Character Development, again.

The Literacy Numeracy Secretariat web pages includes the Character Development information. The Foundation document is provided full text, with a date of June 2008 (our library copy is 2006, so we will have to get the newer edition), plus a document titled Character Education in Action, K-12: Successful Practices in Ontario Schools. This new document is not a manual or guide, but it provides a sampling of different programs offered by different Boards across the province, including some from the French language boards. Nothing from TDSB.   Here is the link to our bibliography on character-development.

Rowan

Youth Violence

Alvin Curling and Roy McMurty have released their report on youth violence titled Roots of Youth Violence.

As a part of the 2007 Ontario Education Research Symposium, Shelley Hymel and Natalie Rocke Henderson presented a paper titled Helping Students who are Experiencing Persistent and/or Serious Discipline Problems to Succeed in School: The State of the Evidence <here>.

New books

The new books are starting to roll in and as ever we’ve got lots in the core subject areas: reading (too many to mention), writing (like Chris Spences’ The Joy of Teaching Boys: Igniting Writing Experiences…), math (like Gregory and Chapman’s Activites for the Differentiated Math Classroom, grades 6-8), science (like Fulwiler’s Writing in Science).

But we also have books that are more funky. ASCD has published a book on How to give Effective Feedback to your Students. We have two new books from the OSSTF, one on school law (always good to have that Ontario jurisdiction) and an interesting one called Students First: Creating Dynamic Classrooms that would be a great hands-on resource for new secondary school teachers.

Give us a call at (416) 395-8289 to request a book.

Why I love to hate high school football

My son, in grade 11, plays football on the senior boys team for East York CI.  In grade 9 and 10 he played on the junior team and last year they won the city junior championship.  He proudly wears his Goliath’s jacket.

Football has been very important and beneficial for my son. It gave him a gang to hang out with when he was a miner niner; it gave him a bunch of friends; it taught him all about teamwork, respect for rules; consequences about lateness, skipping and poor marks; it gave him some teachers that he could talk to and who have provided support and understanding when he needed it. It has given him status with his peers.

So why do I hate it? After years of telling him that hitting was bad, the first thing football teaches is how to hit and hit hard. He is tired and hungry all of the time, and homework is secondary. Who knew that football was such hard work? When I catch the occasional play on TV, other than the odd “look at that SOB run”, most of it seems to be excruciatingly slow, and don’t even talk to me about stopping the clock – whose bright idea was that?  Every game I worry that he’ll get hurt or injured. But even more than all of this, I hate the neanderthal attitude that seems to hang around these boys.  Ok, so they are not all intellectual neanderthals, but to have a bunch of these boys in a classroom can be very disruptive-they are noisy, pushy, often stinky ‘cos the showers don’t work, and they hang out as a clump.  Bravado, camaraderie? Call it what you will, but it can be hard to control. 

Football is a huge distraction for my son, who struggles academically, and I will be very happy when the season is over.  And by the way, they do not pull kids from the team if they fail courses, otherwise my son would have been out of it last year.  Will I stop him from playing? Too late for this year, but next year is another story.

Rowan

Encyclopedia of Language and Literacy Development

Launched in 2007, this Canadian Encyclopedia is growing all the time. This resource has been developed by the  Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network and is aimed at providing early learning childcare practitioners, teachers and policy makers with research – based information.  It includes articles and commentaries for experts in reading and writing, numeracy, second language learners and seems to be easy to search. I read the article on spelling by Ruth Scott. You can search by the newest entries, the most popular entries,  table of contents, A-Z. This is a great source for teachers taking any Reading AQ courses or anyone teaching primary students.

Rowan

Nonfiction Reading & Writing-Bibliography

Attached is a bibliography of books and articles (2004-2008) related to the use of nonfiction resources in your classroom. Contact the library to borrow any of the books and articles. The articles are available in the education databases of Proquest(PQ) or Ebsco (EB), through our TDSBweb page or TEL conference. Click below to open the bibliogaphy.

nonfiction

Rowan