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Books > Social sciences > Education > Schools > General
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Teaching Inside the Walls
(Hardcover)
Gary J. Rose; Foreword by Layton Cameron; Cover design or artwork by Maghuyop John
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This edited collection considers Greek American formal and informal
educational efforts, institutions, and programs, broadly conceived,
as they evolved over time throughout the United States. The book's
focus on Greek Americans aims to highlight the vast array of
educational responses to local needs and contexts as this distinct,
yet, heterogeneous immigrant community sought to maintain its
linguistic, cultural, and religious heritage for over one hundred
years. The chapters in this volume amend the scholarly literature
that thus far has not only overlooked Greek American educational
initiatives, but has also neglected to recognize and analyze the
community's persistence in sustaining them. This book is an
important contribution to an understanding of Greek Americans' long
overdue history as a significant diaspora community within an
American context.
Universities and Colleges with a Christian affiliation have in
recent years sought to renew and redefine their identities and
almost all have rearticulated their mission for the modern age
after a long and serious process of reappraisal. This process has
been accompanied by an ongoing discussion of the nature and
identity of higher education itself. This discussion has required
leadership that is different from most secular leadership.
This book provides a range of experienced voices, including the
Archbishop of Canterbury, that reflect on the character and mission
of leadership in Christian higher education in the 21st
Century.
Although in plain sight daily, a highly successful war against the
public schools has been hidden in the shadows of public
consciousness. Only very recently have several people written
articles about this war, with the only book calling it a war being
written in 2002. Neither the public nor educators have become aware
of the far-reaching extent and effectiveness of this war. This book
treats this war as part of an extensive social movement that is
conducting wars also against government and science, as well as
against women, immigrants, the poor (but not against poverty), and,
certainly, against unions. However, the book focuses on the war
against the public schools. It sets the stage in Chapter One,
Checklist for Destroying Public Education, followed by Chapter Two,
How the War Plays Out on the Battlefield - Seven Examples that
illustrate and prove the thesis. One example involves a private
for-profit company that took over a school district in Michigan,
but found that they couldn't make a profit running the high school.
So what did they do? They simply closed it, leaving the students
high and dry. We provide a chapter analyzing the considerable
profits being made by entrepreneurs, businessmen, politicians,
testing companies and charter schools. We then describe and analyze
the overt and covert attacks on our kids, on teachers and on public
schools, such as the clever idea of grading schools A, B, C, D, or
F, thereby undermining public confidence in their local schools. We
focus on the arsenal of weapons aimed at the public schools, such
as privatization, intrusion of politicians into educational
decision-making, vouchers, using merit pay and Value-Added Models
(VAMs) to evaluate teachers, charter schools, extremely intensive
testing, the standards movement, etc. We look at unintended
consequences and conclude with attempts at peaceful resolutions and
developing reconciliation strategies.
Although in plain sight daily, a highly successful war against the
public schools has been hidden in the shadows of public
consciousness. Only very recently have several people written
articles about this war, with the only book calling it a war being
written in 2002. Neither the public nor educators have become aware
of the far-reaching extent and effectiveness of this war. This book
treats this war as part of an extensive social movement that is
conducting wars also against government and science, as well as
against women, immigrants, the poor (but not against poverty), and,
certainly, against unions. However, the book focuses on the war
against the public schools. It sets the stage in Chapter One,
Checklist for Destroying Public Education, followed by Chapter Two,
How the War Plays Out on the Battlefield - Seven Examples that
illustrate and prove the thesis. One example involves a private
for-profit company that took over a school district in Michigan,
but found that they couldn't make a profit running the high school.
So what did they do? They simply closed it, leaving the students
high and dry. We provide a chapter analyzing the considerable
profits being made by entrepreneurs, businessmen, politicians,
testing companies and charter schools. We then describe and analyze
the overt and covert attacks on our kids, on teachers and on public
schools, such as the clever idea of grading schools A, B, C, D, or
F, thereby undermining public confidence in their local schools. We
focus on the arsenal of weapons aimed at the public schools, such
as privatization, intrusion of politicians into educational
decision-making, vouchers, using merit pay and Value-Added Models
(VAMs) to evaluate teachers, charter schools, extremely intensive
testing, the standards movement, etc. We look at unintended
consequences and conclude with attempts at peaceful resolutions and
developing reconciliation strategies.
This is a groundbreaking study on the impact of Jewish day schools
in the lives of parents and children.Beyond the walls of their
synagogues, Jewish adults are creating religious meaning in new and
diverse ways in a range of unconventional sites. In "Back to
School", authors Alex Pomson and Randal F. Schnoor argue that the
Jewish day school serves as one such site by bringing adults and
children together for education, meeting, study, and worship-like
ceremonies. Pomson and Schnoor suggest that day school functions as
a locus of Jewish identity akin to the Jewish streets or
neighborhoods that existed in many major North American cities in
the first half of the twentieth century."Back to School" began as
an ethnographic study of the Downtown Jewish Day School (DJDS) in
Toronto, a private, religiously pluralistic day school that
balances its Jewish curriculum with general studies. Drawing on a
longitudinal study at DJDS, and against the backdrop of a
comparative study of two other Toronto day schools as well as four
day schools from the U.S. Midwest, Pomson and Schnoor argue that
when parents choose Jewish schools for their children they look for
institutions that satisfy not only their children's academic and
emotional needs but also their own social and personal concerns as
Jewish adults.The authors found an uncommon degree of involvement
and engagement on the part of the parents, as genuine friendships
and camaraderie blossomed between parents, faculty, and
administrators. In addition, the authors discovered that parents
who considered themselves secular Jews were introduced to or
reacquainted with the depth and meaning of Jewish tradition and
rituals through observing or taking part in school
activities.Sitting on the cusp between the disciplines of education
and the sociology of contemporary Jewish life, "Back to School"
offers important policy implications for how Jewish day schools
might begin to re-imagine their relationships with parents. Jewish
parents, Jewish studies scholars, as well as researchers of
educational and social trends will enjoy this evocative volume.
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