IEA Newsletter for Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Welcome to the Institute for Education and the Arts weekly newsletter for February 14, 2007. The newsletter is published each Wednesday morning to the IEA listserv and is archived here on the IEA blog.

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REPORTS AND PUBLICATIONS

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ECONOMIC IMPACT REPORT
New England Association of Schools & Colleges (NEASC), Spring 2006
”This report presents the results of an economic impact study of public and private elementary, middle and secondary schools and higher education institutions that are accredited by the New England Association of Schools & Colleges (NEASC). The study is part of an annual impact assessment aimed at determining the short- and long-term effects of school spending on the New England economy.”
Read more: http://ldadvocates.com/Economic-Impact-Report.htm

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ARTS-INFUSED EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

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FAMED EARLY-CHILDHOOD PHILOSOPHY EXPANDS HORIZONS
Linda Jacobson, Education Week, 2/7/07
“The preschools of Reggio Emilia, Italy—and the particular educational philosophy at work there—have long fascinated early-childhood educators in the United States. Interest in the approach, which views the teacher as one who explores, learns, and creates along with the child, has grown so much throughout the world that since 1994, more than 18,000 educators from 90 countries have taken study tours in Reggio to see the schools for themselves. Now, Reggio Emilia, a city of roughly 140,000 in northern Italy, has a new facility—the Loris Malaguzzi International Center—in which to welcome such visitors and display the work of young children … In Reggio Emilia preschools, “The environment is considered the ‘third teacher’ … Classrooms have dramatic play, or dress-up, areas, but early reading and math skills are not specifically taught. Instead, the teacher follows the children’s own interests. Graphic arts are heavily integrated into the program to demonstrate cognitive, social, and language development. Concepts are presented to children via multiple approaches, including print, music, drama, puppetry, and even shadow play.”
Read more: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/02/07/22reggio.h26.html (requires free registration)

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GIFTED AND TALENTED / ENRICHMENT PROGRAMS

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NO CHILD LEFT BORED:
HOW TO CHALLENGE GIFTED AND TALENTED STUDENTS WITH A CONTINUUM OF HIGH-END LEARNING OPPORTUNITES
Sally M. Reis, School Administrator, Feb. 2007
”On a wet gray day in November, Michael walked into his 2nd-grade classroom … holding a recording of the music of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite” carefully wrapped in plastic. Michael explained to his teacher that he wanted her to listen to this special music, which he’d been practicing on his piano at home because he had a question he wanted to discuss with her. ‘I’ve been wondering,’ Michael said to his teacher. ‘There are some parts of this composition that are really happy, and some parts that are really sad. Do you think Tchaikovsky wrote the sad parts when he was really sad and the happy parts when he was really happy? Or do you think that when he was really sad, he wrote the happy music to cheer him up?” The 2nd-grade teacher smiled and suggested he find the enrichment specialist in the school to see whether she could help him find answers to his questions. Her job was to work on talent development opportunities with all students. In addition to asking creative, thoughtful, advanced questions, Michael read several years above grade level, was advanced in math and excelled in music. Before the year was over, Michael produced a ‘talking’ book and accompanying audiotape summarizing his research on Tchaikovsky.”
Read more: http://www.aasa.org/publications/saarticledetail.cfm?ItemNumber=8205&snItemNumber=&tnItemNumber=

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SCHOOL CULTURE
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PLAYGROUND HEROES
Ken Rigby, Ph.D, and Bruce Johnson, Ph.D, Greater Good (UC-Berkeley), Fall/Winter 2006 - 2007
“Bullying in schools is now widely recognized as a serious social problem that must be addressed if we care about the well-being of bullied children. Thus far, however, attempts to reduce bullying in schools have largely failed. A 2004 comprehensive evaluation of the effectiveness of anti-bullying programs in schools around the world (Bullying in Schools: How Successful Can Interventions Be? edited by Peter K. Smith, Debra Pepler, and Ken Rigby) found that achievements so far have been modest at best. In some cases, the interventions have been totally unsuccessful. Why have anti-bullying programs met with so little success?”
Read more: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/greatergood/current_issue/rigbyjohnson.html

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