Teaching as Research and Action

In T.H. White's The Once and Future King , King Arthur seeks advice from Merlin, his magician and counsel. Merlin's wisdom is sought at a desperate time for King Arthur, trying to find meaning in a world gone awry. May these words create a spark of light in the midst of our global distress.

Merlin speaks:

"The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies; you may lie at night listening to the disorder of your veins; you may miss your only love. You may see the world around you devastated by evil lunatics; or know your honor trampled in the sewer of baser minds. There is only one thing for it, then - to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you."

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Teaching in the 21st century requires us to be continual learners. It necessitates a familiarization with a wide variety of issues that may not seem, at first, connected to one's subject. They are, however, essential:

In this part of the course, we will describe each of the above areas in a separate module. You are asked to choose 1 topic only to study.

Do the reading and the assignments for that 1 topic, and when you're finished and your mentor says you're "Ready," continue to Part Three of this course. In Part Three you will integrate what you have learned in Courses 1-4 with this special topic to create and implement a Service Project.

Descriptions of Topics

After reading the topic summaries below, choose 1 topic only that you would like to study in depth. (You may also wish to skim the modules by clicking on the Outline button.)

Once you decide on a topic, go to that module and complete the reading and assignments for that topic only.

Early Childhood Education - Addresses the needs of our youngest learners in terms of health-issues, cognition, and creativity during this critical stage of growth.

Literacy and Numeracy for Adult Learners - Focuses on the elements of creating, sustaining, and evaluating literacy training for the adult learner with the idea that teaching parents to read helps educate children.

Environmental Education - Introduces the skills of observation, questioning, listening, and attunement coupled with a reverence for the earth and the inhabitants coexisting on our planet.

Education through the Arts - Creates a venue for different ways of knowing about ourselves and others while it sparks lively dialogue within our schools, our community, and our culture.

Girls' Education - Demonstrates how powerfully we can connect education with human welfare. Educating girls offers a multitude of benefits for the girls (themselves), their current and future families, and their societies.

Conflict Mediation - Ensures that young people develop the social and emotional skills needed to reduce violence and prejudice, form caring relationships, and build healthy lives.

Special Education - Examines some of the myths concerning special needs and offers suggestions for creating inclusive classrooms.

Community Teaching and Learning Centers - Introduces the basic elements of starting and sustaining a Teachers Without Borders CTLC - a center where the communtiy can connect with each other and with the world.

Overview

It has often been said that anyone can take care of little children. Nothing, in our opinion, could be farther from the truth. Children are most likely to succeed with a good start, under the care of skilled, compassionate professionals.

This section gives an overview of the dynamics of the brain, and age-appropriate early childhood practices with an exemplary model in the Reggio Emilia approach. It addresses the needs of our youngest learners in terms of health-issues, cognition, and creativity during this critical stage of growth.

Early Childhood Education

Early childhood, birth through age 7, is a time of rapid growth and development. Research has shown unequivocally that during these critical first years, young children go through a long period where play and hands-on experiences are vital to learning. This process is essential to later success in more complex tasks. Early learning seems so simple that it is tempting to devalue it as merely a child's recreation rather than recognize it as an extremely complex and absorbing effort to build a rich understanding of the world. Sight and sound, size and shape, must be experienced by a child through all the senses, at his or her own pace.

Families, caregivers, and schools must be prepared to understand and support this critical stage of growth for the children in our charge. Our challenge is to be sure that programs and schools meet the special needs of very young children.

Resources:

What are the Determinants of Children's Academic Successes and Difficulties - by Marion Diamond, Ph.D

"How can parents and teachers provide conditions that will most effectively promote growth and change in our children's brains? How can parents help a child develop his or her full potential and set a pathway of lifelong learning? In this article, Marian Diamond, neuroanatomist, describes ways in which parents and teachers should create a climate for enchanted minds to obtain information, stimulate imagination, develop an atmosphere to enhance motivation and creativity and experience the value of a work ethic."

What are the Determinants of Children's Academic Successes and Difficulties

Embryological Development of the Human Brain - by Arnold B. Scheibel, MD

"Dr. Scheibel tells the fascinating story of how the brain develops in human beings from conception to birth. He makes clear that this complex, rapidly developing process is affected continually by the environment in which it is taking place. What mothers eat, drink, and feel - the environments which they themselves experience - affect daily the neural development of their unborn child."

Embryological Development of the Human Brain

The Emotional Basis of Learning - Noboru Kobayashi, M.D.

"All pediatricians know that when a child is deprived of emotional support in daily life, he or she may be delayed in growth and development - physically and mentally. This usually happens in child abuse and other distress, when the parents or the family have problems. This is called "Emotional (or Maternal) Deprivation Syndrome." It is important to know that the deprived child may be able to catch up in growth and development if he or she is provided with emotionally supportive care."

The Emotional Basis of Learning

Here is a link to an annotated bibliography on early childhood education: Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children From Birth Through Age 8 - Sue Bredekamp, Editor (Adapted from www.newhorizons.org. New Horizons for Learning is a web-based educational resource that culls the wisdom of the world's teachers in order to create a learning renewal.)

Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children From Birth Through Age 8

Facts for Life - UNESCO Online Health Book

Teachers who work with young children, especially, need to be well versed in issues regarding health.

Required Reading:

UNESCO's Facts for Life (full PDF document)

Features of Facts for Life :

Every year, nearly 11 million children die from preventable causes before reaching their fifth birthday. Millions more survive only to face diminished futures, unable to develop to their full potential.

Many of these deaths can be avoided if parents and caregivers understand what to do when illness strikes and how to recognize the danger signs that signal the need for medical help. Facts for Life presents, in simple language, the most authoritative information about practical, effective and low-cost ways to protect children's lives and health. Everyone has the right to know this information.

Since it was first published in 1989, Facts for Life has become one of the world's most popular books, with more than 15 million copies in use in 215 languages in 200 countries. The book is co-published by UNICEF, WHO, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNDP, UNAIDS, WFP and the World Bank.

This revised edition of Facts for Life has updated information on the major causes of childhood illnesses and death, including HIV/AIDS, Emergencies and Accidents.

On behalf of both UNICEF and Teachers Without Borders, we urge everyone to share and use these health messages to help save children's lives. Reading in EACH of these areas is required.

Facts of Life - Chapter by Chapter online (below):

What is Facts for Life?

Timing Births

Safe Motherhood

Child Development and Early Learning

Breastfeeding

Nutrition and Growth

Immunization

Diarrhoea

Coughs, Colds and More Serious Illnesses

Hygiene

Malaria

HIV/AIDS

Injury Prevention

Disasters and Emergencies

Assignment 1: Reflective Reading

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Assignment 1: Reflective Reading

Reggio Emilia - Example of Excellence

Researchers at Wayne State University tell us that "The Reggio approach is not a method or a curriculum, but is a set of principles for integrating children's development and social-cultural environment with the best theory and practice concerning children's education. This approach has created great enthusiasm among parents, teachers and educators throughout the early childhood community."

Teachers Without Borders has tested many of Reggio Emilia's ideas and find them to be workable in multiple settings, across cultures and economic lines.

(Adapted from www.education-world.com)

If you were to walk into a Reggio school, you would see an extraordinary engagement of children and a high degree of responsiveness and creativity. At first, one might be concerned that children are not drilled, early on, to learn their numbers. Rather, this skill is developed, gradually, through a variety of activities. The children also learn about numbers by solving number-related problems. For example, teachers might ask children to determine whether their school or another building nearby was taller. They had two to three days to contemplate the question. Teachers might not tell them how to arrive at the answer but, rather, would allow them to find the answer on their own.

Teacher training is taken quite seriously.

The U.S. Secretary of Education, Richard Riley observed: "The teachers respect the ideas and values that the children bring to the school, and the teachers are smart enough to build on the creativity of the children."

"In the last ten years, an extraordinary amount of scientific research has been developed that tells us in very clear terms that all of our children, even in the earliest months of their lives, have an amazing ability to learn." Riley continued: "We now know that it is absolutely imperative that we put a new, powerful, and sustained focus on the early years - birth to five - before children even enter first grade.

"Put simply, and this should be our collective motto - the stronger the start, the better the finish," Riley added. "We now know that every conversation we have with an infant can literally spark [his or her] brain to grow some more. Our children are eager to learn, they are creative in how they learn, and they have an extraordinary capacity to learn if we know how to encourage them the right way. "

Reggio Emilia

Adults are often amazed by young children's unexpected perceptions of the world and the unique ways in which they express their imagination. We also know, however, that children usually need adult support to find the means and the confidence to bring forth their ideas day after day. When considering both teacher-initiated and child-initiated strategies for enhancing young children's self-expression and creativity, the preschools of Reggio Emilia, Italy, can be a universal resource.

How Young Children Learn

In Reggio Emilia, Italy, home of some of the best preschools in the world, children grow up surrounded by centuries-old masterpieces of architecture, painting, and sculpture. Citizens are especially proud of their artistic heritage, and art becomes a natural vehicle in educational approaches for helping children explore and solve problems.

The documentation of young children's work provided by Reggio Emilia educators highlights young children's amazing capabilities and indicates that it is through the unity of thinking and feeling that young children can explore their world, represent their ideas, and communicate with others at their highest level. When educators fully understand how exploration, representation, and communication feed one other, they can best help children achieve this potential.

Several aspects of young children's learning are important to consider when thinking about art and creative activities (Edwards & Hiler, 1993). First, young children are developmentally capable of classroom experiences which call for (and practice) higher-level thinking skills, including analysis (breaking down material into component parts to understand the structure, seeing similarities and differences); synthesis (putting parts together to form a new whole, rearranging, reorganizing); and evaluation (judging the value of material based on definite criteria).

Reggio Emilia Continued

Second, young children want and need to express ideas and messages through many different expressive avenues and symbolic media. Young children form mental images, represent their ideas, and communicate with the world in a combination of ways. They need increasing competence and integration across formats including words, gestures, drawings, paintings, sculpture, construction, music, dramatic play, movement, and dance. Through sharing and gaining others' perspectives, and then revisiting and revising their work, children move to new levels of awareness. Teachers act as guides, careful not to impose adult ideas and beliefs upon the children.

Third, young children learn through meaningful activities in which different subject areas are integrated. Open-ended discussions and long-term activities bring together whole-language activities, science, social studies, dramatic play, and artistic creation. Activities that are meaningful and relevant to the child's life experiences provide opportunities to teach across the curriculum and assist children in seeing the interrelationships of things they are learning.

Teachers have many opportunities to integrate curriculum. For example, the arrival of a new sibling is a common occurrence. Teachers might ask parents of children in their class to contribute photographs of the children as infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, so that the children who are interested can make scrapbooks. If such photos are unavailable, the children can draw or cut pictures from magazines, or dictate stories about remembered foods, toys, or bedroom furnishings. Such activities, designed to help a child deal with a new baby, also help children to use spoken and written language and to select and organize materials.

Fourth, young children benefit from in-depth exploration and long-term, open-ended projects which are started either from a chance event, a problem posed by one or more children, or an experience planned and led in a flexible way by teachers (Edwards & Springate, 1993; Clark, 1994). The adults act as resource persons, problem-posers, guides, and partners to the children in the process of discovery and investigation. They take their cues from children through careful listening and observation, and know when to encourage risk-taking and when to refrain from interfering.

The Reggio Classroom

A Reggio classroom is noticeably different from a traditional one. Large windows fill the rooms with light, and there is plenty of open space allowing room for children to move around. The room is decorated with children's art. All of the decorations in the room are created by the children. Natural materials such as pine cones, seashells, and wood are freely available and encourage exploration, expression and learning.

The goal of the Reggio approach is to educate the whole child - spirit and heart as well as mind. It's a holistic approach to education, one in which art - in all forms - plays a large part. Reggio teachers allow children to express themselves in ways other than writing or speaking.

According to the Reggio approach, each child is born with 100 "languages" to help them represent their ideas, but society, parents, and teachers take away 99 and leave the spoken language as the only way of expression. The goal of the school is to give back the other 99 - allowing for an enormous range of expression.

Children may start the day with an assembly and discussion. Back in their classrooms, they're free to move around the room, work with other children and become involved in projects of their own choosing.

Artistic opportunity abounds. Children often learn to write through clay - they form their letters and numbers with it. The children built the letters using wire as a base so that the letters stand up.

Reggio also emphasizes group projects and team approaches to solving problems. In one Reggio school in Italy, for example, the children thought that their playground was boring. They brainstormed ideas to make it more interesting - with the teacher as guide and observer - and decided to create an amusement park for birds. The idea turned into a year-long project in which the children built a bird-bath complete with fountain, learning about hydraulics in the process.

Tools for Teachers

Given what is known about young children's learning and about their amazing competence to express their visions of themselves and their world, how can the classroom be modified to best support children's emerging creativity?

Time - Creativity does not follow the clock. Children need extended, unhurried time to explore and do their best work. They should not be artificially rotated, that is, asked to move to a different learning center or activity when they are still productively engaged and motivated by a piece of creative work.

Space - Children need a place to leave unfinished work to continue the next day, and a space that inspires them to do their best work. A barren, drab environment is not conducive to creative work. Rather, children's work is fostered by a space that has natural light, harmonious colors, comfortable and child-sized areas, examples of their own and others' work (not only their classmates, but as appropriate, also their teachers' and selected adult artists), and inviting materials.

Materials - Without spending great amounts of money, teachers can organize wonderful collections of resource materials that might be bought, found, or recycled. These materials can include paper goods of all kinds; writing and drawing tools; materials for constructions and collages, such as buttons, stones, shells, beads, and seeds; and sculpting materials, such as play dough, goop, clay, and shaving cream. These materials are used most productively and imaginatively by children when they themselves have helped select, organize, sort, and arrange them.

Climate - The classroom atmosphere should reflect the adults' encouragement and acceptance of mistakes, risk-taking, innovation, and uniqueness, along with a certain amount of mess, noise, and freedom. This is not a matter of chaos, or of tight control, but instead something in between. In order to create such a climate, teachers must give themselves permission to try artistic activity themselves, even when they have not been so fortunate as to have had formal art training or to feel they are naturally "good at art." Through workshops, adult education classes, or teamwork with an art teacher or parent, classroom teachers can gain the confidence for, and experience the pleasure of, venturing some distance down the road of self-expression in a medium in which they did not know they could be successful. Their skill will then translate into the work with the children.

Occasions - Children's best and most exciting work involves an intense or arousing encounter between themselves and their inner or outer world. Teachers provide the occasions for these adventures. Children find it hard to be creative without any concrete inspiration. Instead, they prefer to draw on the direct evidence of their senses or memories. These memories can become more vivid and accessible through the teacher's provocations and preparations. For example, teachers can encourage children to represent their knowledge and ideas before and after they have watched an absorbing show, taken a field trip, or observed and discussed an interesting plant or animal brought into class. Teachers can put up a mirror or photos of the children in the art area, so children can study their faces as they draw their self- portrait. Teachers can offer children the opportunity to check what they have drawn against an original model and then let them revise and improve upon their first representation.

(Adapted from: www.kidsource.com/kidsource, "Encouraging Creativity in Early Childhood Classrooms" by Carolyn Pope Edwards and Kay Wright Springate ERIC DIGEST December 1995)

The Role of Documentation

Lillian Katz and Sylvia Chard have written about the importance of teachers as documentarians of student work (part of the article is excerpted below).

"Documentation, in the forms of observation of children and extensive recordkeeping, has long been encouraged and practiced in many early childhood programs. However, compared to these practices in other traditions, documentation in Reggio Emilia focuses more intensively on children's experience, memories, thoughts, and ideas in the course of their work. Documentation practices in Reggio Emilia pre-primary schools provide inspiring examples of the importance of displaying children's work with great care and attention to both the content and aesthetic aspects of the display.

Documentation typically includes samples of a child's work at several different stages of completion; photographs showing work in progress; comments written by the teacher or other adults working with the children; transcriptions of children's discussions, comments, and explanations of intentions about the activity; and comments made by parents. Observations, transcriptions of tape-recordings, and photographs of children discussing their work can be included. Examples of children's work and written reflections on the processes in which the children engaged can be displayed in classrooms or hallways. The documents reveal how the children planned, carried out, and completed the displayed work."

Suggested Reading:

Click on the icon below to access the following resource:

Reggio and Art

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More on Reggio

Assignment 2: Reflection

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Assignment 2: Reflection

"Our children are eager to learn, they are creative in how they learn, and they have an extraordinary capacity to learn if we know how to encourage them the right way."

Discussions

Discussions and Innovations - Early Childhood Education

This section is devoted to a) Discussion forum on Early Childhood Education and b) Global links regarding innovations in Early Childhood Education

This is an opportunity to participate in a global discussion on early-childhood education. This will give you an example to seek and give advice, find out what is going on in other countries, and trade lesson plans.

Listservs: (Online only) This is a place where you can communicate with teachers in early-childhood education, worldwide.

Global Innovations

First Impressions of Early Childhood Education in China - Mary Ellen O'Keefe, Ed.D - in New Horizons for Learning website

ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education-links, resources (online only)

Early Childhood Education Online - website, resources - (online only)

Early Childhood Education Webguide (online only)

The Step by Step Approach - Child-centered, Early Childhood Education in Eastern Europe offers children the opportunity to make choices about their own learning. Click on the Word icon below to access it:

The Step by Step Approach

Previews of Books on Early Childhood Education

The Child's Reality: Three Developmental Themes- David Elkind - (online only)

The Child's Conception of the World- Jean Piaget - (online only)

Assignment 3: Connecting Learning to a Need

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Assignment 3: Connecting Learning to a Need

When you're done with this assignment and your mentor says you're "Ready," continue onto Part Three of this course: Designing and Implementing Your Service Project.

Overview

Literacy is the ability to read, write, and calculate in one's local language.

How many of us know what it is like to be an adult and illiterate in one's own language? It's hard to imagine the humiliation, the frustration, and the rage that many people have to live with day after day.

Literacy creates access to information, and, therefore, an increase in health, livelihood, and civic participation. Literacy contributes to self-respect and self-reliance. It empowers men and women and it strengthens communities.

2003 is the beginning of the literacy decade, according to the United Nations, and with this declaration, the UN aims to:

In this module, we focus on the elements of literacy training itself for the adult learner with the idea that teaching parents to read also helps educate children.

Orientation to Adult Learning

In these courses, we have often discussed the need to use appropriate pedagogies (teaching methods) in order to reach the developmental levels of the children we teach. At the same time, it is necessary to know the mindset and characteristics of adult learners. Here, we discuss the mental, physical, social, and psychological features of adults. We can call the teaching methods that serve adults as "androgogy."

Mental Development and Androgogy

Adults have an improved ability to integrate their senses and logical abilities by relying on experience and judgments. The self-concept of adults derives from a greater sense of inner satisfaction and strength. Adults distinguish between issues of greater and lesser importance.

At the same time, some adults experience declining eyesight and hearing. The seating arrangements for classes should be more circular than linear, ensuring equal access to the teacher and a feeling of equality. It is important that writing on slate or blackboard be clear and large enough to accommodate those with declining eyesight. In a similar fashion, it is essential that the teacher speak clearly and loudly, and rotate around the classroom in order that all can hear what is being said.

The room itself should be spacious, properly ventilated, and bright. It should also be protected from adverse weather conditions. Furniture should be comfortable for adults in whatever form - mats, chairs, or desks.

The materials themselves should be adult-related and take on the issues and problems that adults address on a daily basis and that reflect their concerns. Although the material should move from easy to more complex, content should never patronize adults.

Motivation and Adult Learners

Physical Factors

Adult learners are busy people. There are several issues such learners consider when participating in literacy circles or committees:

Social Factors

Adult learners seek a way to improve their social status; increase their sense of belonging; gain social recognition; and participate in the affairs of their community. Many seek to overcome feelings of inferiority brought about by illiteracy - to overcome embarrassment and discomfort. They seek to be admired by others; to satisfy curiosity; and to win the affection and respect of others.

Research-based Best Practices

(Adapted from Best Practices in Literacy Instruction , edited by Lesley Morrow, Linda Gambrell and Micael Pressley.)

Adult Literacy Programs

The greatest literacy programs engage local leaders in "each-one-teach-one" settings and a wide network of "literacy circles" or "literacy committees." These "literacy circles and committees" adopt program structures that rely on a particular technique towards literacy and depend on rotating leadership, mandatory attendance, and assessment.

These structures rely on the mobilization of individuals, groups, agencies, religious bodies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to participate actively in mass literacy as volunteer teachers, learners, sponsors, or organizers.

Each-One-Teach-One Program Elements

There are four general principles governing adult literacy:

(Adapted from several sources, most notably: "The National Commmission for Mass Education," with the assistance of the United Nations Development Program - NIGERIA)

Assignment 1: Reflecting

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Assignment 1: Reflecting

Organizing and Managing First-Rate Literacy Classes

Literacy classes must be well organized, for the students themselves require smoothness and order as they adopt a new role as a student. Disruptions hamper the learning process. Records are essential. The following forms should be developed, accompanied by a clear and user-friendly system for gathering information:

Registration Form (initially to be filled out by the instructor on behalf of the student). This form is used to judge interest, assess the community by determining a profile of students, and plan for future events and trainings.

Attendance Register (to be kept by the instructor to determine rates of attendance). If students are missing classes, it is the instructor's duty not to embarrass or punish, but to find out why and determine how to get the student back.

Instructor's Records (including anecdotal notes on individual students as well as official scores on examinations)

Local and Regional Records (with demographics of literacy rates in order to prove that the program is successful or needs help. Such information provides comparative data)

Monthly Reports (on general progress, to publish in newsletter form, post to a website, or submit to government authorities).

Supervision

Those serving as administrators for literacy programs must highlight achievements and problems, along with suggestions for solving problems. Such adminstrators should be able to substantiate their progress by providing data to outside observers and evaluators, who shall compare this particular program with others and with the statistics and norms of national curriculum standards.

Observations of instructors in the field should take into consideration:

Evaluation

The objectives of evaluation are to fix areas of ineffectiveness. Evaluation also instills a sense of duty to the original objectives of literacy training itself.

Evaluation can be done by direct observation or by the use of questionnaires and checklists (or a combination of both). Designers of such rubrics must identify specific aspects of the program on which attention is to be focused, using a check mark or "x", depending upon whether the answer to specific questions are postive or negative. However much this may seem obvious at first, this fact must be emphasized in trainings of those conducting the questionnaire, as research has shown that inaccurate reporting introduces variables that often invalidate the questionnaire itself.

Checklist for Observation of Literacy Classes

Spreading the Word

A literacy center is not the only place where literacy education can take place. Mass contact can come from:

Required Reading:

Living Literacy shares stories about literacy and education from Africa, Bhutan, Brazil, El Salvador, Germany, Haiti, Tamil Nadu, Israel, Mauritius, and New Zealand. Click on the Word icon below to access this resource:

Living Literacy

Suggested Reading:

BRAC (online only) Through an organized network, BRAC aims to develop the reading habits of both the rural and urban people of Bangladesh. These objectives are achieved through the establishment of Union Libraries and Reading Centres.

Assignment 2: Other Considerations

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Assignment 2: Other Considerations

Assignment 3: Taking a Closer Look

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Assignment 3: Taking a Closer Look

When you're done with this assignment and your mentor says you're "Ready," continue onto Part Three of this course: Designing and Implementing Your Service Project.

The Seamless Whole

Some people know they are part of the seamless whole. There is no separation between humans and nature - for we are nature, along with plant life, animals, rocks, trees, minerals.

Some people grow up in cultures attuned to the winds and the waves, to the land - where the tiniest shifts in the landscape are noticed - an overturned rock indicating a passerby. At the same time, there are people in cultures who leave urban centers to take "retreats" into the wilderness in order for young people to know the grandeur of which we are naturally a part.

Environmental education may have varying degrees of exploration for different cultures. There is, however, a common thread, and it is this: to develop an awareness and a reverence for the earth and its inhabitants.

This module introduces you to the concept of "deep ecology" - the study of how we are connected - to ourselves, with our surroundings, with our fellow sojourners.

This module connects you with ideas and organizations doing essential work in environmental education and it introduces you to the skills of observation, questioning, listening, and attunement important to its study. To take these skills and to apply them to a community need is our goal.

Observation

"How many times I have wished that I could look out onto the world through the eyes, with the mind, of a chimpanzee. One such minute would be worth a lifetime of research." - Dr. Jane Goodall

Dr. Jane Goodall has been known for her pioneering research with chimpanzees. One key to Jane Goodall's success while she was at Gombe was her ability to be a keen observer. Although most people will not have an opportunity to observe wild chimpanzees, we need to be sharp observers because careful observations are the foundation of environmental inquiry. Also, keep in mind - what we observe and how we observe determines the questions we ask.

To get a feeling for the power of observation, here is an excerpt from Jane Goodale's writing In The Shadow of Man:

"At about noon the first heavy drops of rain began to fall. The chimpanzees climbed out of the tree and one after the other plodded up the steep grassy slope toward the open ridge at the top. There were seven adult males in the group, including Goliath and David Greybeard, several females, and a few youngsters. As they reached the ridge the chimpanzees paused. At that moment the storm broke. The rain was torrential, and the sudden clap of thunder, right overhead, made me jump. As if this were a signal, one of the big males stood upright and as he swayed and swaggered rhythmically from foot to foot, I could just hear the rising crescendo of his pant-hoots above the beating of the rain. Then he charged off, flat-out down the slope toward the trees he had just left. He ran some thirty yards, and then, swinging round the trunk of a small tree to break his headlong rush, leaped into the low branches and sat motionless.

Almost at once two other males charged after him. One broke off a low branch from a tree as he ran and brandished it in the air before hurling it ahead of him. The other, as he reached the end of his run, stood upright and rhythmically swayed the branches of a tree back and forth before seizing a huge branch and dragging it farther down the slope. A fourth male, as he too charged, leaped into a tree and, almost without breaking his speed, tore off a large branch, leaped with it to the ground, and continued down the slope. As the last two males called and charged down, the one who had started the whole performance climbed from his tree and began plodding up the slope again. The others, who had also climbed into trees near the bottom of the slope, followed suit. When they reached the ridge, they started charging down all over again, one after the other, with equal vigor.

The females and youngsters had climbed into trees near the top of the rise as soon as the displays had begun, and there they remained watching throughout the whole performance. As the males charged down and plodded back up, so the rain fell harder, jagged forks or brilliant flares of lightening lit the leaden sky, and the crashing of the thunder seemed to shake the very mountains.....Twenty minutes from the start of the performance the last of the males plodded back up the slope for the last time."

(Goodall, Jane (1988) In The Shadow of Man . Houghlin Mifflin: Boston p. 52-53)

Assignment 1: Ecological Survey

Observation is a key skill in environmental education. Connected to that skill is the skill of asking questions and listening, then synthesizing - putting it all together to serve a community need.

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Assignment 1: Ecological Survey

In this assignment, you will get a good sense for the ecology of your community as you conduct this survey and find out the answer to the following questions:

Plants

Animals

Human Community

Resources

There are several reasons for hope, some of which are listed below: (Online only)

Lessons for Hope

Dr. Jane Goodall has been known for her pioneering research with chimpanzees. Now, in order to save them - and the quality of life on our planet for people, animals, and the environment - she travels the world 300 days a year, spreading the message of hope. Her book, Reason for Hope, is a testament to human generosity in the face of environmental degradation. Her new work, Lessons for Hope, translates her message into a practical guide for teachers and students of all ages.

Environmental Education Resources

Provides access to education literature and resources - lessons, journals, organizations, conferences and more.

Environmental Storyteller With deep laughter, magical visions, intensity, warmth, mischief and love, this storyteller has enchanted tens of thousands of listeners with Earth Mother Stories - Tales of Earth Stewardship & Stories of Human Fellowship - stories for children, for teens and young adults, for families, and for adult audiences.

Environmental Curriculum Development Delivers comprehensive education materials that include a complete curriculum, materials, assessment, educator training, and background information.

Environmental Education Information Portal for environmental education resources and information on the Internet. Developed for K-12 educators, EE-Link offers comprehensive information on organizations, classroom resources, and research.

Pachamama Alliance Preserves the Earth's tropical rainforests and contributes to the creation of a new global vision of equity and sustainability for all.

Cheetah Conservation An example of successsfully working with local farmers to come up with a common solution that both saves the cheetahs and helps the local farmers in Namibia.

African Wildlife Preservation The African Wildlife Foundation, together with the people of Africa, works to ensure that the wildlife and wild lands of Africa will endure forever.

Earthships Biotecture Building low-cost sustainable homes out of used tires.

Assignment 2: Reflective Reading

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Assignment 2: Reflective Reading

Assignment 3: Bringing it All Together

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a figure in the distance. As he got closer, he realized the figure was that of a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, "What are you doing?" The youth replied, "Throwing a starfish into the ocean. The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them back, they'll die." "Son," the man said, "don't you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can't possibly make a difference!" After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it into the surf. Then smiling at the man, said, "I made a difference for that one." - from "The Star Thrower" by Loren Eiseley

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Assignment 3: Bringing It All Together

Overview

The arts play a central role in many cultures around the world. In Bali, for example, the community participates in art-making from birth to old age. Each member of the community knows him/herself to be "an artist." In other cultures the artist is put up on a stage to sing alone or the term "artist" is reserved for people demonstrating a particular level of skill or advanced form of study.

From the example of the Reggio Emilia preschools, however, it becomes clear that children are, indeed, natural artists, and that educating through the arts comes easily. In this section, we move from this premise of an natural fit between education and the arts to examine application in the classroom and our communities.

Learning through the arts supports the work of multiple intelligences and helps create a venue for different ways of knowing about ourselves and others. Art stimulates the imagination, nurtures students' willingness to be innovative, to problem solve, to learn about each other, and other cultures. It reinforces observational and interpretive skills, and adds a qualitative dimension to life. Through art children learn about working in groups, working alone, and expressing personal insights and emotions. Art creates a lively dialogue within ourselves, our schools, and our community.

Emerging Creativity

Given what is known about young children's learning and about their amazing competence to express their visions of themselves and their world, how can the classroom be modified to best support children's emerging creativity?

Time - Creativity does not follow the clock. Children need extended, unhurried time to explore and do their best work. They should not be artificially rotated, that is, asked to move to a different learning center or activity when they are still productively engaged and motivated by a piece of creative work.

Space - Children need a place to leave unfinished work to continue the next day, and a space that inspires them to do their best work. A barren, drab environment is not conducive to creative work. Rather, children's work is fostered by a space that has natural light, harmonious colors, comfortable and child-sized areas, examples of their own and others' work (not only their classmates, but as appropriate, also their teachers' and selected adult artists), and inviting materials.

Materials - Without spending great amounts of money, teachers can organize wonderful collections of resource materials that might be bought, found, or recycled. These materials can include paper goods of all kinds; writing and drawing tools; materials for constructions and collages, such as buttons, stones, shells, beads, and seeds; and sculpting materials, such as play dough, goop, clay, and shaving cream. These materials are used most productively and imaginatively by children when they themselves have helped select, organize, sort, and arrange them.

Climate - The classroom atmosphere should reflect the adults' encouragement and acceptance of mistakes, risk-taking, innovation, and uniqueness, along with a certain amount of mess, noise, and freedom. This is not a matter of chaos, or of tight control, but instead something in between. In order to create such a climate, teachers must give themselves permission to try artistic activity themselves, even when they have not been so fortunate as to have had formal art training or to feel they are naturally "good at art." Through workshops, adult education classes, or teamwork with an art teacher or parent, classroom teachers can gain the confidence for, and experience the pleasure of, venturing some distance down the road of self-expression in a medium in which they did not know they could be successful. Their skill will then translate into the work with the children.

Occasions - Children's best and most exciting work involves an intense or arousing encounter between themselves and their inner or outer world. Teachers provide the occasions for these adventures. Children find it hard to be creative without any concrete inspiration. Instead, they prefer to draw on the direct evidence of their senses or memories. These memories can become more vivid and accessible through the teacher's provocations and preparations. For example, teachers can encourage children to represent their knowledge and ideas before and after they have watched an absorbing show, taken a field trip, or observed and discussed an interesting plant or animal brought into class. Teachers can put up a mirror or photos of the children in the art area, so children can study their faces as they draw their self- portrait. Teachers can offer children the opportunity to check what they have drawn against an original model and then let them revise and improve upon their first representation.

(Adapted from: www.kidsource.com/kidsource, "Encouraging Creativity in Early Childhood Classrooms" by Carolyn Pope Edwards and Kay Wright Springate ERIC DIGEST December 1995)

Suggested Reading

Suggested Reading:

Click on the links below to get ideas for using online art resources to enhance learning about world cultures, mythology, and a variety of other topics: (online only)Click on the Word icon below to access the following resource:

Reggio and Art

World Myths and Legends in Art: Myths are stories that explain why the world is the way it is. All cultures have them. Throughout history, artists have been inspired by myths and legends and have given them visual form. Sometimes these works of art are the only surviving record of what particular cultures believed and valued. But even where written records or oral traditions exist, art adds to our understanding of myths and legends. PDF file of complete curriculum below:

World Myths and Legends in Art

Online Resources

Online Arts Education

Access to the Art Institute of Chicago

Access to The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Explore and Learn

Tour the Louvre

Egyptian Museum

Visit The Hermitage

Assignment 1: A Look at Reggio Emilia

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Assignment 1: A Look at Reggio Emilia

Assignment 2: Integration

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Assignment 2: Integration

Lesson Format

Subject:

Arts Category:

Teacher Supplies:

Student Supplies:

Objectives (what would you like the students to accomplish?). An example might be: Students will learn about how cells work by creating a small drama presentation.

What Will Students Need To Do? An example might be:

Group work, assigning parts, designing costumes, staging, etc.

Warm Up

Explain the opportunity to use arts to learn better. Introduce the subject and create an atmosphere so that students are interested in trying something new.

Presentations

These can be individual or group presentations, depending upon what you have decided in advance.

Assessments

Assignment 3: Practices

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Assignment 3: Practices

Overview

For millions of women around the globe, lack of education is a handicap for which they pay a heavy price. Some 565 million women are illiterate, mainly in poor rural areas. These women cannot sign their names, decipher simple instructions, or fill out an application form. Their lack of education limits their ability to earn money and get credit, to participate in decision-making in their families and communities, to delay childbearing, and to offer their children the best life chances.

The failure to educate these women when they were girls is the result of a range of factors, including the need for girls' labor in the home, attitudes that devalue education for girls, fears about girls' security outside the home, and lack of resources to pay for education.

Girls' Education is a central agent of hope. The research shows us, in the end, how powerfully we can connect education with human welfare. Educating girls offers a multitude of benefits for the girls (themselves), their current and future families, and their societies. We ascribe to the cornerstone of international development: go women, go water, go local. Women come first.

This module will introduce you to educational trends and benefits of educating girls, and give you resources to deepen your study so that in the end you may connect your learning with a community need.

Trends and Effects in Girls' Education

Go Women

"In study after study - by the UN, the World Bank, by academics the world over - girls' education emerges as the single best investment that any society can make."

- Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (in a speech given to the Millennium Assembly Forum on Girls' Education, Sept 7, 2000)

Benefits

Education is vital to ensuring a better quality of life for all children and a better world for all people. In country after country, educating girls yields spectacular social benefits for the current generation and those to come:

Case Studies

I am now in Grade two. I am 15 years old and have been married twice, at the ages of 10 and 12. I did not stay with my second husband. My cousin advised me to go to school. I am the first child in my family and have three sisters and two brothers. I like my lessons, I stood seventh among 120 students. My younger sister was married, but because of my advice she now goes to school. My parents are not really willing to send me to school. Nevertheless, I want to continue and will advise other girls to do the same. - Tadfe Tsega, Ethiopia

"In Africa, there are 24 million girls out of primary school. And in 22 African countries, boys outnumber girls in primary school by at least five percentage points. In countries besieged by HIV/AIDS, the very fact that girls do not go to school can be life threatening. More than 40 percent of women without education have no knowledge of AIDS, compared to 8 percent of women with post-primary schooling."

(Carol Bellamy, UNICEF, 8/15/2001)

"Uganda provides a tremendous example of leadership in this area with its policy of free primary education and its emphasis on gender parity. Another example of leadership comes from Malawi. When the country made primary education free in 1994, net enrollment surged from less than 50 percent to more than 80 percent."

(Carol Bellamy, UNICEF, 8/15/2001)

"It is well known that an educated woman has fewer and healthier children, and is more likely to send her children to school. In Brazil, for instance, illiterate women have an average of 6.5 children, whereas those with secondary education have 2.5 children. The child of a Zambian mother with a primary education has a 25 percent better chance of survival than a child of a mother with no education."

(World Education Forum, Women and Girls: Education, not Discrimination 2000)

"Literacy also gives women a voice. In Bangladesh, women with a secondary education are three times more likely to attend a political meeting than are women with no education."

(World Education Forum, Women and Girls: Education, not Discrimination 2000)

The high cost of formal education has prevented girls in many countries from getting school education. Fifteen-year-old Alamassou from Togo was no different. But that all chang