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World Yearbook of Education 2010: Education and the Arab 'World': Political Projects, Struggles, and Geometries of Power (World Yearbook Of Education Ser.)
by André E. Mazawi and Ronald G. SultanaThe World Yearbook of Education 2010 volume, Education and the Arab 'World': Political Projects, Struggles, and Geometries of Power, strives to do justice to the complex processes and dynamics behind the world of Arab education. Western interest in all things �Arab� has greatly increased over the course of the decade, but this interest runs the risk of forgetting that the Arab world is positioned within wider contexts of regional, geopolitical, and global processes. This volume examines Arab education in a range of contexts � regional, diasporic, and trans-national � to better understand how the field of Arab education is formed through local, regional, geopolitical and global engagements and resonances. In doing so, contributors from a range of disciplines open critical conversations about the intersections of history, culture, geopolitics, policy, and education. The World Yearbook of Education 2010 offers new conceptual and empirical approaches that deal with some of the often-neglected aspects of the study of Arab education: contested political projects; struggles towards emancipation, recognition and liberation; and a larger concern for social justice, equity, and political inclusion. Andr�lias Mazawi is associate professor in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. He is also an associate fellow at the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Educational Research at the University of Malta.Ronald G. Sultana is professor in the Department of Education Studies at the University of Malta, where he also leads the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Educational Research. He is the founding editor of the Mediterranean Journal of Educational Studies.
World Yearbook of Education 2010: Education and the Arab 'World': Political Projects, Struggles, and Geometries of Power (World Yearbook of Education)
by André E. Mazawi Ronald G. SultanaThe World Yearbook of Education 2010: Education and the Arab 'World': Political Projects, Struggles, and Geometries of Power, strives to do justice to the complex processes and dynamics behind the world of Arab education. Western interest in all things ‘Arab’ has greatly increased over the course of the decade, but this interest runs the risk of forgetting that the Arab world is positioned within wider contexts of regional, geopolitical, and global processes. This volume examines Arab education in a range of contexts – regional, diasporic, and trans-national – to better understand how the field of Arab education is formed through local, regional, geopolitical and global engagements and resonances. In doing so, contributors from a range of disciplines open critical conversations about the intersections of history, culture, geopolitics, policy, and education. The World Yearbook of Education 2010 offers new conceptual and empirical approaches that deal with some of the often-neglected aspects of the study of Arab education: contested political projects; struggles towards emancipation, recognition and liberation; and a larger concern for social justice, equity, and political inclusion.
World Yearbook of Education 2011: Curriculum in Today’s World: Configuring Knowledge, Identities, Work and Politics (World Yearbook of Education)
by Lyn Yates Madeleine GrumetHow do curriculum, conceptions of knowledge and the schooling experiences of young people engage the great issues of this tumultuous time? Curriculum is always influenced by the events that shape our world, but when testing and bench-marking preoccupy us, we can forget the world that is both the foundation and the object of curriculum. This edited volume brings together international contributors to analyze and reflect on the way the events of the last decade have influenced the curriculum in their countries. As they address nationalism in the face of economic globalisation, the international financial crisis, immigration and the culture of diaspora, they ask how national loyalties are balanced with international relationships and interests. They ask how the rights of women, and of ethnic and racial groups are represented. They ask what has changed about history and civics post 9/11, and they ask how countries that have experienced profound political and economic changes have addressed them in curriculum. These interactions and changes are a subject of particular interest for an international yearbook in that they are almost always permeated by global movements and influenced by multinational bodies and practices. And as these essays show, in curriculum, global and international issues are explicitly or implicitly also about local and national interests and about how citizens engage their rights and responsibilities. This volume brings together a new approach to perspectives on curriculum today and a new collection of insights into the changes from different parts of the world which discuss: How is the world represented in curriculum? How do responses to world events shape the stories we tell students about who they are and can be? This book will be of great benefit to educational researchers and policy-makers, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students.
World Yearbook of Education 2012: Policy Borrowing and Lending in Education (World Yearbook of Education)
by Florian Waldow Gita Steiner-KhamsiThe phenomenon of "travelling reforms" has become an object of great professional interest and intensive academic scrutiny. The fact that the same set of educational reforms is transferred from one country to another made scholars wonder whether policy transfer has increased as a result of globalization. But also the fact that policy makers increasingly import "best practices "and international standards and use them as a tool to accelerate reform has captured the imagination of many that deal with policy studies. An international comparative perspective is key for understanding why reforms travel from one corner of the world to another. Not surprisingly, the study of policy borrowing and lending constitutes one of the core research topics of comparative policy studies; a new area of research that links comparative education with policy studies. The World Yearbook of Education 2012 brings together a diverse range of perspectives on education policy through contributions from internationally renowned authors. It reflects on the way policy borrowing and lending is reconfiguring the world of education and offers a new collection of insights into the changes occurring across the world. It particularly focuses on: The political and economic reasons for policy borrowing, The agencies, international networks and regimes that instigate policy change, The process of borrowing and lending The impact of these systems, agendas and institutions on indigenous settings. This book will prove invaluable to researchers of globalization and to policy experts, especially those interested in comparative and international educational studies. It is also essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students and anyone involved in the sociology, economy or history of education. Gita Steiner-Khamsi is Professor of Comparative and International Education at Teachers College Columbia University, New York, US. Florian Waldow is Research Director at the University of Münster, Germany.
World Yearbook of Education 2013: Educators, Professionalism and Politics: Global Transitions, National Spaces and Professional Projects (World Yearbook of Education)
by Terri Seddon John LevinEducators, professionalism and politics offers ways of understanding how and with what consequences national systems of education and the work of education professionals are being reregulated in the context of contemporary global transitions. Globalization does not just create transnational organizations, relations and practices; it also transforms nation-states by creating more complex education spaces that impinge on the work of educators and the learning that they enable, globally, nationally and locally. This volume of the World Yearbook of Education focuses firmly on the educators themselves. It documents the way educators encounter and renegotiate ideas and practices that travel globally as they seek to enact their established professional projects. This framing recognises that educators’ spaces, work and identities are historically anchored in national institutional trajectories, but are both disturbed and renewed as globally mobile ideas and practices "touch down" within national systems of education. The chapters examine the effect of global transitions on educators and education, and offers new perspectives on educational work in different parts of the world today. They challenge bleak assessments of teacher de-professionalization and idealistic narratives about professional development. Chapters highlight the significance of educators’ occupational boundary work and the resources and networks they mobilize through their professional projects as they make and remake education in national spaces. The volume tracks: Re-regulatory trajectories evident in national education spaces and their impact on educators; The way educators renegotiate globally mobile ideas, practices and national institutional trajectories, as they mediate global formations emerging in the national space; and The kinds of mediations and resources that enable education professionals to engage with the politics of professionalization. This volume of The World Yearbook of Education will be of great interest to Education researchers, graduate students, teacher educators and education policy-makers. Terri Seddon is Professor of Education at Monash University, Australia Jenny Ozga is Professor of the Sociology of Education at Oxford University, UK John Levin is Bank of America Professor of Education Leadership and Director, California Community College Collaborative, University of California, USA
World Yearbook of Education 2014: Governing Knowledge: Comparison, Knowledge-Based Technologies and Expertise in the Regulation of Education (World Yearbook of Education)
by Tara Fenwick Jenny Ozga Eric MangezThis latest volume in the World Yearbook of Education Series focuses on a major and highly significant development in the governing of education across the globe: the use of knowledge-based technologies as key policy sources. A combination of factors has produced this shift: first, the massive expansion of technological capacity signalled by the arrival of ‘big data’ that allows for the collection, circulation and processing of extensive system knowledge. The rise of data has been observed and discussed extensively, but its role in governing and the rise of comparison as a basis for action is now a determining practice in the field of education. Comparison provides the justification for ‘modernising’ policy in education, both in the developed and developing world, as national policy makers (selectively) seek templates of success from the high performers and demand solutions to apparent underperformance through the adoption of the policies favoured by the likes of Singapore, Finland and Korea. In parallel, the growth of particular forms of expertise: the rise and rise of educational consultancy, the growth of private (for profit) involvement in provision of educational goods and services and the increasing consolidation of networks of influence in the promotion of ‘best practice’ are affecting policy decisions. Through these developments, the nature of knowledge is altered, along with the relationship between knowledge and politics. Knowledge in this context is co-constructed: it is not disciplinary knowledge, but knowledge that emerges in the sharing of experience. This book provides a global snapshot of a changing educational world by giving detailed examples of a fundamental shift in the governing and practice of education learning by: • Assessing approaches to the changing nature of comparative knowledge and information • Tracking the translation and mobilisation of these knowledges in the governing of education/learning; • Identification of the key experts and knowledge producers/circulators/translators and analysis of how best to understand their influence; • Mapping of the global production of these knowledges in terms of their range and reach the interrelationships of actors and their effects in different national settings. Drawing on material from around the world, the book brings together scholars from different backgrounds who provide a tapestry of examples of the global production and national reception and mediation of these knowledges and who show how change enters different national spaces and consider their effects in different national settings.
World Yearbook of Education 2015: Elites, Privilege and Excellence: The National and Global Redefinition of Educational Advantage (World Yearbook of Education)
by Stephen J. Ball Agnès Van Zanten Brigitte Darchy-KoechlinThis latest volume in the World Yearbook of Education Series focuses on educational elites and inequality, focusing particularly on the ways in which established and emergent groups located at the top of the social hierarchy and power structure reproduce, establish or redefine their position. The volume is organized around three main issues: analyzing the way in which parents, students and graduates in positions of social advantage use their assets and capitals in relation to educational strategies, and how these are different for old and new and cultural and economic elites; studying how elite institutions have adapted their strategies to take into account changes in the social structure, in policy and in their institutional environment and exploring the impact of these strategies on educational systems at the national and global levels; mapping the new global dynamics in elite education and how new forms of 'international education' and 'transnational cultural capital' as well as new global educational elite pathways shape elite students’ identities, status and trajectories. Making use of a social and an institutional approach as well as a focus on practices and policies, the volume draws on research conducted on secondary schools and on higher education. In addition, the global contributions within the book allow for a comparison and contrast of situations in different countries. This results in a comprehensive picture of common processes and national differences concerning advantage and excellence and a thorough examination of the impact of globalization on the strategies, identities and trajectories of elite groups and individuals alongside more general cultural and economic processes.
World Yearbook of Education 2016: The Global Education Industry (World Yearbook of Education)
by Antoni Verger Christopher Lubienski Gita Steiner-KhamsiThis latest volume in the World Yearbook of Education series examines the global education industry both in OECD* countries as well as developing countries, and presents the works of scholars based in different parts of the word who have significantly contributed to this area of research. Focusing on the areas of cross-over in public-private partnerships in education, WYBE 2016 critically examines the actors and factors that have propelled the global rise of the education industry. Split into three key sections, Part I explores how education agendas are shaped; Part II considers the private financing of education and the export of school improvements to professional consultancies; and Part III analyses new market niches, such as low-fee private schooling and for-profit education provisions. The book draws upon case studies of many global organizations, including: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Pearson Affordable Learning Fund Bridge International Academies Teach for All Omega Schools Co-edited by three internationally renowned scholars, Antoni Verger, Christopher Lubienski and Gita Steiner-Khamsi, WYBE 2016 will be a valuable resource for researchers, graduates and policy makers who are interested in the global education industry. *Convention on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
World Yearbook of Education 2017: Assessment Inequalities (World Yearbook of Education)
by Alfredo J. Artiles Julie AllanThis latest volume in the World Yearbook of Education series examines the relationship between assessment systems and efforts to advance equity in education at a time of growing inequalities. It focuses on the political motives behind the expansion of an assessment industry, the associated expansion of an SEN industry and a growth in consequential accountability systems. Split into three key sections, the first part is concerned with the assessment industry, and considers the purpose and function of assessment in policy and politics and the political context in which particular assessment practices have emerged. Part II of the book, on assessing deviance, explores those assessment and identification practices that seek to classify different categories of learners, including children with Limited English Proficiency, with special needs and disabilities and with behavioural problems. The final part of the book considers the consequences of assessment and the possibility of fairer and more equitable alternatives, examining the production of inequalities within assessment in relation to race, class, gender and disability. Discussing in detail the complex historical intersections of assessment and educational equity with particular attention to the implications for marginalised populations of students and their families, this volume seeks to provide reframings and reconceptualisations of assessment and identification by offering new insights into economic and cultural trends influencing them. Co-edited by two internationally renowned scholars, Julie Allan and Alfredo J. Artiles, World Yearbook of Education 2017 will be a valuable resource for researchers, graduates and policy makers who are interested in the economic trends of global education assessment.
World Yearbook of Education 2018: Uneven Space-Times of Education: Historical Sociologies of Concepts, Methods and Practices (World Yearbook of Education)
by Julie McLeod Noah W. Sobe Terri SeddonThis latest volume in the World Yearbook of Education Series considers changing space-times of education by asking how they become unevenly textured as our worlds globalise, horizons shift and familiar points of reference melt and are remade. Acknowledging the reach of economic and cultural change, digital communication, geopolitics and persistent inequalities, the chapters trace processes that are re-making education and societies. Examining the depth of their impact on practices, methods and concepts reveals the significance of knowledge-building and socially embedded forms of reasoning in emerging patterns of educational governance, pedagogic and policy reforms as well as in lived understandings of self and social worlds. The organisation of the collection into three sections – Making Spaces, Troubling Temporalities, and Mobility and Contexts – begins to map out an ambitious project. It calls on education researchers and professionals to write the present as history by grasping the socio-spatial, historical and political dimensions and effects that frame, form and filter the educational present. This research calls for a revitalised historical sociology and novel forms of comparative education that can provide productive insights, inform creative problem solving and suggest practical directions for education. This agenda recognises: the unevenness of educational space-times the making of education as a social institution the persistence and effects of social embeddedness, eventful space, situated knowledge, and geosocial thinking the present as history and multiple temporalities in education different registers of transformation that become visible through lenses such as identity, work, citizenship and mobility. The World Yearbook of Education 2018 continues the project of compiling worldwide research on globalising education. These volumes offer a powerful commentary on how and why space-times of education are changing and emphasise the importance of forms of knowledge that materialise categories of professionals, policies and practices. This volume will be of interest to academics, professionals and policymakers in education and social policy, and also to scholars who engage in historical studies of education and debates about the socio-material formations that contribute to educational inequalities and dynamics of difference.
World Yearbook of Education 2019: Comparative Methodology in the Era of Big Data and Global Networks (World Yearbook of Education)
by Radhika Gorur Sam Sellar Gita Steiner-KhamsiDigital methodologies, new forms of data visualization and computer-based learning and assessment are creating new challenges as well as opportunities for scholars in educational research. The World Yearbook of Education 2019 explores this highly relevant topic, opening a new discussion about the various conceptual and methodological challenges and opportunities in contemporary educational research. This volume explores contemporary methods of inquiry, with chapters organized around four topics of enduring interest in this field: impacts, patterns, relations and contexts. The World Yearbook of Education 2019 comprises contributions from internationally renowned scholars exploring novel concepts and methodologies in grappling with contemporary empirical phenomena in educational research. Vital questions such as how we understand the technological developments that are creating new possibilities for and demands on education, and how we make sense of complex cases that cut across multiple nations, are discussed. This newest addition to the prestigious World Yearbook of Education series provides a fascinating read for scholars in the fields of education policy and comparative education. It is not only a useful resource for educational researchers and policy makers examining new trends and emerging issues, but would be of interest to graduate students exploring innovative methodologies, particularly in the study of education and education policy.
World Yearbook of Education 2020: Schooling, Governance and Inequalities (World Yearbook of Education)
by Julie Allan Valerie Harwood Clara JørgensenA timely contribution to the debate on educational governance and equality, the World Yearbook of Education 2020 documents the significant changes that have occurred in the last 20 years reflecting a widespread shift from government to governance. Considering school context as well as specific school responses around the emergence of particular forms of governance, this book presents and contextualises a clear historical account of governance and accountability within schooling. Organised into three sections covering: Changing contexts of school governance; stakeholders and ‘responsibilisation’; and radical governance, carefully chosen contributors provide global insights from around the world. They consider educational outcomes and closing the inequality gap and they document radical forms of governance, at local level, which have sought to create more equitable governance, intelligent accountability and greater involvement of key stakeholders such as students. Providing a series of provocations and reminders of the possibilities that remain open to us, the World Yearbook of Education 2020 will be of interest to academics, professionals and policymakers in education and school governance, and any scholars who engage in historical studies of education and debates about educational governance and equality.
World Yearbook of Education 2021: Accountability and Datafication in the Governance of Education (World Yearbook of Education)
by Sotiria Grek Christian Maroy Antoni VergerProviding a comprehensive introduction to the topic of accountability and datafication in the governance of education, the World Yearbook of Education 2021 considers global policy dynamics and policy enactment processes. Chapters pay particular attention to the role of international organizations and the private sector in the promotion of performance-based accountability (PBA) in different educational settings and at multiple policy scales. Organized into three sections, chapters cover: the global/local construction of accountability and datafication; global discourse and national translations of performance-based accountability policies; and enactments and effects of accountability and datafication, including controversies and critical issues. With carefully chosen international contributions from around the globe, the World Yearbook of Education 2021 is ideal reading for anyone interested in the future of accountability and datafication in the governance of education.
World Yearbook of Education 2022: Education, Schooling and the Global Universalization of Nationalism (World Yearbook of Education)
by William F. Pinar Daniel Tröhler Nelli PiattoevaThe latest volume in the World Yearbook of Education Series explores the relationship between education and the globally prevalent principle of nationalism. This book identifies the diverse ways in which educational policies, discourses, curricula and pedagogy embed and promote the concept of "the nation" both historically and in the age of globalization. By challenging accounts owed to the discourse of "globalization" which conceal the presence of national epistemologies and interests in education, this book offers important insights into the role of education in making nationalism one of the most enduring and yet easily obscured forces of our time. Organized into four sections, this book looks at the following main issues: Historical (re)production of the nation considers how countries consider and reproduce their national identity and how this is built on their history. Hegemonic aspirations and interventions examines how instruction technologies developed during the Cold War have been propagated and disseminated around the world, how the development of educational policy based on the human capital theory emerged, and analyzes the extent to which tech companies are intent on establishing an imperial order of learning. Imperial policies and resurgences of nationalisms explores how global or imperial policies have been indulged in different parts of the world and how new forms of nationalism have been emerging. Paradoxes, inconsistencies, and a self-reflection focuses on nations acting imperially as sites of domestic injustices, addresses unresolved paradoxes between the global and the national and includes a historically informed critical review of the World Yearbooks of Education. Bringing together the voices of researchers from around the globe, The World Yearbook of Education 2022 is ideal reading for anyone interested in learning how nationalism has affected the expansion of education systems and how its imperial aspirations are currently affecting education policy and practice.
World Yearbook of Education 2023: Racialization and Educational Inequality in Global Perspective (World Yearbook of Education)
by Janelle Scott Monisha BajajThe World Yearbook of Education 2023 centers on the intersection of racialization, inequality, and education. It critically examines how racial formation and its associated logics about citizenship, belonging, justice, equality, and humanity manifest in early childhood education, primary, secondary, and higher education, as well as non-formal, community-based education settings. The chapters offer multisited perspectives into how racialization has and continues to shape educational inequality, with an eye towards the agency and resistance of youth and communities in contesting such forms of domination and marginalization. Across three sections, the book examines how forces of imperialism, white supremacy, and colonization have shaped racialization in distinct locations and how education was historically utilized as a site for both the creation and/or reification of difference. It reveals the lingering effects of processes of racialization in distinct locations globally and their intersections with educational policies, ideologies, systems, and realities. Inviting readers to learn, reflect, and engage with the layered and complex realities of racialization and inequality in education across the globe, World Yearbook of Education 2023 is a timely and important contribution to discussions of racialization and provides the field with a robust foundation for future critical inquiry and engagement with the themes of race, racialization, inequality, and education.
World Yearbook of Education 2024: Digitalisation of Education in the Era of Algorithms, Automation and Artificial Intelligence (World Yearbook of Education)
by Ben Williamson Janja Komljenovic Kalervo N. GulsonProviding a comprehensive, global overview of the digitalisation of education, the World Yearbook of Education 2024 examines the ways advanced digital technologies are transforming educational practices, institutions and policy processes.Establishing a critical research agenda for analysing the digitalisation of education, the carefully selected chapters in this collection interrogate the current impacts of new digital technologies, emerging controversies over emerging data practices and future implications of algorithmic systems, automated decision-making and AI in education. Organised into four sections, the contributions in the collection examine the following: The historical, scientific and technical foundations of contemporary digitalisation in education The political and economic dynamics that underpin the education technology industry and new platform models of education How algorithms, automation and AI support new modes of data-driven governance and control of education systems Controversies over the inequitable effects of digitalisation in education, and proposals for data justice, ethics and regulation This resource is ideal reading for researchers, students, educational practitioners and policy officials interested in understanding the future of digital technologies in education.
World Yearbook of Education 2025: The Teaching Profession in a Globalizing World: Governance, Career, Learning (World Yearbook of Education)
by Xavier Dumay Tore Bernt Sorensen Lynn PaineThe World Yearbook of Education 2025 analyzes teacher policies and the governance of the teaching profession in the contemporary context of major societal changes and globalizing processes.The first volume dedicated to an overview of globalized teacher policies and their implications for the status of the teaching profession across the world, this book reflects the ambition to advance the debate on the challenges and opportunities associated with the teaching profession. It recognizes that teacher policy is situated at the crossroads of three logics that have changed and become more complex due to globalization processes since the 1970s: the logic of teacher policy regulation has shifted from state-centric government toward pluriscalar global governance; the logic of employment relations has shifted to a flexibility paradigm; the logic of teacher education has shifted from the transmission of knowledge in teacher education to teachers’ lifelong learning. In line with the objective to analyze the governance of the teaching profession in the contemporary context of major societal changes and globalizing processes, this book is organized into three parts, focusing on: teacher policies as global governance and public policy; teacher labor markets, employment relations, and careers and the institutional transformations in the world of work and employment; and the reconfiguration of teachers’ work and the learning of teachers Its contributors use different methodological approaches to draw on a range of case studies and analyses of national, regional, and global patterns. A timely and important contribution to discussions of the future of the teaching profession across the world, the World Yearbook of Education 2025 is ideal reading for policymakers, the professional teaching community, researchers, graduate students, and anyone interested in education policy-related areas such as public policy, comparative education, and sociology of education.
WorldCALL: International Perspectives on Computer-Assisted Language Learning (Routledge Studies in Computer Assisted Language Learning)
by Mike Levy Françoisee Blin Claire Bradin Siskin Osamu TakeuchiAs technological innovation continues to affect language pedagogy, there is an increasing demand for information, exemplars, analysis and guidance. This edited volume focuses on international perspectives in Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) in all of its forms, including Technology Enhanced Language Learning, Network-Based Language Learning, Information and Communication Technologies for Language Learning.
The Worldliness of a Cosmopolitan Education: Passionate Lives in Public Service (Studies in Curriculum Theory Series)
by William PinarPinar positions himself against three pressing problems of the profession: the crime of collectivism that identity politics commits, the devaluation of academic knowledge by the programmatic preoccupations of teacher education, and the effacement of educational experience by standardized testing. A cosmopolitan curriculum, Pinar argues, juxtaposes the abstract and the concrete, the collective and the individual: history and biography, politics and art, public service and private passion. Such a curriculum provides passages between the subjective and the social, and in so doing, engenders that worldliness a cosmopolitan education invites. Such worldliness is vividly discernible in the lives of three heroic individuals: Jane Addams (1860-1935), Laura Bragg (1881-1978), and Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975). What these disparate individuals demonstrate is the centrality of subjectivity in the cultivation of cosmopolitanism. Subjectivity takes form in the world, and the world is itself reconstructed by subjectivity’s engagement with it. In this intriguing, thought-provoking, and nuanced work, Pinar outlines a cosmopolitan curriculum focused on passionate lives in public service, providing one set of answers to how the field accepts and attends to the inextricably interwoven relations among intellectual rigor, scholarly erudition, and intense but variegated engagement with the world.
Worldmaking: Psychology and the Ideology of Creativity (Palgrave Studies in the Theory and History of Psychology)
by Michael Hanchett HansonMichael Hanchett Hanson weaves together the history of the development of the psychological concepts of creativity with social constructivist views of power dynamics and pragmatic insights. He provides an engaging, thought-provoking analysis to interest anyone involved with creativity, from psychologists and educators to artists and philosophers.
The World's Best Book: The Spookiest, Smelliest, Wildest, Oldest, Weirdest, Brainiest, and Funniest Facts
by Jan PayneWith all of the books in the world, this one is the best! With a multitude of did-you-knows, accompanied by hilarious illustrations, page after page is packed with the best entertainment and education. For kids craving to jam their brains with odd and intriguing facts, here's a banquet-stuffed with the fastest, brightest, longest, funniest, weirdest, wildest, wettest, smelliest, brainiest, and fascinating-est things in the world!
Worlds beyond My Window: The Life and Work of Gertrude McCarty Smith
by Thomas R. Brooks Pat Pinson Stephen Rosenberg Rick WilemonArtist, columnist, and poet Gertrude McCarty Smith (1923–2007) of Collins, Mississippi, carried herself as a demure and proper southern lady, yet this was deceiving as she was a prolific, creative trailblazer who had collectors and dedicated readers from coast to coast, and even in Europe. She grew up during the Great Depression with only some vivid storytelling and pictures from the family Bible to inspire and kindle her artistic spirit. However, at the age of ten, her career launched when her grandmother coaxed her with a box of crayons to milk the family cow—her seventy-year love affair with the arts was born. Over the years, she would express her creativity in many forms, resulting in thousands of paintings, sculptures, songs, poems, and newspaper columns and along the way a variety of artful cakes, as she ran a celebrated twenty-five-year cake business. Her art appeared in all shapes, sizes, materials, and “eatability.” For most of her early career, Gertrude dabbled with a variety of styles—with subjects mostly centered around life in rural Mississippi and her spiritual life. But in 1980 at the age of fifty-seven, she attended her first Mississippi Art Colony at Camp Jacob in Utica, Mississippi. Over the next fifteen years, she would make her pilgrimage twice a year to be inspired by celebrated guest instructors from around the nation and connect with fellow artists. The Colony was a major catalyst, exposing her to new styles, giving her encouragement and freedom to experiment. Gertrude said of the Colony, “I never knew anything about abstract art, but it fascinated me to no end. Abstract art to me is like a beautiful melody without words. In mixed media, I am in another world and often am surprised at the piece that evolves from the torn watercolor papers. The effect is a kaleidoscope of colors that makes the retinas dance.” This book features more than 150 images; a dozen poems; insightful essays from New York art dealer Stephen Rosenberg, acclaimed southern cultural scholar and curator Pat Pinson, and artist, curator, and instructor Rick Wilemon; along with a foreword by Tommy King, president of William Carey University; and a chronicle of her life’s journey by her son-in-law, Thomas R. Brooks. As Rosenberg has said, “Gertrude Smith is a remarkable and authentic American woman who teaches us that talent and creativity combined with a humanistic spirit is both a state of mind and a state of grace—at any age.” Book proceeds will benefit the Gertrude McCarty Smith Foundation for the Arts to bring access and passion for literature, performance, and visual arts to children in underserved communities throughout Mississippi.
Worlds Beyond Words: True Stories About the Power of Literacy (Quick Reads Ser.)
by Alison StokesA collection of real-life stories from people who have improved their lives through better literacy. Foreword by Scott QuinnellSome people take the power of words for granted. But for the thousands of people who struggle with poor literacy, words can be scary things. The men and women featured in this book have overcome their fears to improve their reading later in life. Whether they are famous businessmen or sports stars, teenagers in care, middle-aged mums, young soldiers or refugees forced to flee bloodshed in their own home countries, they all share a common desire to learn.Their stories will inspire others to follow journeys of their own.Alison Stokes is a writer and journalist, who writes for national magazines in the UK and US and regional newspapers in Wales. For many years she was a features editor at Trinity Mirror’s South Wales Echo. She also works as a part-time university lecturer in journalism and publishing manager.
Worlds Beyond Words: True Stories About the Power of Literacy (Quick Reads)
by Alison StokesA collection of real-life stories from people who have improved their lives through better literacy. Foreword by Scott QuinnellSome people take the power of words for granted. But for the thousands of people who struggle with poor literacy, words can be scary things. The men and women featured in this book have overcome their fears to improve their reading later in life. Whether they are famous businessmen or sports stars, teenagers in care, middle-aged mums, young soldiers or refugees forced to flee bloodshed in their own home countries, they all share a common desire to learn.Their stories will inspire others to follow journeys of their own.Alison Stokes is a writer and journalist, who writes for national magazines in the UK and US and regional newspapers in Wales. For many years she was a features editor at Trinity Mirror’s South Wales Echo. She also works as a part-time university lecturer in journalism and publishing manager.
The World's Biggest Classroom (Fountas & Pinnell Classroom, Guided Reading Grade 4)
by Alicia FenwickAn Unusual School Australia is a HUGE country. Many families live in remote areas, far apart from one another. So how do the children in these families go to school together? NIMAC-sourced textbook