Thursday, June 25, 2009

Summer Reading

Adventures in Peacemaking
Adventures in Peacemaking includes hundreds of hands-on, engaging activities designed to meet the unique needs of after-school programs, camps and recreation centers. The activities teach the skills of creative conflict resolution to school-age children through games, cooperative team challenges, drama, crafts, music and even cooking. The guide includes easy-to-implement strategies and tips for providers to both reduce conflict in their programs and to intervene effectively when conflict does occur. Parent Connection Handouts are also available for purchase through Educators for Social Responsibility.
Creative Conflict Resolution
This classic conflict resolution guide offers more than 20 proven conflict-resolution techniques. Examples and more than 200 classroom-tested activities and games provide constructive responses to your students' problem behaviors.
Becoming Educated and Habits of Mind by Deborah Meier
1. Evidence: How do we know what's true and false? What evidence counts? How sure can we be? What makes it credible to us?
2. Viewpoint: How else might this look if we stepped into other shoes? If we were looking at it from a different direction? If we had a different history or expectations?
3. Connections/Cause and Effect: Is there a pattern? Have we seen something like this before? What are the possible consequences?
4. Conjecture: Could it have been otherwise? Supposing that? What if?
5. Relevance: Does it matter? Who cares?
Remember: The Journey to School Integration by Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison has collected a treasure chest of archival photographs that depict the historical events surrounding school desegregation. These unforgettable images serve as the inspiration for Ms. Morrison"s text--a fictional account of the dialogue and emotions of the children who lived during the era of "separate but equal" schooling. Remember is a unique pictorial and narrative journey that introduces children to a watershed period in American history and its relevance to us today. Remember will be published on the 50th anniversary of the groundbreaking Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision ending legal school segregation, handed down on May 17, 1954.