The Little Class with the Big Personality is an honest account of the day-to-day challenges faced by the teacher of seven very different autistic children. The author's creative, accessible approach invites the reader to look beyond the stereotypes of mainstream schooling and explore the experience of teaching a lively group of children with autism. The illustrations, by one of the children, add a pupil's perspective of the diverse personalities and class activities described within the book. The author provides an insight into the hopes and concerns of parents as their children begin their educational journey. Some of the parents share their anxieties about handing over the care of their son or daughter to an unknown teacher in these early years, and their worries about placing them in the new and alien classroom environment, trusting that their child will be understood, accepted and liked. This book provides a professional and highly readable overview of an early-years class for children with autism for both educators and parents. Ultimately, it is a celebration of the personalities of children with autism.
Ignoring gold and silver this year will cost you more than all the dumb financial decisions you can make put together.Ruff's Little Book of Big Fortunes in Gold and Silver is not written for Wall Street, but for Main Street. It is a detailed guide to a once-in-a-lifetime chance for middle-class Americans to get rich investing in one of history's greatest bull markets. Ruff makes a usually arcane subject easy to understand, and even humorous. This bull market will dwarf even the 500% to 1700% profits his readers made in the metals in the 70s, and as usual, Ruff is out in front.As Yogi Berra said, It's d
Customers are key to your success. Make a big difference to them by taking care of the little things that matter - this book contains 50 tips and techniques to create a Buzz that delivers world-class customer service. In his punchy, accessible guide, well-known author David Freemantle offers simple, helpful advice on forming strong bonds with your clients. Create a Buzz for customer care throughout your company and inspire everyone to Make A Difference (perhaps even form a M.A.D. group!). Inject energy, vitality and warmth into your customer relations; create a Buzz and reap the rewards.
Teaching large classes is a fact of life for professors at many institutions. In addition to pedagogy, instructors of these courses must also be concerned with legal, ethical, financial, technological, personnel, and management issues. Virtually all introductory courses are large ones, as are the popular intermediate courses at large institutions. Typically, little or no training or instruction is provided to new professors about how to manage large classes successfully. This book is a valuable resource for any college teacher, adjunct or full-time, facing a large class. It will also be useful for college administrators who might want to issue it to teachers, especially adjuncts, assigned to large classes for the first time. A distillation of years of experience by the author?who started his college teaching career in 1969?in teaching large classes and in coaching other professors to do the same, this guide is concise and user-friendly. It employs teaching-as-acting as a common theme, with many practical examples covering all of the major aspects of organizing, managing, and teaching a large lecture course in any field. For more information and excerpts, visit www.largelecture.com
Americans like to believe that theirs is the land of opportunity, but the hard facts are that children born into poor families in the United States tend to stay poor and children born into wealthy families generally stay rich. Other countries have shown more success at lessening the effects of inequality on mobility—possibly by making public investments in education, health, and family well-being that offset the private advantages of the wealthy. What can the United States learn from these other countries about how to provide children from disadvantaged backgrounds an equal chance in life? Making comparisons across ten countries, Persistence, Privilege, and Parenting brings together a team of eminent international scholars to examine why advantage and disadvantage persist across generations. The book sheds light on how the social and economic mobility of children differs within and across countries and the impact private family resources, public policies, and social institutions may have on mobility. In what ways do parents pass advantage or disadvantage on to their children? Persistence, Privilege, and Parenting is an expansive exploration of the relationship between parental socioeconomic status and background and the outcomes of their grown children. The authors also address the impact of education and parental financial assistance on mobility. Contributors Miles Corak, Lori Curtis, and Shelley Phipps look at how family economic background influences the outcomes of adult children in the United States and Canada. They find that, despite many cultural similarities between the two countries, Canada has three times the rate of intergenerational mobility as the United States—possibly because Canada makes more public investments in its labor market, health care, and family programs. Jo Blanden and her colleagues explore a number of factors affecting how advantage is transmitted between parents and children in the United States and the United Kingdom, including education, occupation, marriage, and health. They find that despite the two nations having similar rates of intergenerational mobility and social inequality, lack of educational opportunity plays a greater role in limiting U.S. mobility, while the United Kingdom’s deeply rooted social class structure makes it difficult for the disadvantaged to transcend their circumstances. Jane Waldfogel and Elizabeth Washbrook examine cognitive and behavioral school readiness across income groups and find that pre-school age children in both the United States and Britain show substantial income-related gaps in school readiness—driven in part by poorly developed parenting skills among overburdened, low-income families. The authors suggest that the most encouraging policies focus on both school and home interventions, including such measures as increases in federal funding for Head Start programs in the United States, raising pre-school staff qualifications in Britain, and parenting programs in both countries. A significant step forward in the study of intergenerational mobility, Persistence, Privilege, and Parenting demonstrates that the transmission of advantage or disadvantage from one generation to the next varies widely from country to country. This striking finding is a particular cause for concern in the United States, where the persistence of disadvantage remains stubbornly high. But, it provides a reason to hope that by better understanding mobility across the generations abroad, we can find ways to do better at home.
Big Ideas for Little Kids includes everything a teacher, a parent, or a college student needs to teach philosophy to elementary school children from picture books. Written in a clear and accessible style, the book explains why it is important to allow young children access to philosophy during primary-school education. Wartenberg also gives advice on how to construct a "learner-centered" classroom, in which children discuss philosophical issues with one another as they respond to open-ended questions by saying whether they agree or disagree with what others have said.
"A Cathedral Inside, Odyssey of a Guyanese Family" tells the story of how Jack and Edna Walcott started a family in the nineteen twenties in British Guiana, and how the family managed to survive and thrive after the Mother died in 1948, leaving fifteen children to be raised by their father. The story tells how the children managed to overcome obstacles and become a family of over a hundred and fifty people, still holding on to the values taught by Edna Walcott, who died before most of them were born.
