Jonah’s Birth

Rachel Goldstein shares her experience of exploring options related to care provider and place of birth early in her pregnancy. Goldstein and her husband, Marc, after reading and research, chose midwifery care and a home birth. She shares the story of a long labor at home supported by her husband, her doula, and her midwife. Her positive attitude, her ability to use various comfort strategies, and the support she received throughout labor contributed to being able to give birth naturally and ecstatically to her son Jonah.     

Bobby’s Story

~~Bobby’s Story@苏畅~~     

Bobby’s Story

~~Bobby’s Story@苏畅~~     

Bobby’s Story

~~Bobby’s Story@肖攀博 @苏畅     

Julian’s Birth

A grandmother of seven and childbirth educator shares her daughter’s successful vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC) birth story in Switzerland.     

Robyn’s Birthing Story

This “Celebrate Birth!” column describes the experience of a long-time childbirth educator who attended the birth of her granddaughter Cora, her daughter Robyn’s second hospital birth. She discusses how Robyn’s instincts and confidence helped to overcome institutional issues to provide a good and safe birthing experience.     

Making Sense of Place: Sarah’s Story

Written from the vantage point of both a mother and teacher educator, the author recounts the journey taken by Sarah, her 4-year old daughter, as she is introduced to and explores map making as a means of representing and making sense of familiar and unfamiliar places. Offering Sarah’s experience as context, the author offers both a practical and theoretical discussion of children’s emerging geographic literacy, its relationship to identity development and the importance of understanding children’s experience and socio-emotional development to inform pedagogy.

Children’s Preferences In Picture Story Book Variables

Abstract

Many assessment procedures used in the classroom fail to measure the student's comprehension of text materials. Using constructing- algorithms to develop the testing instruments, three quizzes and a posttest measuring both critical and incidental content were given to three fourth grade and three sixth grade classes. Three levels of student comprehension were tested: verbatim, paraphrased, and transformed paraphrased. Significant increases in performance over tests, and superior incidental recall by sixth graders indicated that as the learner's sophistication increases, deeper and more comprehensive instructional encoding can be measured by rule-based assessment systems.     

Accidents of Birth: Rawls’s Original Position as the Mother’s Womb

This paper examines the history of welfare policy discourse in the United States since the publication of the “Moynihan Report” (1967) and traces its implications for contemporary education policy research. The central thesis is that an overemphasis on “parents” historically invites unwarranted assumptions about autonomy and responsibility, which obfuscates fundamental questions of justice. Children are consequently punished for their parents’ perceived indiscretions. To militate against this tendency the author employs recent feminist critiques of Rawls’s methodology in A Theory of Justice (1999) to reconceptualize the “Original Position” as a mother’s womb in an effort to redirect focus from parents to children. Through this revision, policy discourse can potentially be shifted to more nearly mirror the reasoning applied in Plyler v Doe (1982), which emphasizes finally that children cannot be punished for their parents’ indiscretions.     

Analysis on Kafka’s Story "The Metamorphosis"

The fictions of Franz Kafka are full of many ironical allegories.Through the analysis of the great suffering of the family caused by the transformation of the protagonist into a monster in"the metamorphosis"by Franz Kafka,especially on the basis of elaborating the internal artistic characteristics in this story,this paper tends to show that the writer penetratingly described the human feelings of extreme loneliness and solitude in the modern society and he also attacked the society at that time through the technique of his absurd and paradoxical expression.     

Enhancing Children’s Comprehension of a Televised Story Through Previewing

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the effects of previewing on children's comprehension of a televised story. Using a variation of Ausubel’s advance organizers, a 1½-min edited video was constructed to provide children with a brief overview of the basic plot structure before seeing the televised story Soup and Me. Study 1 examined the effects of previewing with 48 second graders using a multiple-choke test of 20 items, which assessed their recall of central, incidental, and inferential story information. Our results indicated that viewing a preview before a televised story significantly increased students' comprehension of plot-essential information, but did not influence their learning of incidental information or their ability to draw inferences from the story. Study 2 examined previewing’s effects on free recall with 39 first graders. Those students in the preview group recalled the episodic structure of the story significantly better than the control group did. Previews appeared to act primarily as a cuing device, drawing children's attention to certain central aspects of the story. These results indicate that previewing may be an effective mediational technique for enhancing children's comprehension and retention of plot-essential information from a televised story.     

Reading Poison: Science and Story in Nazi Children’s Propaganda

Children’s books of Nazi propaganda prove that a society can venerate science to the point of making biology the organizing principle of its educational system yet nevertheless produce children’s literature shot through with fabrication and falsehood. Three children’s books of Nazi propaganda that are frequently mentioned in accounts of anti-Semitism but seldom analyzed are discussed: Elvira Bauer’s Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid und keinem Jud auf seinem Eid (1936), Ernst Hiemer’s Der Giftpilz (1938), and Hiemer’s Der Pudelmopsdackelpinscher (1940) illustrate the ways in which racist science and ideological narrative tautologically reinforce each other in an extreme version of how “narratives play a key role in communicating science” (Pauwels, 2019, p. 434) in children’s nonfiction. These texts of lurid racism, all issued by the book publishing arm of Julius Streicher’s virulently anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer, offer a monitory case study of how bad science and toxic narrative can coalesce into a literary poison intended to indoctrinate young readers. This analysis of Nazi nonfiction for children demonstrates how science and story can be exploited to promote a racist agenda.

     

Inequities and Ethical Dilemmas Beyond the Classroom: Joseph’s Story

ABSTRACT

This essay considers school and external factors that influenced a teacher’s decision to pass a high school student, thus allowing him to graduate high school. I explore my role in understanding and then enacting change within the classroom. This article prompts educators to self-reflect on their positionality, moral decision-making, and culturally relevant pedagogies to address inequities within their institutions. This self-study is example of research that informs teachers about the complexities of ethical and moral decision making in the classroom.     

The United Kingdom Children’s Laureate: The Story So Far

Britain’s Children’s Laureate Scheme has now been running for 14 years. This article asks Quentin Blake, Anne Fine, Michael Morpurgo, Jacqueline Wilson, Anthony Browne, Michael Rosen and Julia Donaldson for their views on their own experience of taking up this post. It concludes with a discussion of the recurring issues raised by these Laureates along with a look at possible future developments.     

Steps Toward Transformation: One College’s Achieving The Dream Story

Tarrant County College’s Achieving the Dream transformation has not only changed the college but all who engaged in the initiative. In four years, through ATD TCC became a college with one purpose, one goal, and one focus—student success through data informed decision making. From TCC Chancellor Dr. Erma Johnson Hadley to campus administrators, faculty, and staff, the college embraced the call for systemic change and fully engaged in the step by step process. Personnel throughout the college reported widespread satisfaction with senior leadership and viewed collaborations with colleagues across the district as beneficial and personally rewarding. Tireless endeavors to wholly engage stakeholders, build a culture of evidence, and employ effective student success interventions through ATD not only transformed TCC but ushered the college onto the national stage with Leader College recognition. The college’s next steps include keeping that momentum going and building on what it has accomplished.     

A Simple Analysis of Elizabeth and Darcy’s Marriage in Pride and Prejudice

Marriage is the main idea of Jane Austen’s novels. The novel reflects the ideal marriage views by describing several different marriages. It reveals a real marriage should be based on love, actual need, morality and equality. It creates a contrast between a successful marriage and an unsuccessful one. Elizabeth and Darcy’s marriage is considered as a successful one. In fact it embodies the author’s own concept of marriage, it is a fault to get married for only money and social status, but it is also foolish without thinking of these factors.     

Healthy Birth Practice #5: Avoid Giving Birth on Your Back and Follow Your Body’s Urge to Push

Women in the United States are still giving birth in the supine position and are restricted in how long they can push and encouraged to push forcefully by their caregivers. Research does not support these activities. There is discussion about current research and suggestions on how to improve the quality of the birth experience. This article is an updated evidence-based review of the “Lamaze International Care Practices That Promote Normal Birth, Care Practice #5: Spontaneous Pushing in Upright or Gravity-Neutral Positions,” published in The Journal of Perinatal Education, 16(3), 2007.     

Listen Up: What We Can Learn From Women’s Birth and Postpartum Experiences

In 2013, Childbirth Connection published findings from a U.S. study of women’s pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum experiences, Listening to Mothers III. In this issue of The Journal of Perinatal Education, we publish the major survey findings of both the pregnancy and birth survey and the postpartum survey. This editorial discusses some of the major findings of the childbirth survey. Listening to what mothers have to say about their experiences suggests a mandate to “listen up” to what mothers are telling us and continue to advocate for evidence-based maternity care. Articles in this issue of the journal are presented.