Revisiting The Universal Schoolhouse

Revisiting The Universal Schoolhouse PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description
Uncertainty in our country concerning the state of public education crosses the spectrum of geographical locations and spiritual orientations. Questions regarding how to better educate children today have prompted new ideas, but one historical proposal warrants reconsideration now. In his 1994 book, The Universal Schoolhouse: Spiritual Awakening Through Education, James Moffett addressed issues central to contemporary debates. He championed freedom of choice and decried curriculum censorship within the school system. He advocated for collaboration between citizens and institutions to achieve communal involvement and individual engagement in the educative process. And, he argued that meaningful inquiry and personal growth are vital for development of an evolved and enlightened society. This is what sets Moffett’s vision for education reform apart from other programs; educational reformation is situated within the context of societal transformation. With emphasis upon individuality, community, and spirituality, Moffett’s unique approach to teaching and learning reflected his singular approach to working and living. Coupled with a perspective of cosmological unity, James Moffett reconfigured the model for public education which redefined both its process and its purpose. Utilizing the concept of mythopoesis – myth-making narratives which highlight imaginal knowing – I find that Moffett’s ‘universal schoolhouse’ idea speaks to concerns in current discussion regarding schools and society. Moffett problem-solved through concrete, research rich knowledge and relied upon abstract, intuitively inspired interpretations which resonates with the mythopoetic. Therefore, mythopoesis is the hermeneutical key to understanding Moffett’s life, work, and vision, and for considering new approaches to education reform. Moffett and mythopoesis together provide a framework for modern-day narratives concerning educational processes and purposes. Training students for political and corporate utility which satisfies projected learning outcomes is a limited way to manage public education. Schooling citizens for individual and communal development that motivates meaning-seeking to make sense of the world holds unlimited possibility. Examining Moffett’s imaginal schoolhouse reveals that he looked beyond management and standardization and promoted interpretation and exploration. Acquainting ourselves with Moffett’s work and life helps us to look beyond assumptions about locality and spirituality to consider the transformational, the meaningful, and the universal as exemplified by Moffett’s mythopoetic model for education.

Revisiting The Universal Schoolhouse

Revisiting The Universal Schoolhouse PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 60

Get Book Here

Book Description
Uncertainty in our country concerning the state of public education crosses the spectrum of geographical locations and spiritual orientations. Questions regarding how to better educate children today have prompted new ideas, but one historical proposal warrants reconsideration now. In his 1994 book, The Universal Schoolhouse: Spiritual Awakening Through Education, James Moffett addressed issues central to contemporary debates. He championed freedom of choice and decried curriculum censorship within the school system. He advocated for collaboration between citizens and institutions to achieve communal involvement and individual engagement in the educative process. And, he argued that meaningful inquiry and personal growth are vital for development of an evolved and enlightened society. This is what sets Moffett’s vision for education reform apart from other programs; educational reformation is situated within the context of societal transformation. With emphasis upon individuality, community, and spirituality, Moffett’s unique approach to teaching and learning reflected his singular approach to working and living. Coupled with a perspective of cosmological unity, James Moffett reconfigured the model for public education which redefined both its process and its purpose. Utilizing the concept of mythopoesis – myth-making narratives which highlight imaginal knowing – I find that Moffett’s ‘universal schoolhouse’ idea speaks to concerns in current discussion regarding schools and society. Moffett problem-solved through concrete, research rich knowledge and relied upon abstract, intuitively inspired interpretations which resonates with the mythopoetic. Therefore, mythopoesis is the hermeneutical key to understanding Moffett’s life, work, and vision, and for considering new approaches to education reform. Moffett and mythopoesis together provide a framework for modern-day narratives concerning educational processes and purposes. Training students for political and corporate utility which satisfies projected learning outcomes is a limited way to manage public education. Schooling citizens for individual and communal development that motivates meaning-seeking to make sense of the world holds unlimited possibility. Examining Moffett’s imaginal schoolhouse reveals that he looked beyond management and standardization and promoted interpretation and exploration. Acquainting ourselves with Moffett’s work and life helps us to look beyond assumptions about locality and spirituality to consider the transformational, the meaningful, and the universal as exemplified by Moffett’s mythopoetic model for education.

The Death and Life of the Great American School System

The Death and Life of the Great American School System PDF Author: Diane Ravitch
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN: 0465014917
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Discusses how school choice, misapplied standards of accountability, the No Child Left Behind mandate, and the use of a corporate model have all led to a decline in public education and presents arguments for a return to strong neighborhood schools and quality teaching.

The Schoolhouse Gate

The Schoolhouse Gate PDF Author: Justin Driver
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0525566961
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 578

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Book Description
A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An award-winning constitutional law scholar at the University of Chicago (who clerked for Judge Merrick B. Garland, Justice Stephen Breyer, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor) gives us an engaging and alarming book that aims to vindicate the rights of public school stu­dents, which have so often been undermined by the Supreme Court in recent decades. Judicial decisions assessing the constitutional rights of students in the nation’s public schools have consistently generated bitter controversy. From racial segregation to un­authorized immigration, from antiwar protests to compul­sory flag salutes, from economic inequality to teacher-led prayer—these are but a few of the cultural anxieties dividing American society that the Supreme Court has addressed in elementary and secondary schools. The Schoolhouse Gate gives a fresh, lucid, and provocative account of the historic legal battles waged over education and illuminates contemporary disputes that continue to fracture the nation. Justin Driver maintains that since the 1970s the Supreme Court has regularly abdicated its responsibility for protecting students’ constitutional rights and risked trans­forming public schools into Constitution-free zones. Students deriving lessons about citizenship from the Court’s decisions in recent decades would conclude that the following actions taken by educators pass constitutional muster: inflicting severe corporal punishment on students without any proce­dural protections, searching students and their possessions without probable cause in bids to uncover violations of school rules, random drug testing of students who are not suspected of wrongdoing, and suppressing student speech for the view­point it espouses. Taking their cue from such decisions, lower courts have upheld a wide array of dubious school actions, including degrading strip searches, repressive dress codes, draconian “zero tolerance” disciplinary policies, and severe restrictions on off-campus speech. Driver surveys this legal landscape with eloquence, highlights the gripping personal narratives behind landmark clashes, and warns that the repeated failure to honor students’ rights threatens our basic constitutional order. This magiste­rial book will make it impossible to view American schools—or America itself—in the same way again.

The One World Schoolhouse

The One World Schoolhouse PDF Author: Salman Khan
Publisher: Twelve
ISBN: 145550839X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 155

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Book Description
A free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere: this is the goal of the Khan Academy, a passion project that grew from an ex-engineer and hedge funder's online tutoring sessions with his niece, who was struggling with algebra, into a worldwide phenomenon. Today millions of students, parents, and teachers use the Khan Academy's free videos and software, which have expanded to encompass nearly every conceivable subject; and Academy techniques are being employed with exciting results in a growing number of classrooms around the globe. Like many innovators, Khan rethinks existing assumptions and imagines what education could be if freed from them. And his core idea-liberating teachers from lecturing and state-mandated calendars and opening up class time for truly human interaction-has become his life's passion. Schools seek his advice about connecting to students in a digital age, and people of all ages and backgrounds flock to the site to utilize this fresh approach to learning. In The One World Schoolhouse, Khan presents his radical vision for the future of education, as well as his own remarkable story, for the first time. In these pages, you will discover, among other things: How both students and teachers are being bound by a broken top-down model invented in Prussia two centuries ago Why technology will make classrooms more human and teachers more important How and why we can afford to pay educators the same as other professionals/DIV How we can bring creativity and true human interactivity back to learning/DIV Why we should be very optimistic about the future of learning. Parents and politicians routinely bemoan the state of our education system. Statistics suggest we've fallen behind the rest of the world in literacy, math, and sciences. With a shrewd reading of history, Khan explains how this crisis presented itself, and why a return to "mastery learning," abandoned in the twentieth century and ingeniously revived by tools like the Khan Academy, could offer the best opportunity to level the playing field, and to give all of our children a world-class education now. More than just a solution, The One World Schoolhouse serves as a call for free, universal, global education, and an explanation of how Khan's simple yet revolutionary thinking can help achieve this inspiring goal.

The Child Is the Teacher

The Child Is the Teacher PDF Author: Cristina De Stefano
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 1635420857
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
A fresh, comprehensive biography of the pioneering educator and activist who changed the way we look at children’s minds, from the author of Oriana Fallaci. Born in 1870 in Chiaravalle, Italy, Maria Montessori would grow up to embody almost every trait men of her era detested in the fairer sex. She was self-confident, strong-willed, and had a fiery temper at a time when women were supposed to be soft and pliable. She studied until she became a doctor at a time when female graduates in Italy provoked outright scandal. She never wanted to marry or have children—the accepted destiny for all women of her milieu in late nineteenth-century bourgeois Rome—and when she became pregnant by a colleague of hers, she gave up her son to continue pursuing her career. At around age thirty, Montessori was struck by the condition of children in the slums of Rome’s San Lorenzo neighborhood, and realized what she wanted to do with her life: change the school, and therefore the world, through a new approach to the child’s mind. In spite of the resistance she faced from all sides—scientists accused her of being too mystical, and the clergy of being too scientific, traditionalists of giving children too much freedom, and anarchists of giving them too much structure—she would garner acclaim and establish the influential Montessori method, which is now practiced throughout the world. A thorough, nuanced portrait of this often controversial woman, The Child Is the Teacher is the first biographical work on Maria Montessori written by an author who is not a member of the Montessori movement, but who has been granted access to original letters, diaries, notes, and texts written by Montessori herself, including an array of previously unpublished material.

Education II--revisited

Education II--revisited PDF Author: Vasil M. Kerensky
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description


Shaking Up the Schoolhouse

Shaking Up the Schoolhouse PDF Author: Phillip C. Schlechty
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
ISBN: 9780787972134
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Once again, Phil Schlechty demonstrates why I consider him to be one of the clearest minds in American education. He knows how important public education is to our democracy and has real ideas for making it better. This book is a must-read for policymakers at any level and for those who think and care about school improvement." --Paul D. Houston, executive director, American Association of School Administrators "Schlechty shares leading-edge insights and offers practical guidance to anyone who affects student learning. His suggestions are wonderful dialogue starters for educators searching for ways to make dramatic improvement in schools." --Dennis Sparks, executive director, National Staff Development Council In this visionary book, renowned educator Phillip Schlechty argues for change-adept school systems. He not only challenges educational administrators, teachers, teacher leaders, legislators, and policymakers to recognize the need for transformation, but also shows how they can grow into skillful leaders of lasting change. Shaking Up the Schoolhouse begins with an incisive discussion of the dangers and opportunities in reworking school systems. Drawing from decades of experience and from actual cases, the author describes the essential characteristics of change-adept organizations. He then presents a practical framework for helping teachers to overcome obstacles in the learning experience, from reviewing the competition to improving student engagement through more effective standards. Schlechty also focuses on empowering principals, superintAndents, and school board members as they struggle with structural and cultural change in their schools and communities.

Reconsidering The Role of Play in Early Childhood

Reconsidering The Role of Play in Early Childhood PDF Author: Julie M. Nicholson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429769997
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 431

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Book Description
Reconsidering the Role of Play in Early Childhood: Towards Social Justice and Equity—a compilation of current play research in early childhood education and care—challenges, disrupts, and reexamines conventional perspectives on play. By highlighting powerful and provocative studies from around the world that attend to the complexities and diverse contexts of children’s play, the issues of social justice and equity related to play are made visible. This body of work is framed by the phenomenological viewpoint that presumes equity is best confronted and improved through developing an expanded understanding of play in its multiple variations and dimensions. The play studies explore the potential and troubles of play in teaching and learning, children’s agency in play, the actual spaces where children play, and different perspectives of play based on identity and culture. The editors invite readers to use the research as an inspiration to reconsider their conceptions of play and to take action to work for a world where all children have access to play. This book was originally published as a special issue of Early Child Development and Care.

The Secret School

The Secret School PDF Author: Avi
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0547544618
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
More than anything, Ida Bidson wants to become a teacher. To do that, she must finish eighth grade, then go on to high school. But her dream falters when the one-room school in her remote Colorado town shuts down. Her only hope is to keep the school open without anyone finding out. Yet even a secret school needs a teacher. Ida can't be it. . . . Or can she? In the spirit of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Newbery Medal winner Avi creates an inspiring story of a headstrong girl determined to control her own destiny.

Illuminating Social Life

Illuminating Social Life PDF Author: Peter Kivisto
Publisher: Pine Forge Press
ISBN: 1412978157
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 457

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Book Description
Illuminating Social Life has enjoyed increasing popularity with each edition. It is the only book designed for undergraduate teaching that shows today's students how classical and contemporary social theories can be used to shed new light on such topics as the internet, the world of work, fast food restaurants, shopping malls, alcohol use, body building, sales and service, and new religious movements.A perfect complement for the sociological theory course, it offers 13 original essays by leading scholars in the field who are also experienced undergraduate theory teachers. Substantial introductions by the editor link the applied essays to a complete review of the classical and modern social theories used in the book.