(Continued from EdWorld At Home)
Welcome to a weekly blog by Yours Truly, the EdWorld
Parent. I hope this blog’s for you. It might be for you IF ~
- you
are a parent who cares a lot about education,
- maybe
a homeschooling parent,
- or
maybe an education professional who knows that a kid’s life outside
school is an important factor in his or her education.
In fact, in my “real life” secret identity (when
I’m not being the Super-Blogger EdWorld Parent) ... I have been
all three of those things: A parent, a homeschooling parent, and
an education professional, including being the editor of the venerated
Weekly Reader.
I’m going to say a few things and link to a few
things, discuss what I’ve posted on the “Hey, Kids” side of the
Education World At Home page (see
below), and hope
you respond: Without you, it’s not a blog. We’ll see what happens.
EdWorld
Parent Blog #1
May 6, 2005
Do kids
need character education at school? Why? How? Have you seen any
good examples? Bad examples? Let’s
hear about it!
I just
returned from the annual convention of the National Association
of Elementary School Principals, and I noticed a theme in the exhibits.
It seems that a number of small companies and nonprofits have cropped
up to address what seems to be a growing crisis in what we used
to call "good citizenship."
Below are
a few of the outfits that were in the exhibit hall. These are in
the order that I brought them out of my suitcase!
Positive
Action, at www.positiveaction.net,
is a company that offers a K-12 curriculum of character education,
conflict resolution, etc. Like other companies in education, this
one seems a little shy on its web site about telling you that it's
a for-profit company. However, the credentials
of the company's founders seem solid enough. Perhaps you'd like
to recommend that your child's school check this out.
Courage
to Change publishing, at www.couragetochange.com,
is also a for-profit company that gathers books, games, and other
products about common life problems into one catalogue. Their focus
is families with kids preschool through grade six at the moment,
though they say they're planning to expand.
Project
Wisdom, Inc., at www.projectwisdom.com,
is an independent, nonpolitical for-profit organization founded
in 1992 by Leslie Luton Matula. It also has a program on character
education. Again, this is one you might flag to the attention of
your school.
Positively
for Kids, at www.positivelyforkids.com,
is another company providing character-education products, and they
have a parents'
section on their site, so they clearly intend their materials
to be of interest to families.
Funding
from the U.S. Department of Justice supports "G.R.E.A.T.,"
which stands for "Gang Resistance Education And Training,"
which you can see more about at www.great-online.org
... This one is definitely school-based, so you might want to alert
your child's school.
Peace Builders,
Inc., at www.peacebuilders.com,
is a company that seems to offer its program mostly to schools.
Why?
Why are
so many groups trying to offer character education programs, especially
to schools? Well, the answers may be obvious, but let's get 'em
off our chests anyway!
Write to me and we'll see what
EdWorld Parents think!
Notes on What’s
Up on the “Hey, Kids” side of Education World At Home
Top ten
oldest kids’ jokes in the world (and their fascinating histories)
This is just for fun, but feel free to point out to kids who are
old enough that this kind of humor is an example of parody.
That’s a kind of humor that in part is making fun of the format
of something – like the news, a weather forecast, or a celebrity
interview. The TV show Saturday Night Live is known for its
news parody, “Weekend Update.”
Is Spelling
a Nightmayor? Top Five Spelling Tips (And the 100 words kids
most often get wrong). Pretty self-explanatory. Good luck!
Yes, You
Can Handle Standardized Tests Top-5 things you can do on the
way to test day! Hopefully these tips provide the standardized-test-taker
in your family a little reassurance and some practical suggestions
(from an objective source, not tainted by being a parent!).
EdWorld
at Home Basics: The Parts of Speech. Again, pretty self-explanatory.
Hopefully middle grades kids will find this article at least a little
less un-cool than the typical treatment of the subject.
15 Questions
from the U.S. Citizenship Test. Interesting to see how you’d
do! You can let the kids on it, too!
Cockney
Rhyming Slang: Learn about this wild language from the East End
of London, England. Here’s a fun little article that helps prove
the old saying “The United States and Great Britain are two countries
separated by a common language.”
Enjoy!
Education World®
Copyright © 2005 Education World
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