At Sonrisas Spanish School, educators are interested in finding ways to teach children in the way children actually learn. Their mission is to create high quality, standards-based Spanish classes and curriculum materials that are both effective for teachers and also provide a positive foreign language learning experience for students. They value…

The aims of this article are to explore the links between drawing and playing and to conceptualise drawings as spaces for intellectual play. The empirical research that supports this position is based on an interpretivist study involving 14 children aged four-six in a primary school in England. Over a one-year period, 882 drawings were collected…

This project/report worked with three early childhood education centres who have adopted the Reggio Emilia philosophy of educational practice. Each centre works with children and parents in close collaboration and all the staff and centre management are committed to the project. The aim of this project was to work with each centre in developing…

This paper is situated in the re-visioning ethos that has been part of the genealogy of multicultural education. In the context of teacher education, the authors ask: where to now? In this paper, they reflect on their design and delivery of a new undergraduate unit offered by the School of Education, University of Western Sydney. The unit…

The goal of the ANCESTOR program is to use digital storytelling as a means of promoting an interest in technology careers for Aboriginal learners, as well as increasing cultural literacy. A curriculum was developed and first tested with Aboriginal students at the LÁU,WELNEW Tribal School near Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Based on feedback…

Vivian Gussin Paley is a teacher, writer, lecturer, and advocate for the importance of play for young children. Author of a dozen books about children learning through play, she has received numerous honors and awards including an Erickson Institute Award for Service to Children, a MacArthur Foundation Fellows award, and a John Dewey Society's…

This set of studies examined the ability of 3-year-olds to conceptualize multiple pretend identities with objects. Rather than relying on verbal response measures, as has been done in the past, children's creative and inferential pretend actions were used as indicators of their understanding. The common structure to all four studies was that…

In this article the author introduces a concept she calls "Thirdspace identity construction," which instructors can use to understand what happens in students' texts when such ever-open possibilities for identity exploration are allowed. This concept borrows from the work of critical geographer Edward Soja. Soja's "Thirdspace" represents a dynamic…

The profoundly thoughtful--not to mention extensive--character of the scholarship historically applied to the nature of the difference between Plato and Aristotle on the issue of the tragic emotions raises the obvious question: What new is there left to say? In this article, the author seeks to hold together two separate issues that have occupied…

There is growing interest by schools and universities in understanding Asian societies and cultures. One way of deepening this interest productively is through the imaginative use of cinema. In this article, the author explores how cinema can be a window into the dynamics of contemporary Asian societies and cultures. Through "aesthetic…

People's memories must be able to represent experiences with multiple types of origins--including the real world and our own imaginations, but also printed texts (prose-based media), movies, and television (screen-based media). This study was intended to identify cues that distinguish prose- and screen-based media memories from each other, as well…

We hypothesized that the qualities of play shown by children with autism reflect their impoverished experience of identifying with other people's attitudes and moving among person-anchored perspectives. On this basis, we predicted their play should manifest a relative lack of the social-developmental hallmarks that typify creative symbolic…

Real play--play that is initiated and directed by children and that bubbles up from within the child rather than being imposed by adults--has largely disappeared from the landscape of childhood in the United States. There are many reasons for this, such as the long hours spent in front of screens each day or in activities organized by adults. In…

Thinking Journey is introduced as a mode of science instruction based on a specially designed discussion between students and teachers in the context of an imaginary journey. The paper elaborates the rationale of this mode and its specific features: enculturation into science, analytical observation, multiple perspectives of the subject and…

The purpose of this discussion paper is to explore ways in which professionals working in multi-professional settings can develop their understanding of the different perspectives and knowledge bases of team members in order to build new working practices together. The importance of exploring professional identity in professional development…