Newsletter
ELVIS WAS IN THE BUILDING AND “SHOOK, RATTLED AND ROLLED” US IN MEMPHIS
Spring/Summer 2009 NEWSLETTER
The Board and Members of NALS send great thanks and appreciation to the faculty and staff of Barbara K. Lipman Early Childhood School and Research Institute, The Children’s School, and the Department of Education at the University of Memphis for hosting our annual conference there on April 2nd and 3rd.
The children sang and played us songs, the teachers and staff welcomed us to their rooms, Elvis thrilled us with song and story while we ate our peanut butter and banana sandwiches for breakfast, and we all basked in the warmth of southern hospitality bordered all round with flowering trees in early April, a huge treat for the northerners among us.
Among the many excellent presentations, conferees heard about a model lab school for this century, a model mentoring program that will give your school “value added” for your university, pumping up literacy through technology for middle schoolers, NAEYC accreditation in lab schools, differentiation, pre-service teacher training,and the role of play in the curriculum along with a bevy of other educational ideas and models.
After the presentations on Thursday, conferees had their choice of visiting sites in and around Memphis, including The National Civil Rights Museum, Graceland, and the rock and Roll Museum. Many of us ended our stay on Beale Street enjoying the fabulous music and those delectable Southern ribs. Thank you, Memphians, for a outstanding trip!
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
Spring 2009
Dear NALS Members,
I’m sure that I share thoughts similar to all of the previous NALS Presidents in the variety of ideas and emotions at work as this new term begins. Simultaneously, I am humbled by the honor, awed by the responsibility, and eager to contribute to the growth of this Association as it strives to further the goals of laboratory and university affiliated schools. Even in difficult economic times for colleges, universities, and schools NALS will continue to provide grant opportunities and avenues of communication to all who share the challenges and joys of working in a school connected to an institute of higher learning.
The NALS Executive Board usually meets monthly via a conference call and in person during the annual conferences and during most summers. While some of our time is occupied with the usual business of operating our Association, we also discuss what NALS can and should be accomplishing for its membership. Some of the topics we have discussed lately include establishing an academy for new (and experienced) laboratory school directors; being a “voice” for laboratory and university affiliated schools; creating a directory of all laboratory and university affiliated schools whether or not they are NALS members; increasing NALS membership; redesigning our website; reviewing our by-laws; exploring the possibility of moving to an electronic Journal; and enhancing yearly common projects for laboratory and university affiliated schools.
All of these topics are important and have the advantage that any one of them will add to the services NALS provides its membership. The one area we all agreed is critical and should be updated as soon as possible is our website. An association’s website is its public face and we are in need of a facelift. The Board is actively pursuing the renewal of our website and all of the information that it contains as well as some to be included. At this time we ask that you bear with us as we undertake this important project.
While the Executive Board is discussing these projects, we also understand that all of our goals and aspirations will not be accomplished without the assistance and support of those in laboratory and university affiliated schools. I am asking anyone who reads this to contact any Executive Board Member (all listed on the next page)with your thoughts, suggestions, or recommendations about any of our goals or about NALS in general. We are looking forward to hearing from you.
Although we had some elder statesmen resign from the NALS Executive Board (and they will be missed), there remain a number of dedicated individuals who have volunteered to serve the Association. In addition to contacting Board members with your ideas, we also encourage members to submit articles to the Journal, or columns to the Newsletter. We are constantly seeking people to become involved in NALS, either by volunteering for subcommittees or by considering joining the Executive Board. We also encourage you to take advantage of some of the grants and publications that are outlined in this newsletter and at our website, www.nals.net.
My best wishes as the school year draws to a conclusion, and I look forward to working with you.
Ron Tibbetts
rtibbetts@ric.edu
Executive Board Members
Contact information
| Sandra Brown-Turner: Barbara Lipman School at University of Memphis |
sbturn1@memphis.edu |
| Rose Campbell: Dept of Ed. Leadership, Florida A&M |
Rose.Campbell@famu.edu |
| Sharon Carver: Children’s School at Carnegie Mellon |
sc0e@andrew.cmu.edu (3rd character is a zero) |
| Patricia Diebold: Edinboro University |
dieboldp@edinboro.edu |
| Phillip Diller: Grace Luhrs School at Shippensburg University |
Pfdill@ship.edu |
| Donna Elder: National University |
delder1@roadrunner.com |
| Hal Knight: East Tennessee State University |
knighth@mail.etsu.edu |
| Wendell McConnaha: Falk School at the University of Pittsburgh |
wmcconn+@pitt.edu |
| Jay McGee: Burris Lab School at Ball State Un. |
Jmcgee@bsu.edu |
| Kathleen McKenna: |
Mckk77@gmail.com |
| Elizabeth Morley: Institute of Child Study at University of Toronto |
emorley@oise.utoronto.ca |
| Laurie Parkerson: Henry Barnard School at Rhode Island College |
lparkerson@ric.edu |
| Cathy Reid: Smith College Campus School at Smith College |
creid@smith.edu |
| Vincent Rizzo: Howard Gardner School |
vjr7121@msn.com |
| Mary Jane Taylor: |
mjt245@gmail.com |
| Glenn Thomas: Florida Atlantic University |
Gthomas@fau.edu |
| Ron Tibbetts: Henry Barnard School at Rhode Island College |
rtibbetts@ric.edu |
ROBERT COOTER, JR. DELIVERS KEYNOTE AT ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Dr. Robert B. Cooter, Jr, Editor of The Reading Teacher and Ursuline Endowed Chair and Professor at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky opened his Keynote Address, “Rousing Minds to Life: The Teacher Makes the Difference”, reminding us that the common denominator among all children learning to read is vocabulary. Dr. Cooter, whose research focuses on improvement of reading instruction for children living at the poverty level, gave us the startling figures about children of poverty who come to school with one quarter of the vocabulary that children from affluent families have already attained. “Disadvantaged children tend to speak in two to three word utterances at age five,” he explained, whereas children from more privileged environments are typically speaking in complete sentences of five words by the same time. He went on to explain the work he is doing with middle school students as that is where so many children become frustrated with their school skills and begin to make the decision to drop out.
He reminded us of the “rule of 5”: I speak in complete sentences, and went on to explain that, as teachers, we must reinforce children’s speaking and cognition by insuring that four out of every five words spoken in classrooms should come from the children. As he said, “Cognition leads writing. Writing leads reading.” Additionally, he went on to offer some inspiring ideas for action research in the areas of literacy.
As former “Literacy Czar” for Dallas Public Schools, designer of Memphis Striving Readers Program, a $16 million middle school literacy research project in Memphis City Schools funded by the U.S. Department of Education, and author of many popular texts on reading and literacy, Dr. Cooter brings a world of experience to back up his statistics. We are very grateful for his time, energy and stimulating ideas.
Lifetime Achievement Award Winner
The Board and Members of NALS send great thanks and appreciation to the faculty and staff of Barbara K. Lipman Early Childhood School and Research Institute, The Children’s School, and the Department of Education at the University of Memphis for hosting our annual conference there on April 2nd and 3rd. The children sang and played us songs, the teachers and staff welcomed us to their rooms, Elvis thrilled us with song and story while we ate our peanut butter and banana sandwiches for breakfast, and we all basked in the warmth of southern hospitality bordered all round with flowering trees in early April, a huge treat for the northerners among us. Among the many excellent presentations, conferees heard about a model lab school for this century, a model mentoring program that will give your school “value added” for your university, pumping up literacy through technology for middle schoolers, NAEYC accreditation in lab schools, differentiation, pre-service teacher training,and the role of play in the curriculum along with a bevy of other educational ideas and models. After the presentations on Thursday, conferees had their choice of visiting sites in and around Memphis, including The National Civil Rights Museum, Graceland, and the rock and Roll Museum. Many of us ended our stay on Beale Street enjoying the fabulous music and those delectable Southern ribs. Thank you, Memphians, for a outstanding trip!
CONGRATULATIONS TO NALS COLLEGIAL COLLABORATION AND MINI-GRANTS WINNERS
At the annual conference this year NALS Mini-Grant Awards for 2008-2009 were awarded to three outstanding program initiatives. Congratulations and continued success to all our winning educators!
Documentation Matters
Debbie Falasco & Kelly Zechmeister
Wimpfheimer Nursery School
Vassar College
“The proposed grant will support a new program within Wimpfheimer Nursery School focused on the use of photographic documentation. A fair amount of research has been done in relation to the use of documentation panels within the nursery school setting, and most sources conclude a positive outcome from the presence of such panels. Specific research from the Reggio Emilia schools in northern Italy cites the importance of photographs containing the children within a class in the learning process.
Through the course of the year, a qualitative study will be conducted to determine the amount of impact these photographs have on recalling information on key events."
Theatre Artist in Residence for Early Childhood Enhancement
Dr. Sharon M. Carver & Maggie Lane Rosenblum
Children’s School
Carnegie Mellon University
“The early childhood literature emphasizes the importance of dramatic play for enhancing all domains of development, and there is substantial precedent for theatre experiences in elementary school and beyond. The goal of this project is to strengthen the yearly whole-school arts emphasis and associated thematic unit by hiring a Theatre Artist in Residence at the Children’s School during the next academic year. The Theatre Artist in Residence will involve undergraduate drama students in the process to strengthen both their drama training and their preparation for working with educators and students in the future. Though this project is not a formal experiment, the plan is to document both the design process and the resulting classroom experiences via notes, lesson and unit plans, classroom newsletters, photographs, and video recordings.”
Young Children Learning Through and With Art
Christine Mulcahey, Ph.D.
Henry Barnard Laboratory School
"This mini-grant proposal is to obtain funding for copyright permissions for photographs of exemplary artists’ works to be published in a book tentatively titled Young Children Learning through and with Art, which is in the production phase at Teachers College Press, a non-profit publisher of educational books. The book focuses on introducing young children to exemplary artworks from a variety of time periods and cultures. There are several photos of children looking at artworks for which there are copyright fees that the author must pay prior to using the photos. Since the book’s main premise is how to introduce young children to artworks, it is necessary to show the artworks and the children interacting with them."
Professional Development Opportunity
Here’s a suggestion for all of you who serve on professional development planning committees or on school calendar committees. Use some of the days between April 8 – 10, 2010 as professional development days. That might make it easier for people to attend the NALS Annual Conference in Muncie, Indiana.
Some of our colleges of education are so large that they must send students to “partnership” schools in addition to the laboratory school. Ask the teachers at the partnership schools to attend the Annual Conference.
Perhaps your Dean might consider assisting some partnership schoolteachers to attend the NALS Conference.
Ron Tibbetts
LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Dear NALS Members:
By the time you receive this, our electronic Newsletter, it will be June and school will have only a few weeks remaining for the year. You can all take a long deep sigh and know that you accomplished much during the year. Our Board feels the same. However, as Ron Tibbetts discusses in his “Aspirations for the Association,” we still have many ambitions for NALS, and hope that you will contact us with ideas for more that we can do to support you in all your important work.
During the weeks that follow, I along with most of our Board members will spend some time making contacts to school directors we have identified as Laboratory Schools, and or schools affiliated with universities and colleges who may not be aware of our Association and may ask you to assist us. NALS understands and supports the intricate parts of university affiliations and would like to be out there working to serve and support yours and other schools.
We held a great “Shake Rattle and Roll” conference in Memphis where our co-hosts Sandra Brown Turner and Susan Copland treated over 70 attendees, to some special southern hospitality including visits to our host laboratory schools and a surprise guest visit by Elvis. Even without any “magic dust,” we encountered two exemplary educational environments where the love for learning sparkled in the eyes of their children and educators. And of course, educators from the West Coast to up and down the East Coast shared the latest and greatest in educational practice, research and theory. Thanks to you all!
Soon, you will receive an email from April Blakely, Instructor and Revisioning Coordinator at the University School, East Tennessee State University requesting that you complete a survey constructed by April for her doctoral project entitled, “Campus Laboratory Schools in the 21st Century”. We encourage you to take the time to answer the survey and return it to her as soon as possible. We are confident that the results she gathers will benefit our Association, and member schools will be able to access information that is learned from this data.
I look forward to talking with you and working with you. In the meantime, watch for our newly designed website. If during the process of reconstructing it you need information that isn’t provided, I welcome your email or phone call.
My best,
Patricia Diebold,
NALS, Executive Director
dieboldp@edinboro.edu