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Dr. Stevens on the 'Net
Blog posts highlighting the work of Dr. Victoria Stevens: CLEAR VOZ The Creative Edge MEARTSED TeachArts.org EduARTS 4 US Arts Integration |
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Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. ~Arthur Koestler |
The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch
In the mid-1990s, the movement to boost educational standards failed on political concerns; next came the emphasis on accountability with its reliance on standardized testing. Now educators are worried that the No Child Left Behind mandate that all students meet proficiency standards by 2014 will result in the dismantling of public schools across the nation. Ravitch analyzes the impact of choice on public schools, attempts to quantify quality teaching, and describes the data wars with advocates for charter and traditional public schools. Ravitch also critiques the continued reliance on a corporate model for school reform and the continued failure of such efforts to emphasize curriculum. Conceding that there is no single solution, Ravitch concludes by advocating for strong educational values and revival of strong neighborhood public schools. For readers on all sides of the school-reform debate, this is a very important book. --Vanessa Bush
by Pasi Sahlberg
Finland is consistently ranked as one of the top performing countries in the international test known as PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) that measures the knowledge and skills of 15-year olds in the subject areas of reading, math, and science. (In 2009, 65 developed countries participated in PISA.) According to Sahlberg, Finland has achieved this distinction since 2000 almost by accident and without intent. The driving force behind the redesign of the Finnish educational system in the 1980's and '90's was not to achieve high international test scores, but to provide an equitable education for all students.
by Linda Darling-Hammond
Darling-Hammond gives both positive and negative examples of educational innovation. On the positive side in the globe: Singapore, South Korea, and Finland. In the U.S. Connecticut, North Carolina. These are extremely well-written case studies of how to improve education well. On the negative side: The U.S. as a whole, and California in particular, which gutted the #1 public school system in the world over the last 30 years.
by Martha C. Nussbaum
Drawing on Socrates and the Stoics, Nussbaum establishes three core values of liberal education--critical self-examination, the ideal of the world citizen, and the development of the narrative imagination. Then, taking us into classrooms and campuses across the nation, including prominent research universities, small independent colleges, and religious institutions, she shows how these values are (and in some instances are not) being embodied in particular courses. She defends such burgeoning subject areas as gender, minority, and gay studies against charges of moral relativism and low standards, and underscores their dynamic and fundamental contribution to critical reasoning and world citizenship. For Nussbaum, liberal education is alive and well on American campuses in the late twentieth century. It is not only viable, promising, and constructive, but it is essential to a democratic society. Taking up the challenge of conservative critics of academe, she argues persuasively that sustained reform in the aim and content of liberal education is the most vital and invigorating force in higher education today. by Vea Vecchi
Part memoir, part conversation and part reflection, the book provides a unique insider perspective on the pedagogical work of this extraordinary local project, which continues to be a source of inspiration to early childhood practitioners and policy makers worldwide. Vea’s writing, full of beautiful examples, draws the reader in as she explains the history of the atelier and the evolving role of the atelierista. Key themes of the book include:
This enlightening book is essential reading for students, practitioners, policy makers and researchers in early childhood education, and also for all those in other fields of education interested in the relationship between the arts and learning.
by Carol Dweck
Dweck explains why it’s not just our abilities and talent that bring us success–but whether we approach them with a fixed or growth mindset. She makes clear why praising intelligence and ability doesn’t foster self-esteem and lead to accomplishment, but may actually jeopardize success. With the right mindset, we can motivate our kids and help them to raise their grades, as well as reach our own goals–personal and professional. Dweck reveals what all great parents, teachers, CEOs, and athletes already know: how a simple idea about the brain can create a love of learning and a resilience that is the basis of great accomplishment in every area.
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As an education historian and former assistant secretary of education, Ravitch has witnessed the trends in public education over the past 40 years and has herself swung from public-school advocate to market-driven accountability and choice supporter back to public-school advocate. With passion and insight, she analyzes research and draws on interviews with educators, philanthropists, and business executives to question the current direction of reform of public education. 
Pasi Sahlberg's book is a must-read for all concerned parents, educators, administrators, government officials, union leaders, policy-makers, scholars, and philanthropists who are alarmed that our current market-driven/competitive/punitive model isn't working in the U.S. and that a radical change of course is required. It's amazing that Sahlberg shares the Finnish roadmap with the world in what can only be described as an act of altruism. As a concerned mother of two whose children are now enrolled in public schools after five years of unaffordable private schooling, this book is a godsend. It is a relief to learn about the existence of a more effective, humane, equitable, and cost-effective approach to public school education. Sahlberg's book offers hope to those of us who yearn for a better and more thoughtful system for our children both in the U.S. and elsewhere.
This is Linda Darling-Hammond's magnum opus, and it is a magnum opus--complex, thorough, well-written, complete, and thoughtful. Her thesis is that until we in the U.S. do the following, our country will produce hollowed-out children who cannot compete in the global economy: (1) Make a serious, long-term commitment to educational equity by funding all districts equally; (2) Use "thinking curricula" that require students to work together on projects of intellectual import, rather than on meaningless "seatwork"; (3) Professionalize the teaching profession by increasing its status, pay, training, professional development, and requirements for entry, especially in the sciences, mathematics, foreign languages, and so forth; (4) Use a 15- to 20-year timeline for improvement; (5) Stop the yo-yo curriculum innovations that swing U.S. curricula all over the block in unproductive "innovational" oscillations; (6) Stop punitive de-funding or punitive control of "failing schools" through Annual Yearly Progress reports, which have the unintended consequence of over-valuing the results of standardized testing.
How can higher education today create a community of critical thinkers and searchers for truth that transcends the boundaries of class, gender, and nation? Martha C. Nussbaum, philosopher and classicist, argues that contemporary curricular reform is already producing such "citizens of the world" in its advocacy of diverse forms of cross-cultural studies. Her vigorous defense of "the new education" is rooted in Seneca's ideal of the citizen who scrutinizes tradition critically and who respects the ability to reason wherever it is found--in rich or poor, native or foreigner, female or male.
This book explores the contribution of and art and creativity to early education, and examines the role of the atelier (an arts workshop in a school) and atelierista (an educator with an arts background) in the pioneering pre-schools of Reggio Emilia. It does so through the unique experience of Vea Vecchi, one of the first atelieristas to be appointed in Reggio Emilia in 1970.
World-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, in decades of research on achievement and success, has discovered a truly groundbreaking idea–the power of our mindset.
©2008-14 Victoria Stevens • All rights reserved