Speaking of books

Disadvantaged Child, Vol. I. Jerome Hellmuth, editor. Seattle, Washington: Special Child Publications, 1967. Pp. 499. $10.00.

Federal Aid for Schools. Howard S. Rowland and Richard L. Wing. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967. Pp. 396.

Psychology of Human Adjustment. Lester D. Crow. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967. xv, 613 pp. $7.95.

School Children in the Urban Slum. Joan I. Roberts, editor. New York: The Free Press, 1967. xiii and 626 pp. $7.50.

Speech Handicapped School Children, Wendell Johnson and Dorothy Moeller, editors. Harper & Row, New York, 1967. Pp. 562. $7.50.

Edward Hitchcock, M.D., Founder of Physical Education in the College Curriculum. J. Edmund Welch. East Carolina College, Greenville, North Carolina, J. Edmund Welch, 1966. 315 pp. $5.00.     

Community leaders' views of the purposes of science in the compulsory years of schooling

Accepting that scientific literacy is the primary purpose of science in the compulsory years of schooling leads to the question ‘What does scientific literacy mean in a particular community?’ This paper reports a study designed to provide some insight into that question. Data were gathered through interviews with a sample of community leaders, in the state of Victoria, Australia, about their views of the purposes of school science.

The data reveal that, although most of those interviewed had no formal post‐school science education, their life experiences provided them with useful insights into the question raised. The wisdom of such people could make an important contribution during the initial stages of curriculum development in science.

As people successful in their own fields, the study participants were lifelong learners. Consequently, their responses suggest that a primary focus of school science must be to provide students with a framework that will enable them to continue learning beyond schooling. This is not just a matter of knowledge or skills, but of feeling comfortable with science.

The methods used provide a useful example of how views about education can be gathered from thoughtful, non‐expert community members. In this instance, they allowed a reconceptualization of the purposes of school science. These community leaders argued for an education for ‘science in life’ rather than an education about science.     

School Innovation in Science: Improving science teaching and learning in Australian schools

School Innovation in Science is a major Victorian Government initiative that developed and validated a model whereby schools can improve their science teaching and learning. The initiative was developed and rolled out to more than 400 schools over the period 2000–2004. A research team worked with 200+ primary and secondary schools over three years, supporting them in developing new initiatives in science, and monitoring the impact on school and classroom practice, and student outcomes. The research effort underpinning the development phase included the development and validation of a set of components describing effective teaching, the refinement of a school and teacher change strategy, the development of instruments to monitor teacher classroom practice and a variety of student outcomes, and the development of insights into the change process using questionnaires, observations, and interviews across four years. This paper describes the project and its major outcomes, and raises a number of issues concerning the nature of school and teacher change, pedagogy, school and community, and student learning, and the way these interact. A number of research issues are raised by the size and developmental nature of the project, the range of research methods, and the different audiences served by the research. The issue of sustainability of such system‐wide change initiatives is discussed.     

“We’re Here to Learn to Speak French”: An Exploration of World Language Teachers’ Beliefs About Students and Teaching

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore five world language teachers’ beliefs about their students, their attributions about student enrollment, and their reported teaching practices. Findings represent a continuum of critical practice in that three teachers appeared to espouse deficit thinking and stereotypes about students of color, and color-evasiveness or colorblindness as an approach to teaching. Two teachers appeared to espouse beliefs that may be more representative of inclusive classrooms, and these teachers reported advocacy work for certain student groups and efforts to develop students’ critical consciousness in their classrooms. Findings are contextualized via critical lenses, and implications for language teacher education and policy are discussed.     

The Good,the Bad,and the Ugly of Pedagogy in Harry Potter: An Inquiry Into the Personal Practical Knowledge of Remus Lupin,Rubeus Hagrid,and Severus Snape

On the 20th anniversary of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, we examine the narratives of pedagogical practice of three teachers at “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry”. By drawing on these characters’ stories of teaching as presented in Rowling’s novels, we foreground their personal practical knowledge and the relationship of this knowledge to their curriculum-making. We do this in order to highlight the importance of narrative perspective and context in the assessment and evaluation of teachers’ pedagogical practice.     

Development of a Semantic Differential to Assess the Attitude of Secondary School and College Students

The inquiry sought to develop a semantic differential (SD) for use in assessing attitude and attitude change among secondary school and college students. It included thirty-five bipolar adjectives, each using a 7-point ordinal scale, for student rating purposes. Three concepts were used in the study: teacher, learning, and student. A Likert type scoring was accomplished with part scores for each of the separate concepts, and with the total score being the sum of the three part scores. A comparison between pre- and post-college course attitudes was made involving 237 students, which showed significant change only for the concept “student” (Me as a student). Internal reliability indexes were obtained usingthe Kuder -Richardson(K-R) Formula 20 for part scores ranging from r = .421 to .610; and for the total score ranging from r = .928 to .960. Inter correlations of part scores for pretest ranged from r = .530 to .584; and for posttest r = .620 to .707. There is evidence of greater homogeneity for post-course concepts than for pre-course concepts used in the evaluation, i. e., teacher, learning, and student.     

Cognitive Skills in the Charitable Giving Decisions of the Elderly

Charitable giving is a common, and easily measurable, form of prosocial behavior. It may also provide a unique cognitive challenge in that it often requires identifying with the needs of distant others. Using a sample of 331 cognitively normal seniors (mean age of 76), this study examined the relationship between charitable giving and scores on 18 different narrowly-focused cognitive tests. Only those cognitive tests involving spatial memory and drawing tasks were statistically significant in predicting the presence of charitable giving. This finding corresponds with neuroscience studies suggesting that spatial memory and social-emotional functions may involve related brain areas.