A New Definition of Education

In the foreword of the impactful new book, From Teaching to Thinking, Pam Oken-Wright asks some provocative questions and offers much food-for-thought:

“What is it to be fully human? This is the existential question Ann Pelo and Margie Carter place dead-center in a conversation (between each other and with us) about education in this book. Where better to start to think about what education should be, and about what teachers and children have the right to be? It is the compass-question for those of us who guide and support teachers, both the beginning and the purpose...

Enter Pelo and Carter, who, with this book, address pedagogical leaders—principals, pedagogical coaches, and others charged with supporting teachers to pursue that ‘something more’: to create conditions for teaching that are consistent with the environment we want teachers to create for children...

Of course, this cannot happen through more mandates, more requirements, and frequent external evaluation. But how to support teachers in the way we want them to support children? How does a pedagogical leader help teachers become all they can be? This is different from supervising teachers to make sure they give the right assessment at the right time or meet district benchmarks. The thinking teacher needs a thinking pedagogical companion...

Pelo and Carter bring forth culture, emotion, and imagination as central to the education of humans. This begs a new definition of 'education,' doesn’t it? No longer can we separate the mind from the heart in the classroom. And what wonders occur when we don’t!”

For more information about Exchange's magazine, books, and other products pertaining to ECE, go to www.ccie.com.

© 2005 Child Care Information Exchange - All Rights Reserved | Contact Us | Return to Site