IEA Newsletter for Wedneday, July 16, 2008

Welcome to the Institute for Education and the Arts' newsletter for Wednesday, July 15, 2008. The newsletter is published each Wednesday to the IEA listserv and archived here on the IEA blog.

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PAKISTANI/AMERICAN ARTS EDUCATION
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TEACHERS CROSS CULTURES
Victoria Guay, The Citizen of Laconia (NH), 7/13/08
“The rhythmic beat of drums and chorus of voices singing "Funga Alafia," a welcoming song from Liberia, could recently be heard emanating from a second-floor music room in the Draper Maynard building on the Plymouth State University campus. The voices belonged to a blend of New Hampshire and Pakistani teachers who were taking part in a workshop Wednesday during a week-long arts in education initiative …The group of 20 teachers and administrators from Pakistan are taking part in the graduate-level Pakistani Educational Leadership Institute, now in its fifth year. ‘This institute is exposing them to some sophisticated and groundbreaking educational ideas that they can bring back to their country and share with other educators,’ PSU spokesman Bruce Lyndes ... According to the Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi, based in Lahore, Pakistan, the organization that partners with PSU in the summer institutes, those who have been trained at PSU have gone on to train approximately 10,000 more educators in Pakistan.” Read more>>

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CREATIVE WRITING
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THE SHORT, HAPPY LIVES OF TEACHERS
John Norton, Teacher Magazine, 7/9/08
“It’s a good time to share this fun (and often illuminating) activity we tried out recently in the Teacher Leaders Network discussion group. The idea came from a newspaper feature describing a trend toward "succinct prose." The story cited a recent book published by Smith Magazine which carried the intriguing title, Not Quite What I was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. As the feature story noted, this and similar collections of extremely short prose have been inspired by a six-word novel said to have been written by Ernest Hemingway on a dare. The novel read: ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn.’ Here’s the specific question we tossed into the TLN Forum arena: ‘If you were writing a mini-memoir of your teaching life, what would your six words be?’”
See what teachers wrote>>

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ARTS CONSORTIA
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ARTS, EDUCATION, AND LEADERSHIP: POWERFUL NETWORK OR TANGLED WEB?
Essay by Laura Reeder, Arts Education Information Quarterly, 7/08
Reeder, Founding Executive Director of Partners for Arts Education in Syracuse, NY, wonders whether the current focus being given to the development of consortia and arts education networks is an advantage ‘or are we just building something that will ultimately draw dollars and time away from our children and their arts education?’
Read her essay>>

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CHILDREN AND EMPATHY
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EMPATHY COMES NATURALLY TO CHILDREN: STUDY
Julie Steenhuysen, Reuters/ABC News, 7/11/08
“When children see others in pain, their brains respond as if it were happening to them, U.S. researchers said on Friday. This response, which also has been shown in adults, suggests that normal school-age children may be naturally prone to empathy, they said. ‘What it shows us is that we have this inborn capacity to resonate with the pain of others. That's probably a very important step toward empathy,’ said Jean Decety of the University of Chicago, whose study appears in the journal Neuropsychologia. Decety said he hopes to use these results to better understand brain function in children who are aggressive or engage in anti-social behavior, such as bullying.”
Read more>>

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RETHINKING TEACHING
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HOW TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH THE CHILDREN:
THE PRESSURES OF RED TAPE AND TARGETS ARE DRIVING EARLY-YEARS TEACHERS INTO THE WORLD OF FRANCHISES
Janet Murray, The Guardian (UK), 7/8/08
“After 20 years as a primary school teacher Jayne Stanton was feeling jaded. Each new initiative (and there were many) brought hours of additional paperwork. While she still loved working with children, the pressure to meet government targets meant she was fast losing her passion for the job … Two years on, she is a small business owner, providing pre-school music classes in and around Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire. After spotting an advert in a trade publication, she bought a franchise of Musical Minis - which provides music classes for babies and toddlers - and has never looked back.”
Read more>>


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GRANTS AND AWARDS
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SCHOOL COUNSELOR OF THE YEAR
American School Counselor Association
Deadline: 9/5/08
“ASCA's School Counselor of the Year program honors the best of the best -- school counselors who are running a top-notch, comprehensive school counseling program at either the elementary, middle or high school level. This newly enhanced program brings 10 finalists and their nominators to Washington, D.C., in late January, where they participate in a congressional briefing, tour Washington, D.C., and are honored at the School Counselor of the Year Gala. From these 10 finalists, one school counselor of the year is selected.”
Learn more>>

NATIONAL GRANT COMPETITION
Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy
Maximum Award: $65,000
Deadline: 9/5/08
“The Foundation's grant-making program seeks to develop or expand projects that are designed to support the development of literacy skills for adult primary care givers and their children. A total of approximately $650,000 will be awarded; no grant request should exceed $65,000. The organization must operate an instructional literacy program that has been in existence for at least 2 years and includes one or more of the following components: literacy for adults, parent education, pre-literacy or literacy instruction for children pre-k to gra
de 3, and intergenerational literacy activities (Parent and Child Together time or P.A.C.T. time).”Learn more>>

OUTSTANDING YOUNG EDUCATOR AWARD
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
Deadline: 8/1/08
“Do you know any emerging education leaders who exemplify excellence and equity in teaching and learning? Share their spirit and successful strategies and skills with the education community by nominating them for the ASCD Outstanding Young Educator Award (OYEA) Program.”
Learn more>>

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