It's a boy!

The stellar event of this month for us was the birth 9-10-02 of our new grandson, Dean Austin Wink. He and his parents, Bo and Lisa Wink, live in Woodland CA. I made a quick trip to meet and greet him and will return in early November.

The Saga of Big Books Continues

Last month some of you followed our evolving ideas on the relationship between theory and practice. Our example was the creation of big books in classes with students. You will see how this has been changed and is hopefully more useful for you. During CRA in Sacramento in November, we will use parts of this, and other parts will go into our book on passionate pedagogy, which we are writing now.

Jennifer Wolfe and Leslie Poynor

Last month several of you wrote in response to Jennifer Wolfe's reflection on Positive Discipline. We appreciate your comments. Leslie Poynor of the University of New Mexico wrote: "I just read your review/reflection of Positive Discipline by Jane Nelsen, and I felt EXACTLY the same way when I was teaching. Imagine this, I was in a school where the only discipline procedure was to paddle. Jane Nelsen gave me an alternative that simply was NOT available to me in my school! It is a must read!" lpoynor@unm.edu and jcwolfe@pacbell.net

We are wondering if any of you have read Gootman's (2001, 2/e) The Caring Teacher's Guide to Discipline: Helping Young Students Learn Self-Control, Responsibility, and Respect?

Arizona

This past month, I was fortunate to spend time in AZ with Alicia Manzo, a graduate student who is visiting various doctoral programs. I thoroughly enjoyed sharing ideas with dear colleagues at the University of Arizona and again with local teachers at the Tucson TAWL conference. Dawn and I presented on ways of taking one's own passion into the classroom to enrich teaching and learning. We asked the participants: What does the face of love look like in the classroom? Turns out that it is highly diverse. Love in the classroom is as diverse as the unique context of class.

Elizabeth Arnot-Hopffer

While in Tucson, I was thrilled to spend time with colleagues at Davis Bilingual Magnet School. Elizabeth Arnot-Hopffer has created some very interesting oral history projects. Contact her at: ejah@mindspring.com or call 520-225-1400.

Library Mapping

This activity will be developed further, however we wanted to post it, as we know that several of you are already using it and adapting it. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on this activity.

Constructivist and Constructionist

This narrative will interest most of you very little; and it will interest some of you a lot.

The Future

An editor asked us to write about the future. I assured him that we did not know the future, however this would certainly not stop us from writing about it. What is our vision for schools of the future? We believe that each of us needs to learn to articulate the vision clearly. If you have anything you would like to share with us, it would be great.

JAJance
The best book I read this month was her latest, Partners in Crime.

Elaine Garan
The other best book I have (re)read this month is Elaine's Resisting Reading Mandates: How to Triumph with the Truth.