Reading and Reinterpreting Picture Books on Children’s Television: Implications for Young Children’s Narrative Literacy

Bookaboo is a television programme aiming to promote literacy and reading among young children. In each episode, a celebrity reads a book to Bookaboo, a dog who plays the drums in a rock band, in order to help him overcome stage fright. Using the episode featuring the picture book (Cowell and Layton in That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown, 2006) as a case study, this article explores how this type of adaptation of picture books transforms the original narrative, with implications for children’s developing narrative literacy. Taking a multimodal social semiotic perspective, this study investigates the changes in meaning which result from the employment of semiotic resources such as animation, sound, and camera movement in the representation of the book on the television show. We argue that the deployment of such resources can subtly reshape the meanings expressed through the modes of language and images in the original picture book, potentially affecting the child viewer’s engagement with the narrative. Examining the use of these resources in the picture book’s televisual representation is thus an important first step towards developing frameworks for evaluating the ability of television programmes that incorporate picture book reading to support children’s literacy.     

Literacy for self-reliance: A critical exploration of Nyerere’s legacy in Tanzanian education policies

International Review of Education - The global movement to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda rests on strengthening international...     

Children’s recall and motivation for an environmental education video with supporting pedagogical materials

This study examined recall (Rcl) differences of high, average and low achieving fifth-grade elementary students (72) for an environmental education video with supporting pedagogical materials. In addition, it assessed the motivational level of all students. Recall assessment was carried out one-week and twenty-weeks after intervention. Main findings suggest comparative Rcl results for all achievers and high motivation for the designed video and pedagogical materials. Implications for future research and for an integrative materials’ design approach are presented.     

A National Investigation of Teachers’ Environmental Literacy as a Reference for Promoting Environmental Education in Taiwan

Taiwan's government enacted the Environmental Education Act in June 2011. In the beginning of the implementation of the Act, a national assessment of schoolteachers’ environmental literacy was performed in order to establish the baseline for evaluating the effectiveness of environmental education policy. This large-scale assessment involved a large sample size of in-service teachers across schools at all levels and regions in Taiwan using the stratified random sampling method. Data showed that the teachers have satisfactory levels of environmental knowledge and attitudes, but presented low degrees of environmental action. Differing from previous research results, elementary teachers performed better than high school teachers on this assessment, which may be attributed to their teacher training experiences. Results from this study may provide implications for teacher professional development programs and school environmental education policy.     

Revisiting metaphors for education: a student’s perspective

This study examines metaphors about learning produced by a group of eighteen students at a big public university in Malaysia. The learner perspective is placed within a wider discourse on education in order to explore whether the images employed by the learners to describe their learning reflect the dominant conception of education as “production”. The metaphors supplied by the participants were analyzed and classified into several themes. None of the metaphors generated by the students alluded to the images that link education with “production”. The study contends that the student perspective on education can enrich educational discourse and highlight the previously obscured notions on education and learning.     

Korean Immigrant Mothers’ Perspectives: The Meanings of a Korean Heritage Language School for Their Children’s American Early Schooling Experiences

This study examines what a Korean heritage language school means to Korean immigrant families and their children, considering Korean immigrant mothers’ perspectives on American early schooling. As part of an ethnographic research project on Korean-American children’s peer culture in a heritage school, seven mothers, two guardians (grandmothers), and their young children were observed and interviewed during one academic year. The analysis showed that the heritage language school functions as a social and emotional support system, a buffer for reducing the detachment from parents, and a safety net for the Korean-American children’s challenging lives. The Korean immigrant mothers also showed that they felt burdened by different cultural views of their children’s behaviors, and described how their children were often considered problematic. The social and culture barriers caused by their immigrant status profoundly influenced their reasons for sending their children to a Korean heritage language school. This study suggests that teachers’ deep understanding of culturally different perspectives on children’s behaviors, along with systematic social and emotional support, can help these children attain psychological well-being.     

Children’s shyness: a suitable case for treatment?

Shy and withdrawn behaviours are cause for concern and have attracted contrasting perspectives. On the one hand, they are regarded as predictive of social anxiety disorder and may benefit from intervention; on the other hand, there are claims that normal behaviours are being pathologised. Evidence is reviewed which suggests that while they represent a risk factor for social anxiety disorder, these patterns of behaviours are only moderately predictive, the large majority of shy children do not go on to meet diagnostic criteria for social anxiety disorder, nor have adults who meet these criteria necessarily been shy as children. A fruitful approach may be to develop effective social and emotional learning programmes to increase children’s understanding of shyness and to aid identification of children at risk.     

Native Mexican Parents’ Beliefs About Children’s Literacy and Language Development: A Mixed-Methods Study

Research Findings. This study examined Mexican caretaker roles, beliefs, and practices around their child’s language and literacy development. Twenty-six parents in three preschools representing three socioeconomic strata located in Querétaro City, México completed questionnaires and participated in focus groups. We used convergent parallel mixed methods to analyze and compare parent questionnaire quantitative data and qualitative focus group data with a grounded theory approach to identify focus group discussion themes. Four themes were emerged: (a) Goals and expectations regarding reading and socioemotional development, (b) Perceptions and beliefs about children’s oral and written language, (c) Caretaker’s perceived role in children’s language and literacy development, and (d) Home and community learning-related resources and practices. Findings highlighted that Mexican parents highly value supporting their children’s education both socioemotionally and through engagement in literacy routines—evidence of duality in the educacíón value among native Mexican families. These literacy routines were complementary and responsive to teacher classroom instruction. Practice or Policy. Understanding how Latino families instantiate literacy practices to respond to American schooling expectations may be a way to address home-school discontinuities that often reflect lack of familiarity with the U.S. educational system.     

Relating Preschool Quality to Children’s Literacy Development

Preschool classrooms were investigated to determine the extent to which quality is related to children’s literacy development. The study included 24 classrooms of 428 prekindergarten children in a large, urban Midwestern school district. Results suggest that global classroom quality and literacy environment quality are strongly related. Literacy environment quality and children’s literacy abilities are also related. Differences in classroom quality were found to have an impact on children’s literacy scores—the higher the quality, the higher the scores. This article also describes lessons learned from the investigation and provides suggestions for teachers and administrators for improving quality to enhance literacy development.     

Spinoza’s proposal for a doctrine of children’s education

Abstract

The main objective of this article is to analyze the conceptual connection between the Doctrine of Children’s Education, briefly mentioned in Spinoza’s Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione (TIE), and the concept of emendation present at the very center of this Treatise’s title. A close textual exegesis of the opening paragraphs of TIE reveals why such a doctrine cannot be the ascetic renunciation of the content of ordinary life. We shall see instead that a new institution of life shall be possible only through a deep plunge into the understanding of ordinary confused life. A Spinozan Doctrine of Children’s Education shall then be conceived as a pedagogy guided by an error mapping principle, i.e., a pedagogy capable of amending the mistaken beliefs of students through their understanding of the way these are produced as real events in the world. This would be an immanent pedagogy, which could be relevant to any form of contemporary thought that seeks a truly liberating education.     

Education for Sustainable Development: a coherent philosophy for environmental education?

In recent years there has been a growing consensus that environmental education should be orientated around the idea of ‘sustainable development’. This paper examines some of the ambiguities and tensions that exist within this notion and suggests that its considerable attractions may be outweighed by its lack of clarity with regard to a range of fundamental values and principles which motivate environmental concern. It is argued that our relationship with nature is a central element of our sense of identity and that whereas sustainable development is highly problematical when taken as a statement of policy, sustainability conceived of as a frame of mind may have positive and wide‐reaching educational implications. Issues concerning the kinds of knowledge and approaches to teaching that should characterise environmental education are raised.     

Developing a critical consciousness of race in place-based environmental education: Franco’s story

Environmental education (EE) has a history of support for critical place-based pedagogy as a means of learning through engagement in space, both cultural and biophysical. In this paper I tell the story of how Franco – a non-white, non-American undergraduate – engaged with local discourses in a watershed-focused EE program in the rural Midwestern US. I examine how the five tenets of critical race theory (CRT) can be used to interpret Franco’s experience, where he encountered multiple instances of racism and xenophobia. I argue that without a critical analysis of race in place-based EE programs, instructors may (a) privilege their own ways of knowing in local settings, (b) rely on ‘grit’ narratives as mechanisms for mediation of racism, and (c) send non-white students home having learned that they cannot effect meaningful change for sustainability. I conclude with recommendations for faculty in predominantly white institutions on how CRT might foster the development of critical consciousness of race in place-based EE programs.     

Environmental education in a ‘green classroom’

The ‘Green Classroom’ in the Botanical Garden of Ulm is an experiential learning forum outside school. Its educational concept is based on experimental learning and is geared towards expanding biological knowledge and developing positive attitudes towards small animals such as invertebrates and insects. The attitudes of 68 school students towards small animals, before and after they visited the ‘Green Classroom’, were assessed and the answers they gave in their questionnaires were compared with those of 60 students froma control group that was not yet exposed to this learning environment. Although the students spent only one morning in the ‘Green Classroom’, some of their attitudes towards small animals improved after their visit. These studies underscore the necessity for direct observation and familiarization of the environment including small animals such as invertebrates and insects for appreciating issues related to biodiversity and conservation.     

Interfaith education: A new model for today’s interfaith families

With societal changes rapidly transforming cultures that had been largely homogenous, today’s multi-cultural – and in particular interfaith – families need new educational strategies to help them understand their cultural roots and identify and clarify what aspects of their heritages they wish to nurture and transmit to their children. This paper focuses on a new model for religious education, namely non-doctrinaire “dual-faith” education, which the principal author has helped to develop in the United States (US) through the Interfaith Community (IFC), a small, independent non-profit organisation created and led by dual-faith Jewish/Christian families. The model is premised on the notion that families can have two different faiths in one household and that – with respect and education – families can be harmonious, religion can be transmitted, and tolerance broadly nurtured. While the model is particular to the US and to families with Jewish and Christian heritages, its premises and structure have significant potential to be adaptable to other religious combinations and other cultures and countries. After reviewing relevant literature and situating the IFC model in the global and US contexts, the paper sets out to clarify the importance of the concept, describe its elements, and discuss its implications for religious education in this time of changing ethos and demography.     

Greetings for New Year’s Day

New Year’s Day is coming!Children all over the world are very happy.大家见面都互相祝福,我们一起来学新年问候语吧!     

The Lorax and Wallace Stegner: Inspiring Children’s Environmental Activism

This essay argues that Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax (1971) successfully popularized the environmental message that Wallace Stegner presented in his largely forgotten essay “Conservation Equals Survival” (1969). The Seussian language and illustrations have inspired readers, particularly children, to consider and, more importantly, to engage in environmentally sustainable practices. Both Seuss and Stegner wanted to raise the common readers’ ecological literacy by alerting them to the dangers posed by modern industrial society and their role in achieving solutions. However, Stegner’s essay quickly disappeared from the public consciousness, while Seuss’s story remains relevant more than 40 years later, and his character, the Lorax, has become an important part of the environmentalist vernacular. Of particular interest is both authors’ use of one word, “unless,” to direct individual readers to work together for a sustainable future. Seuss successfully engaged readers to become aware of the needs of the environment and take personal responsibility in caring for their own ecosystems.