Parental choice of schooling,learning processes and inter-ethnic friendship patterns: The case of Malay students in Chinese primary schools in Malaysia

This study surveys 200 Malay students enrolled in three Chinese primary schools in relation to three issues, i.e., parental choice of schooling, learning processes and inter-ethnic friendship patterns. The three issues are explored through a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. Parental expectations for their children's learning and academic outcomes emerge as the dominant factor influencing Malay enrollment in Chinese primary schools. Unfortunately, the Malay students are unable to meet these high expectations due to learning difficulties that stem from the lack of proficiency in the Chinese-medium of instruction, despite intervening measures by the school authorities. Their learning difficulties are also compounded by the lack of parental inputs as well as the limited use of code-switching by teachers. Meanwhile, the fostering of inter-ethnic friendships is impeded by ethnic differences, the rise of Islamic awareness and the increased numerical size of Malay students. However, there is a willingness among the Malay students to interact with the Chinese students through task-related activities, indicating that the fostering of inter-ethnic friendships needs to be guided by a convergence of interests.     

Common Arguments about the Strengths and Limitations of Home Schooling

I've always wanted to use drama methods in my sophomore lit class, but I don't know where to start

History is full of dramatic events, but how can I get teenagers to willingly take on roles and act things out?

Everything I read tells me that involving students in learning through drama is effective and enjoyable, but nothing tells me how to do it     

Shame Solutions: How Shame Impacts School-Aged Children and What Teachers Can Do to Help

Non-formal learning for urban youth has a long history in the United States; it remains a source of innovation. This essay draws on literature about organizations that use community ties to encourage cognitive development and identity formation. It then describes how one youth organization in Camden, New Jersey uses presentations to the community of its in-house business projects as springboards into further development. Such non-formal learning structures can have wide application to other sites of learning.     

The media,marketing, and single sex schooling

The Australian media’s interest in education, as in many Anglophone countries, is frequently dominated by concerns about boys in schools. In 2002, in a country region of the Australian State of Queensland, this concern was evident in a debate on the merits of single sex schooling that took place in a small local newspaper. The debate was fuelled by the inclusion in this newspaper of an advertising brochure for an elite private girls’ school. The advertisement utilized the current concerns about boys in schools to advocate the benefits of girls’ only schools. Drawing on research that suggests that boys are a problem in school, and utilising a peculiar mix of liberal feminism alongside a neo‐liberal class politics, it implicitly denigrated the education provided by government co‐educational schools. The local government high and primary school principals, incensed at this advertisement, contacted the paper to refute many of its claims and assumptions and to assert the benefits, to both boys and girls, of their particular schools. A letters to the editor debate then followed an article representing these government school principals’ views. These letters were from two private school principals. This country newspaper thus became a medium through which various school principals engaged with the current boys’ debate, and research associated with it, in order to market their schools. This paper examines this particular newspaper debate and argues that, in the absence of nuanced, research based, and thoughtful policy responses to gender issues, many school policies on gender are being shaped through and by the media in ways that elide the complexities of the issues involved.     

Global–local dynamics of curriculum policy development: a case-study from Singapore

Non-government education is often a highly emotive and frequently irrational area of educational debate, especially when it centres on the degree of government funding and support. Frequently people take fortified positions, being either for or against it, often on political grounds and often without taking into account the cultural contexts and complexities involved. The purpose of this article is to look beyond these confines. It is based on a research project focusing on ‘whole’ curriculum policy at the individual school level in non-government schools in a variety of English-speaking countries in the developed world. The article is in three parts. The first part outlines the conceptual framework employed to guide our research project on curriculum policy. The second part presents a case-study of Chinese High School (CHS) in Singapore. This is an exemplar of the type of case-study of curriculum policy in non-government schools being undertaken as part of our research. Also, it is an interesting case in its own right; while the school has developed a global orientation to its curriculum policy and has incorporated ‘the global’ into ‘the local’ extremely rapidly, this curriculum transition has not been without its tensions and costs. The third part of the article offers a discussion of the ‘bigger picture’ implications of the findings.     

From Representation to Emergence: Complexity's challenge to the epistemology of schooling

In modern, Western societies the purpose of schooling is to ensure that school‐goers acquire knowledge of pre‐existing practices, events, entities and so on. The knowledge that is learned is then tested to see if the learner has acquired a correct or adequate understanding of it. For this reason, it can be argued that schooling is organised around a representational epistemology: one which holds that knowledge is an accurate representation of something that is separate from knowledge itself. Since the object of knowledge is assumed to exist separately from the knowledge itself, this epistemology can also be considered ‘spatial.’ In this paper we show how ideas from complexity have challenged the ‘spatial epistemology’ of representation and we explore possibilities for an alternative ‘temporal’ understanding of knowledge in its relationship to reality. In addition to complexity, our alternative takes its inspiration from Deweyan ‘transactional realism’ and deconstruction. We suggest that ‘knowledge’ and ‘reality’ should not be understood as separate systems which somehow have to be brought into alignment with each other, but that they are part of the same emerging complex system which is never fully ‘present’ in any (discrete) moment in time. This not only introduces the notion of time into our understanding of the relationship between knowledge and reality, but also points to the importance of acknowledging the role of the ‘unrepresentable’ or ‘incalculable’. With this understanding knowledge reaches us not as something we receive but as a response, which brings forth new worlds because it necessarily adds something (which was not present anywhere before it appeared) to what came before. This understanding of knowledge suggests that the acquisition of curricular content should not be considered an end in itself. Rather, curricular content should be used to bring forth that which is incalculable from the perspective of the present. The epistemology of emergence therefore calls for a switch in focus for curricular thinking, away from questions about presentation and representation and towards questions about engagement and response.     

论举办高职本科老年服务与管理专业的必要性

四年制本科高职教育是一种较高层次的高等职业教育办学模式。举办四年制本科老年服务与管理专业高职教育是非常必要的,是应对我国人口老龄化的迫切要求;是改善当前我国老年服务与管理人才队伍现状的治本之策;是适应经济发展和科技进步的要求,对高职教育和老年事业的发展都大有裨益。     

论学校要教会学生"学会做人"

学校教育的本质是既教书又育人。教师不仅要传授知识,更重要的是要引领青年学生健康成长。目前学校在教书方面各具所长,其目的主要是应对升学考试。但不容忽视的问题是,学校教育在教会学生做人方面却出现了漏洞,问题迭出。针对现状,有必要做一些思考和探讨。作为教书育人的学校必须懂得,为什么要教会学生学会做人和如何教会学生做人,做怎样的人。     

浅谈学校体育在终身体育教育中的地位和作用

体育锻炼伴随着人的一生。在不同的年龄阶段有不同的目标、内容和方法,学校体育是终身体育的基础,终身体育要放眼未来,首先要着眼于学校体育。     

教育理论培训:高校非师范类青年教师成长的重要路径——基于岗前培训教育理论教学的思考

高校非师范类青年教师在教育理论方面存在严重缺失,开展教育理论培训是提高教师教育素养和促进教师专业发展的内在要求,是顺应应用型本科教育定位和推进教师转型发展的现实需要。基于高校教师岗前培训教育理论教学的实践与思考,提出实现教育观念、培训目标、培训模式等方面的转变,以增进教育理论培训的针对性、有效性。