Two practical problems faced by national youth organisations devoted to the transmission of European classical music-making across the generations are: (1) how to assist individual pre-professional ...young musicians to enter their desired career path; and (2) how, in the interests of social justice, to provide access to music-educational opportunities for young people in areas of relative geographical remoteness and cultural isolation. This article analyses the effectiveness of the urban-regional interface and educational practice of one unique partial solution to the two problems: the chamber music development and regional outreach programme called Young Australian Concert Artists (YACA), presented since 1999 by the Australian Youth Orchestra (AYO). The article analyses the programme's philosophical framework and its ethical and educational aims, as well as examining its logistics. The research indicates that its provider, AYO which fulfils government and private sector demands for full accountability, needs additional funding to enable it to fulfil its role in responding to the two problems. An assessment model is proposed, based on the expectations of YACA's six groups of stakeholders: AYO, the regional music centre, a pre-professional chamber group, professional tutors, the regional ensemble, and regional communities and audiences.
Examining the question, "Why are children not mastering what they ought to be learning in school?," this book merges cognitive science with educational agenda to show how incompatible children's ...minds and natural patterns of learning are to current educational materials, practices, and institutions, making a case for restructuring the schools. The chapters in the book are divided into three parts. The first part examines the characteristics of the "natural" learner. The second part explores the characteristics of educational institutions, and the third part presents a reconceptualization of education for the purpose of understanding. The chapters are: (1) "Conceptualizing the Development of the Mind"; (2) "Initial Learnings: Constraints and Possibilities"; (3) "Knowing the World through Symbols"; (4) "The Worlds of the Preschooler: The Emergence of Intuitive Understandings"; (5) "The Values and Traditions of Education"; (6) "The Institution Called School"; (7) The Difficulties Posed by School: Misconceptions in the Sciences"; (8) More Difficulties Posed by School: Stereotypes in the Social Sciences and the Humanities"; (9) "The Search for Solutions: Dead Ends and Promising Means"; (10) "Education for Understanding during the Early Years"; (11) "Education for Understanding during the Adolescent Years"; and (12) "Toward National and Global Understandings." (HTH)
This book discusses challenges facing teachers in the knowledge society today, focusing on the changing world and the changing work of teaching. Seven chapters discuss: (1) "Teaching for the ...Knowledge Society: Educating for Ingenuity" (e.g., profiting from, developing, and teaching for the knowledge society); (2) "Teaching Beyond the Knowledge Society: Dealing with Insecurity" (e.g., the knowledge and information bubble, cultivating social capital, and educating for democracy); (3) "Teaching Despite the Knowledge Society, Part I: The End of Ingenuity" (e.g., the cost of the knowledge society, market fundamentalism, and standardized policies and practices); (4) "Teaching Despite the Knowledge Society, Part II: The Loss of Integrity" (the end and the absence of integrity); (5) "The Knowledge-Society School: An Endangered entity" (e.g., the school as a learning community, the pressured community, and learning, caring, and surviving); (6) "Beyond Standardization: Professional Learning Communities or Performance-Training Sects?" (e.g., toward a learning profession, culture regimes, and contract regimes); and (7) "The Future of Teaching in the Knowledge Society: Rethinking Improvement, Removing Impoverishment" (differential development). Tables are appended. (SM)
This book provides an overview of ways in which the psychology of child development can improve education and promote children's competence. Part 1 of the book examines individual differences in ...children. Chapters in this part discuss: (1) the roots of children's competence, and particularly the influences of the environment, heredity, and motivation; (2) intelligence; (3) thinking; (4) literacy and numeracy skills; and (5) exceptional children, including slow-learning and gifted children. Part 2 reviews forms of education that foster children's competence. Chapters in this part discuss learning that is adaptable to many situations and that involves intellectual and thinking skills; teaching that fosters children's competence; and flexible curricula, including child-centered and multicultural curricula. Part 3 considers systems that promote competence in children. Chapters in this part concern teacher education; the role of the school in the community, including school organization, mentoring, cooperation between schools and parents, and the importance of play; and issues related to children's competence in different cultures, including the promotion of literacy and the effect of deprivation on children. A list of 146 references is provided. (BC)
This book provides a broad perspective on the basic curriculum questions educators face in the schools regarding the purposes, content, design, and structure of educational programs. In discussing ...basic issues of curriculum theory, some questions are raised: (1) How have people structured educational programs and instruction in an attempt to serve certain aims? (2) Should curriculum be thought of as a set of subjects to be learned or as a set of experiences for people to have? (3) What questions should be considered during the process of designing a curriculum? (4) How do contemporary scholars who have studied curriculum of the past and present explain and critique curriculum? and (5) If we as a pluralistic society "aim" our educational programs, how can we do so fairly and justly? The final chapter provides a number of opportunities for preservice teachers to engage more fully in thinking about curriculum and aims in the context of classroom situations. (JD)
The Demands of Liberal Education analyses and applies contemporary liberal political theory to certain key problems within the field of educational theory. Levinson examines problems centred around ...determining appropriate educational aims, content and institutional structure and argues that liberal governments should exercise a much greater control over education than they now do. Combining theoretical with empirical research, this book will interest and provoke scholars, policy makers, educators, parents, and all citizens interested in education politics.
To function and prosper in the learning society, the management of knowledge is becoming a new and crucial challenge for both private companies and public organisations. It is increasingly important ...for companies and organisations to produce, share and use knowlegde on a national and global scale. However, there is an urgent need for analysis of the knowledge economy both at the micro- and macroeconomic level in order to understand its characteristics and dynamics, and to identify the most appropriate routes for policy development. Little is known on how sectors and organisations could use knowlegde more efficiently and how to benchmark organisations as learning organisations. This book is an ambitious attempt to address these issues through a better understanding of knowledge and learning processes at a sectorial level. It analyses and compares concretely the processes of knowledge production, dissemination and use in the engineering, the information and communication technology, the health and the education sectors. (DIPF/orig.).
This book brings together the results of 25 years of research on the domain theory of social cognitive development. On the basis of that research - which shows that morality is a domain distinct from ...other social values - the author provides concrete suggestions for creating a moral classroom climate, dealing with student discipline, and integrating moral values within the curriculum. Among questions addressed are: Is morality a set of rules we acquire like any other? Are there universal aspects to morality, or is it culture specific? Is there such a thing as moral character? How best can teachers make use of our knowledge about children's moral and social growth in their everyday classroom practices? Integrated answers to these questions result in a comprehensive approach that does not reduce moral education to a process of induction or inculcation, but rather harnesses children's intrinsic motivation to comprehend and master their social worlds.
