When they’re young, we drive them to playdates, fill up their time with organized activity, and cocoon them from every imaginable peril. We think we are doing what’s best for them. But as they grow into young adults and we continue to manage their lives, running interference with teachers and coaches, we are, in fact, unwittingly stunting them. By continuing to protect them from failure and disappointment, many of our kids are missing out on the “risk-taker’s advantage,” the benefits that come from experiencing manageable amounts of danger.
Michael Ungar, author of Too Safe For Their Own Good

"Raise Your Voices!" Banner Design Contest

Create and submit a one-of-a-kind banner design to the “Raise Your Voices!” National Student Banner Contest

Our world and our understanding of how humans learn and develop has changed drastically since public education was introduced, over 150 years ago.

To effectively deal with the challenges of the 21st century, we must transform the way we understand and structure education in this country — re-thinking the model based on up-to-date information and current world realities. Join us in sharing new information, raising awareness and taking action for authentic educational change.

Dances with Dependency: Out of Poverty Through Self-Reliance

Mon, 03/03/2008 - 15:39 -- admin

Solutions are offered to the poverty inherent in indigenous cultures, developing nations, and inner city populations, which have become disempowered by long-term over-reliance on mainstream political, social, and economic programs developed for their benefit.These welfare systems easily divest recipients of the resources and mind-sets necessary to become self-sufficient. Solutions range from instituting policy reform and enhancing cultural development to reframing dependency mind-sets.

Too Safe for Their Own Good: How Risk and Responsibility Help Teens Thrive

Mon, 03/03/2008 - 15:26 -- admin

When they’re young, we drive them to playdates, fill up their time with organized activity, and cocoon them from every imaginable peril. We think we are doing what’s best for them. But as they grow into young adults and we continue to manage their lives, running interference with teachers and coaches, we are, in fact, unwittingly stunting them. By continuing to protect them from failure and disappointment, many of our kids are missing out on the “risk-taker’s advantage,” the benefits that come from experiencing manageable amounts of danger.

Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community

Mon, 03/03/2008 - 14:57 -- admin

Once we bowled in leagues, usually after work — but no longer. Drawing on vast new data that reveal Americans’ changing behavior, Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from one another and how social structures — whether they be PTA, church, or political parties — have disintegrated. Until the publication of this groundbreaking work, no one had so deftly diagnosed the harm that these broken bonds have wreaked on our physical and civic health, nor had anyone exalted their fundamental power in creating a society that is happy, healthy, and safe.

The Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder

Mon, 03/03/2008 - 14:40 -- admin

“I like to play indoors better ‘cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are,” reports a fourth-grader. Never before in history have children been so plugged in—and so out of touch with the natural world. In this groundbreaking new work, child advocacy expert Richard Louv directly links the lack of nature in the lives of today’s wired generation—he calls it nature deficit—to some of the most disturbing childhood trends, such as rises in obesity, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), and depression.

Catching the Knowledge Wave: The Knowledge Society and the Future of Education

Thu, 02/07/2008 - 14:08 -- admin

Jane Gilbert says that knowledge is now a verb, not a noun – something we do rather than something we have – and explores the ways our schools need to change to prepare people to participate in the knowledge-based societies of the future.
Read our staff review of Catching the Knowledge Wave?, below.

About the author
Jane Gilbert is a chief researcher with the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. She has a background in teaching at both secondary and tertiary levels.

Related items

Pages

Powered by Drupal
Subscribe to Front page feed