American state intervention in the parent-child legal relationship

There are two traditions in the history of American family law that are reflected in different state legislation dealing with child abuse and neglect. They indicate a continuing cultural dilemma about the rights of parents and those of children. One tradition supports the privacy and autonomy of the family, and the right of the parents to the child. Such a view of the permanence of the parental role helps to explain state laws which make the termination of parental rights nearly impossible to achieve. Social workers in such jurisdictions must protect children by means of long foster-care placements. Pennsylvania represents a state with laws supporting parental rights.Another tradition is derived from that of the court acting as a parent, the parens patriae heritage. In the United States the Juvenile Court has assumed this protective and intrusive role. Where such legal support exists, children may be freed for adoptive homes, as they are in Colorado. This paper outlines the state laws of Pennsylvania and Colorado pertaining to the termination of the parent-child legal relationship. These laws indicate that American children in families at risk are protected very differently. As long as state laws differ so greatly, equality of justice for families and children will exhibit substantial variation due to residence.     

Teaching and guilt: Exploring the feelings of teaching

The paper argues that in research on teachers' mental states, studies of teacher feeeling as compared to teacher thinking have been relatively neglected. It analyzes the nature and importance of guilt as one such feeling which connects the self of the teacher to the system in which the teacher works. Two kinds of guilt are discussed: persecutory and depressive. In relation to two studies of elementary teachers' working lives and of teachers' perceptions of employee assistance programs, four guilt traps of teaching are then identified. These are the commitment to care, the open-endedness of teaching, accountability and intensification, and the persona of perfectionism. Solutions to the guilt traps of teaching involve easing the accountability and intensification demends of teaching; building communities of collegues who can set their own professional standards and limits at school level and thereby reduce the open-endedness of teaching; and reducing the dependence on personal care and nurturance as the prime motive of elementary teaching.     

Introduction to the Special Issue on Teaching Inquiry (Part II): Implementing Inquiry

Abstract

We provide an introduction to the special issue on Teaching Inquiry, through its motivation and themes, focusing here on Part II: Implementing Inquiry.     

Re-imagining learning through art as experience: An aesthetic approach to education for life

Abstract

This paper investigates what it may mean to re-imagine learning through aesthetic experience with reference to John Dewey’s Art as Experience (1934). The discussion asks what learning might look like when aesthetic experience takes centre stage in the learning process. It investigates what Dewey meant by art as experience and aesthetic experience. Working with Dewey as a philosopher of reconstruction of experience, the discussion examines responses to poetic writings and communication in learning situations. In seeking to discover what poetic writing (as art) does within the experience of a reader and writer it considers three specific learning situations. Firstly there is an examination of a five-year old child’s experience of shared communication through the story of Horton the Elephant. Secondly there is an account of the responses of an 11-year-old child to poetry in a 1950s classroom setting, and later reconstructions of those experiences by the child as adult. Thirdly, the paper extends to intensive writing with 12 to 13-year-old children. The focus is on the process of learning via acts of expression as aesthetic experiences. Through art as experience the child develops perceptions that recover a coherence and continuity of aesthetic experience in art as in everyday life.     

SMART moves? A case study of one teacher’s pedagogical change through use of the interactive whiteboard

This case study investigates how the use of an interactive whiteboard (IWB) leads to pedagogical change within a UK secondary school classroom. A teacher’s experiences as recorded in a reflective journal, and the responses of students as recorded in a questionnaire, are set within the context of rhetoric about the value of IWBs. It is argued that this action research approach is particularly valuable because of the insights a teacher has on the complexities of the classroom environment. Assumptions about the way in which IWBs should (and do) change the dynamics of interactivity within the classroom are considered by questioning the definition of terms such as ‘interactive’ and ‘pace’. The case study concludes that if a teacher understands and utilises appropriate strategies to meet given learning objectives, pedagogical change will emerge, with teachers empowered by the IWB to consider how learning takes place, and match activities to learners’ needs. However, IWB use will be within the context of the philosophy of the teacher and how much he or she wants to pursue new ideas in order to support learning.     

Mathematics teachers’ “learning to notice” in the context of a video club

This study examines changes in teachers’ thinking as they participated in a video club designed to help them learn to notice and interpret students’ mathematical thinking. First, we investigate changes in teachers’ talk about classroom video segments before and after participation in the video club. Second, we identify three paths along which teachers learned to notice students’ mathematical thinking in this context: Direct, Cyclical, and Incremental. Finally, we explore ways the video club context influenced teacher learning. Understanding different forms of teacher learning provides insight for research on teacher cognition and may inform the design of video-based professional development.     

Code-oriented instruction for kindergarten students at risk for reading difficulties: a replication and comparison of instructional groupings

The purposes of this study were to replicate previous research on phonics-based tutoring in kindergarten and to compare treatment effects for students who received individual instruction compared to instruction in dyads. Thirty classroom teachers from 13 urban elementary schools referred at-risk students for participation. Students who met screening criteria were quasi-randomly assigned, within classroom, to one of three conditions: individual tutoring (n = 22), tutoring in dyads (n = 32), or no tutoring (n = 22, classroom instruction only). Twenty-one paraeducators provided 18 weeks of explicit instruction in phonemic skills and the alphabetic code to students during the latter half of kindergarten. Multilevel model results showed that tutored students outperformed non-tutored controls on posttest measures of phonological awareness, word reading accuracy, oral reading fluency, spelling, and comprehension. However, no significant differences were found between the two tutored groups on any measure, suggesting that code-oriented tutoring for pairs of students is a viable alternative to the gold standard of individual instruction.