnel’s’ perceived professional development needs with regards to strengthening their value as moral educators.
Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research | Elementary Education and Teaching | Teacher Education and Professional Development
Bauer, Melanie L., "The Elementary Teacher’s Role in Moral Education: An Investigation of One Albuquerque Public School Site" (2000). MA TESOL Collection. 436.


The best predictor of a baby’s future academic achievements is not parental income, level of parent education, or ethnicity, but rather the number of words spoken to the baby and the amount of time spent in active engagement from birth to 3 years of age. Just as food nourishes a growing child’s body, language interactions nourish a child’s brain. Research indicates that both quantity and quality of language are essential for vocabulary development, which is predictive of third grade reading proficiency; children who can’t read to learn by the end of third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school.
Presenter Dr. Jennifer Stapel-Wax introduced the topic of language nutrition and shared with the library community tips on encouraging early literacy development in communities.
Dr. Stapel-Wax is an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Emory University School of Medicine and the Director of Infant and Toddler Clinical Research Operations at the Marcus Autism Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
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Media – when hearing this word we think of television shows, video games, news broadcasts, social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter, etc., but do we ever stop to think of the positive and negative effects in which it has on its audience? Media has been said to be both detrimental and beneficial. As the years have progressed as has the media around us; video games and social media applications progressing the most. But are these media progressions a good or bad thing? Younger ages are playing ‘R’ rated video games with sex and violence scenes, and teens are posting unclad photos on social media sites. According to George Gerbner violence on screens cultivate violence in society; so in other words any young child/uneducated person/youth (the “victims), playing violent video games or watching horror films are going to repeat these acts of violence and acts of sexuality. But this can’t always be the case! Whilst I agree that the advance in media can have quite an effect on the violence some people act out, I don’t believe it possesses that power over all people – leaving us to question people and their actions rather than media. Cyber bullying is a good example of a media tool being used for bad rather than being used for good. A good example of this is an application such as Facebook, which acts to serve as a communication implement, being used to bully and harass; again leaving us to question whether the person utilizing the media should be at fault rather than the media itself.
Media can also prove to be a tool and a stimulant for people – especially young children and youths. Certain TV programs and computer applications for example, are used to educate whilst entertaining at the same time. These programs can assist with literacy skills, social skills, numeracy skills, creativity, etc.
Social media can also be used conveniently without negative impacts. Social media assists people on a daily basis, whether that be with communication, news updates, or just a social vibe. Media can be a good thing if the people behind it/utilizing it are good too!
Before looking further into the aspects of media and everything that media contains, I too questioned its positive outcomes – but now I realize that we shouldn’t just blame media for all the negative impacts it has, but we should look further in to the people behind it.


By John Finney
John Finney examines the child-centred innovative culture to create a clean approach of comparing principles and practices that experience developed due to the fact 1950, that experience formed the lives of track lecturers and their students, and that experience now turn into disfigured, residual and altogether misplaced within the gentle of social, cultural and political switch. The e-book is a critique of the current scenario with an purpose to show the hazards in our present pursuit of destiny profits which are idea to serve the making and maintaining of the social order. The venture attracts in significant debates of the interval, besides their protagonists, counter-pointed by way of the voices of lecturers and scholars. whilst, the structuring voices of coverage and governance turn into ever louder as we succeed in the current time. Finney provides a compelling, analytical account via a chain of six episodes, every one looking to catch the spirit and passion attribute of a specific section in the interval studied. within the concluding bankruptcy the narrative built is reviewed. From this the belief of tune schooling as a moral pursuit is proposed. Finney argues that lecture room relationships might be considered playfully dialogic, the place instructor and scholar stay curious, and the place there's severe recognition to what's to learn and why. this may continuously have to be negotiated, with the expressed and inferred wishes of kids operating jointly to discover a severe method of what's being learnt. Finney's publication offers clean idea for practitioners and new demanding situations for researchers, and as such is a landmark within the box of arts and tune schooling.
Read Online or Download Music Education in England, 1950-2010: The Child-Centered Progressive Tradition PDF
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Extra resources for Music Education in England, 1950-2010: The Child-Centered Progressive Tradition


Upper Elementary - 4th through 6th grade
The Upper Elementary curriculum builds on the academic foundation and skills established in the Lower Elementary program. Students in the upper elementary are transitioning between using Montessori materials and abstract learning. The pace of this transition is different for each student and this is respected in the way teaching is approached. The Upper Elementary classroom continues the Montessori tradition of being a prepared environment designed for academic practice in all areas of the curriculum as well as containing materials that both entice and encourage students to explore many different aspects of learning.
The key areas of lessons are language, math, history/geography, science, the arts and physical education.
The Language Studies include reading comprehension strategies, literature discussion groups, vocabulary development, grammar and spelling. The writing program develops and perfects well written paragraphs and proceeds forward to learning to write and edit fully developed research papers. Latin is added to foreign language study program in 4th grade and the students continue to build reading, writing and speaking skills in Spanish.
The Math curriculum solidifies the foundational skills built in lower elementary. Areas of study include double and triple digit multiplication and division, the study of fractions, decimals, squaring, cubing, percents, geometry as well as positive and negative integers. Word problems are integrated into each area of the curriculum. When the student demonstrates readiness, pre-algebra skills are begun.
Cultural Studies include science, history and geography. Science topics include the study of our earth, air, water, the beginning of life, as well as botany,biology, zoology, chemistry, ecology, astronomy, physics, meterology.The geography curriculum includes the study of each continent, its countries, regions, physical geography, language, culture, economy, government and history.The area of history includes a broad study of the history of man on earth with a concentration on each major human civilization. American history and current events are particular areas of focus.
The Upper Elementary curriculum includes instruction in the arts, theatre, music and fine arts. Technology instruction is incorporated throughout each area of the curriculum. Students perfect keyboarding skills, learn Power Point and Excel. Physical education is planned in segments and includes off site programming such as skating, hockey, soccer, and baseball. The Academy's music and theater arts program includes voice lessons, chorus, theatre and music history. There are two yearly theater productions, a fall monologue presentation and a spring main stage performance.


Exploring the visual arts can be part of a dynamic process of understanding the natural world, history, and world cultures, as well as philosophical, aesthetic, socio-political, and spiritual questions. Multifaceted approaches to art can hone critical thinking, instill self-confidence, and provide a means of self-expression.
- Arts of the Period: Incorporating the drama, dance, music, and poetry of the artwork’s period can clarify and deepen our understanding of the art.
- Cultural History: Cultural heritage does not consist of art masterpieces alone. Educators can integrate into art education familiar areas of daily life, such as furniture, food, fashion, lifestyles, medicines, jewelry, games, rites, and rituals, to help students form a comprehensive image of a culture.
- Cultural history also helps teach that art trends do not exist in a vacuum. Art movements inform future evolutions in the world of art and are often in reaction to other movements in art, literature, music, politics and so forth. Cross-cultural influences also play a part in the development of trends in art.
- Identifying Personal Responses to Artworks: Discussion following an art experience can develop self-awareness and self-expression. Students can consider: What is the emotional impact of this art? What do I find attractive about this work of art or works by this artist? Does it provide an emotional or intellectual challenge?
- Critical Thinking: Discussion following an art experience can focus on developing critical thinking. Ask students to integrate their knowledge of cultural history and different art forms with their response to individual works of art, to compare and contrast different works, or to do a creative writing exercise.
- Curriculum-Integration Activities: Some of the skills that students learn by experiencing and discussing artworks—tactile exploration, critical thinking, language skills, and cooperative learning—are transferable to other curriculum areas, such as map-reading and mobility, history and social science, language and literature, science, math and technology.
- Group Building: Arts activities and discussions can help create an inclusive environment. Individuals learn how to clarify their opinions and to develop communication skills. The visual arts provide a forum where each person’s viewpoint is honored, imparting confidence and a sense of inclusion.
Family and school programs frequently use art to access other areas of culture and integrate art making, writing, music or drama into tours and other programs. This type of integration is especially important for those who cannot receive visual information. Cultural context provides meaning to the visual art object and the object enriches the information about the culture. Comparisons and parallels to the other arts may clarify art-historical comparisons. For example, ask students to compare and contrast early Renaissance music with early 16 th-century music, or compare Italian and German or French music of the same period. For 20 th-century work, compare modern jazz and bebop to the paintings of the Abstract Expressionists. Or compare early 20 th-century poetry and Cubism. Take advantage of other experts or people with specialized knowledge; work with a colleague who teaches music or literature to design lessons or tours.
Some adults may view art in its own box, and desire mostly information on style and artist. Explore concepts of how art and images are made and promoted, and how they affect the political and social circumstances of the society in which they are made. For example, portraits of leaders, such as Augustus Caesar or Napoleon, were often used as propaganda, with images of the divine included next to the individual in power. Gender roles in societies are reinforced by images in art. In contemporary culture, visual references on television and other media frequently affect political and economic decisions. It is important for those who do not have access to these images to be aware of and understand this process.
Adults and seniors bring much to the discussion of art. Incorporating their personal life experiences and cultural knowledge creates a dynamic relationship with the art object. Adults also benefit by introducing art making or personal reflection and writing into their programming.One strategy for encouraging and validating personal response to art is to ask all students to describe an object to a partner or to the group. Create an open, comfortable environment by allowing them to describe what they notice first, second, third, etc. In contrast with a structured verbal description given by a sighted person, try not to impose a hierarchy or structure of information on their description.
How to Get It or Make It. Cheap and Easy
Again, this tool is an adaptation of a practice used with all audiences, and the same resources apply. Libraries and the Internet are good sources for information on historical, socio-political, and cultural contexts of art objects.
See our teacher's resource center for our Lesson Plan Database for more ideas on integrating art into programs for blind and visually impaired students.


Music Education as part of the learning area Arts and Culture is far from satisfactory in South African schools. Reasons for this include a highly sophisticated and complex curriculum (the revised National Curriculum Statement, 2002); the integration of four discrete arts forms into one learning area; and teacher training which is not always reflective of the teaching profession’s demands. The study was based on a mixed method design, investigating how teachers in best scenario schools implement music as part of the integrated learning area Arts and Culture. Interviews were held with various stakeholders in Music Education, including teachers currently involved with the presentation of the Arts and Culture learning area, lecturers at universities training students for Music Education, and policy makers such as subject advisors in the Arts and Culture learning area. Data was also collected by analysing commercially available resources for this learning area. Analysis of the data obtained revealed that few teachers in the Arts and Culture learning area are qualified in more than one art form. A major concern is that music is often omitted from regular classroom activities in the Foundation Phase due to teachers feeling pressurised by multiple assessment standards in learning areas such as Literacy and Numeracy. Another finding in all primary school phases was that the time spent on Music Education was far less than that spent on Visual Arts. Learners are often involved in projects collecting knowledge about music, but seldom involved in active music making experiences. Aspects such as different ways to integrate the arts into one learning area, generalist/specialist teacher training, as well as issues concerning product, process and performance during the delivery of the arts, were also investigated. The researcher drew from all the data to design a course for teacher training in Music Education as part of the learning area Arts and Culture. Recommendations include regular in-service teacher training courses; nationwide co-ordination of teacher training programmes and the establishment of a national council for Music Education. An urgent need for appropriate lesson material in Arts and Culture was also identified, including CDs with songs and backtracks.