Over a period of 13 years, I taught a class in photography to high school students, using a taxonomy I developed based on my own understanding of what makes for excellence in photography. Five of the elements of this taxonomy are explained and illustrated by photographs taken by my students; I submit these as evidence of my success in this…

The paper outlines the functioning of Hungarian weekend schools in the United Kingdom, which are key institutions in emerging diaspora communities. The paper interprets Hungarian weekend schools in two paradigms: it approaches them as diaspora institutions, and also as Anglo-Saxon supplementary schools. One of the paper's main conclusions is that,…

Bibliotherapy is an educational approach that attempts to engage learners in meaningful discussions about relevant, compelling, and complex issues that they confront in their lives. Bibliotherapy begins with reading and reflecting on stories that can draw participants into a process of reflection, in ways that are user friendly and…

Tamim is an organization designed as a school network, much like those found in the charter school sector, among innovative public schools, and in smaller numbers in other corners of the private school sector. Tamim is built on the notion of expanding existing prekindergarten programs associated with local Chabad Jewish centers into full…

Brentwood School is an independent K-12 coed day school with two campuses, located four blocks apart, in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Brentwood's West Campus (Brentwood Lower School) includes grades K-5 with 266 students. It has a student/teacher ratio of 7:1 in kindergarten and 11:1 in first through fifth grade and is 39% students…

The development of non-Orthodox Jewish day schools in Los Angeles in the 1970s to 1990s can be attributed to a combination of factors, including the city's geography, the deterioration of public education, court-ordered busing that began in the 1970s, and strong rabbinic personalities. Yet, as elementary day schools proliferated throughout the…

In this article, the authors describe and discuss applications of the Group-Level Assessment/Understanding (GLA/GLU) process, an innovative participatory action research methodology. The authors first describe the GLA/GLU application in the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI) and the creation of an MTEI interpretive community to deeply…

Outcomes in the inter- and intra-personal realms are central to the goals of Jewish education, yet educators often struggle to address them in a meaningful way. In this article, we describe what we learned from facilitating an online community of practice for congregational school leaders and day school educators seeking to enhance their work in…

Stories of Indigenous children forced to leave their communities to attend residential schools have haunted Canadians in recent years. Yet most Indigenous children in Canada attended "Indian day schools," and later public schools, near their home communities. Although church and government officials often kept detailed administrative…

A state's department of education requested assistance from the Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes (CEELO) in developing a tool to assist with cross walking the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Math and English Language Arts with their state's Kindergarten 1/2 day program CCSS Pacing Guide Grade Level Standards to transition with the…

In the context of government decentralisation and integration of services, over the last 15 years Sweden has been developing an all-day school based on inter-professional teamworking and adopting a holistic approach to working with children. The article describes these recent educational reforms in Sweden, which have sought to re-structure the…

In a perfect world, diversity would abound in people's daily lives, promoting friendships across racial, ethnic, and religious lines. When that is not possible and students learn in a more segregated setting, wikis provide a tool to reach beyond the school walls, find a diverse audience, and create meaningful discourse. This article narrates an…

The mysteries of mathematics are not easily revealed. Much of present day school mathematics is the product of years, sometimes centuries, of inquiring, wrestling and discovering by men of the highest intellect. The number "i" (designation for the square root of -1) is no exception. This article presents a lesson on the need for "i".

During the author's first year of teaching, she connected with her students and their families but hardly talked with anyone outside her grade level, which is kindergarten. As she started her second year of teaching, she reached out to communicate with other professionals. She also became a part of the Afterschool Matters Practitioner Research…

This article describes thinking routines as tools to guide and support young children's thinking. These learning strategies, developed by Harvard University's Project Zero Classroom, actively engage students in constructing meaning while also understanding their own thinking process. The authors discuss how thinking routines can be used in both…