We invite you to participate in ASCD's third annual Whole Child Virtual Conference. Entitled "Moving from Implementation to Sustainability to Culture," sessions will offer educators around the globe leadership discussions and strategies to support their work to implement and sustain a whole child approach to education.
ASCD's third annual Whole Child Virtual Conference is a free, online event that provides a forum and tools for schools and districts working toward sustainability and changing school cultures to serve the whole child. Built on the theme, "Moving from Implementation to Sustainability to Culture," the conference will be held May 6–10, with international pre-conference sessions held on Friday, May 3, for Australasian and European audiences. The conference features presentations from renowned speakers, educators, authors, and education experts who have successfully implemented a whole child approach in schools around the world, including ASCD Vision in Action award-winning schools and Whole Child Network schools.
Below, we hear from educators and Whole Child Virtual Conference presenters Walter McKenzie and Thomas Hoerr, whose session, "Grit: Multiple Intelligences and Instructional Technology in the Classroom," will be held Thursday, May 9, 4:00–5:00 p.m. eastern time.
So you're actively working to implement the tenets of the Whole Child Initiative? Excellent! How about your whole tech initiative? What's your vision for technology in education? Not what you have in your inventory or what you're comfortable using, but your action plan for technology empowering the whole child. Why? Because in today's world, technology is not an add-on or a nice-to-have; it's an essential array of tools that support and energize every Whole Child tenet.
Yesterday's date: April 1, 2013.
Yesterday's lead education article: How should we handle homework?
Yesterday's lead statistic: ADHD diagnosed in 11 percent of U.S. children.
Today's question: Can we connect the dots?
No, this was not an April Fool's question. It's a simple scattergram, a graph of disparate facts and headlines arranged into no particular pattern—until you begin to probe and ponder.
Everyone freeze! Stop right where you are and look around. Survey the landscape. With all the clamoring and commotion in education, have you stopped to notice? Education transformation is already well under way. I know, I know. With all the posturing and politicking going on from your local school board to the state house to the White House, there's a public perception that it's business as usual. Voices of self-interest continue to tout the status quo. Advocates for the public interest continue to toe the bottom line. Amidst all the noise and distractions, education in 2013 can look and feel like more of the same.
Post written by Jasmine Sanborn, a senior digital and visual journalism student at Loyola University Chicago. She hopes to follow her passions for conservation and comics and someday join the ranks at National Geographic or Marvel Comics.
In our ever-evolving world, where is the future of education headed? "The Future of Education in a Globally Connected World," a panel discussion at ASCD's 68th Annual Conference and Exhibit Show featuring education experts from around the world, sought to answer this question and explore what we can learn from one another.
Moderated by ASCD Executive Director and CEO Dr. Gene R. Carter, the panel featured Siew Hoong Wong, Deputy Director-General of Education (Curriculum) from Singapore; Benjalug Namfa, Deputy Secretary General, Office of Basic Education Commission, Ministry of Education from Thailand; Pasi Sahlberg, Director General, Center for International Mobility and Cooperation and ASCD Board Member from Finland; and Hye-chong Han, Associate Research Fellow, Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation from South Korea.
Creating a safe and supportive learning environment is a critical to a whole child approach to education. Usually when we reflect and work on implementing the Whole Child Tenets in our schools, we forget one critical component in making them manifest: the students. Students are as important as actors in creating a safe school as teachers. They can be actors in helping create a safe learning environment, and project-based learning (PBL) projects can be a way in which we harness that service and target learning in the content areas. Here are some project ideas I have done or have seen other educators create.
Many years ago, John Gage, then chief science officer for Sun Microsystems, had an idea. The idea was "NetDay," a grassroots campaign to wire U.S. schools.
Gage, like so many others today, was frustrated that our schools were not getting connected to the Internet fast enough and that a whole generation of young people would suffer. The NetDay concept has grown, and the campaign to wire our schools led to the concept of "smart schools," schools fully equipped with a computer on every desktop and broadband access to the Internet.
So much for the history of the smart school. Less clear is how safe even our smartest schools are in light of recurring school violence, a national epidemic, really. The entire nation is now searching for solutions.
Post submitted on behalf of whole child partner American Association of School Librarians by Marcia A. Mardis, assistant professor with the School of Library and Information Science and associate director of the Partnerships Advancing Library Media Center at the iSchool at Florida State University.
"It takes a whole village to raise a child," goes the African proverb in the focus of Jane Cowen-Fletcher's 1994 children's book1. I'd like to build on this wisdom to propose that it takes a whole school to educate the whole child. All of us, policymakers; communities; families; administrators; staff; teachers; and, importantly, school librarians, must work in concert to ensure that children are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. School librarians have a special contribution to creating an environment that welcomes all forms of expression; creativity; and active, interdisciplinary learning.
Post submitted by Tess Pajaron of Open Colleges, an online course provider based in Australia. She regularly writes about study and work abroad experiences and advocates for education.
Would you believe me if I told you that when the telephone was invented, people didn't believe it would eventually become part of their daily lives?
In fact, the telephone was vilified. Some called it "the instrument of the devil." The New York Times, in 1876, reported that the telephone will "empty the concert-halls and the churches" as it enables people to listen to lectures, sermons, and concerts from the comfort of their own homes. You can see where the argument was going.
Sounds familiar? It should.
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