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TD National Reading Summit III: Vancouver, B.C. May 2nd to 5th, 2012
Creating a National Reading Strategy for Canada: About the National Reading Campaign
The National Reading Campaign is about creating a reading strategy for Canada. It is about engaging Canadians in exploring what a Canadian reading plan would look like, and what we would expect the key outcomes to be. In short, it is a campaign to incorporate and promote reading as a central feature of 21st century Canadian citizenship.
The National Reading Campaign had its beginnings in 2008, when a coalition of readers, parents, writers, editors, librarians, bookstore owners, teachers, publishers and distributors came together to assess and consider the changing reading habits of Canadians. Learn more about the Reading Coalition here.
The first forum, held in 2008, proposed that a National Reading Campaign be developed over the course of three Reading Summits. The first Summit was held in Toronto in 2009, the second was held in Montreal in 2011 and the third will take place in May 2012 in Vancouver.
Why do we need a National Reading Campaign?
Becoming a reader is at the very heart of responsible citizenship. But as we find ourselves caught in the fierce updrafts of an information hurricane, we often lose sight of what reading — as an intellectual activity — contributes to our sense of self, our cultural awareness, our capacity for self-expression and, ultimately, our notions of engaged citizenship and the collective good. Reading, after all, is about so much more than a technical act that allows us to communicate, consume media and perform the activities of daily life. To be literate is necessary, but it is not enough.
Read more about the Summit here.
~information and links from the National Reading Campaign website
This Just In: New Book at Education Library
Silent Moments in Education:
An Autoethnography of Learning, Teaching, and Learning to Teach
Colette A. Granger’s highly original book considers moments in several areas of education in which silence may serve as both a response to difficulty and a means of working through it. The author, a teacher educator, presents narratives and other textual artefacts from her own experiences of learning and instruction. She analyses them from multiple perspectives to reveal how the qualities of education’s silences can make them at once difficult to observe and challenging to think about.
Silent Moments in Education combines autoethnography with psychoanalytic theory and critical discourse analysis in a unique consideration of the relations teachers and learners forge with knowledge, with ideas, and with one another. This provocative and thoughtful work invites scholars and educators to consider the multiple silences of participants in education, and to respond to them with generosity and compassion.
~from University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division © 2011
Year-round schooling within five years: Vancouver
We’ve heard before that Vancouver school district is considering year-round schooling, but still I was surprised by the lead paragraph in a story today in the Globe and Mail.
“Vancouver students may soon have to say goodbye to their two-month summer vacation. Over the next five years, the Vancouver School Board’s superintendent of schools, Steve Cardwell, plans to move the district to a year-round calendar.”
Later, he’s quoted as saying he expects three to six schools will have a balanced calendar by September 2012 or 2013. That sounds doable. But a district-wide change in five years??
The story prompted a tweet Tuesday morning from board chairwoman Patti Bacchus asking: “OK people, what do you think?”
Good question.
District communications manager Kurt Heinrich said discussions about year-round schooling are community driven, with the greatest interest emerging at Thunderbird elementary school.
February 14, 2012. 11:57 am • Section: Report Card
By Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun
jsteffenhagen@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Back to the Future
While conversations are ongoing in BC and around the world focused on innovation that are linked to larger system goals including a greater focus on personalized learning and giving kids greater ownership of their learning, these are not new objectives. Some practices worth highlighting are not only 21st century, or 20th century learning, in fact, some date back to the 19th century, and are an excellent fit for our current educational directions. At least, this is true of Montessori.
Maria Montessori, who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, developed teaching methods which are often described as part of the “21st century learning” phenomena. When I spend time in our Montessori School, Eagle Harbour Montessori(currently expanding from a K-3 to a K-5 school), I am always in awe of the self-regulation and keen focus these students have. When I walk into the room, students continue to work and there is a sense of calm and alert focus. Students are owning their learning, the conversations with primary students are very articulate; they talk about what they are doing, why they are doing it, and what they need to learn next.
What I have seen at Eagle Harbour is also supported in the recent book from Shannon Helfrich, Montessori Learning in the 21st Century: A Guide for Parents and Teachers which links Montessori teachings with the latest neuroscientific findings.
So just what does Montessori look like in our setting:
Principles Include (from the Eagle Harbour Montessori Program 2012):
January 10, 2012 by cultureofyes