<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: SEEING OUR CHILDREN
Review: FROM ANOTHER ANGLE is for teachers and parents--brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles--for any person who knows and loves a child--for anyone invested in helping that child reach his or her full potential as an ethical, creative, intellectual, spiritual, physical being. Pat Carini's compassionate vision of how we might begin to understand and teach our children shines through this collection on the Prospect School and the process of "Descriptive Review."Margaret Himley has done an exceptional job of editing the volume, juxtaposing detailed descriptions of children and their learning styles with illuminating essays on the guiding philosophies of Prospect's processes. The Descriptive Review of a Child is based on phenomenology, on the belief that all possible facets of human experience are valuable and important, worthy of inquiry and respectful contemplation. As Margaret Himley says, "Through description the person becomes more visible and real education begins, and it is, finally, this *taproot value of the person* that characterizes Prospect's particular ethical stance and that gives meaning to the descriptive processes. It is the ethical insistence on the hard work necessary to accord others--*all others*--the status of person, with all the complexity, capability, range of emotions and desires, and possibilities that we know ourselves to have." Indeed, the actual Descriptive Reviews of Three Children--Gabriel, Victoria, and Nile--are at the heart of this remarable volume. Pat Carini and her Prospect colleagues believe curiosity is the core of all passionate learning. Students who are given the opportunity to pursue their natural interests are more inclined to take risks, to challenge themselves to work well beyond the expectations for their ages and grade levels.".... This thoughtful, cyclical work is the core of Prospect processes, a means of discovery that is neither singular nor static. In her lucid essay on the value of "Oral Inquiry," Margaret Himley reminds us that language must remain fluid, that we must resist the tendency of words to "fix" ideas in our minds or to "explain" things in terms too reductive to be helpful. By participating in dialogues with others, by pooling information, we keep ourselves alert and flexible, willing to interrogate our own biases and perceptions, able to see and celebrate the unique spirits and the limitless potential of our children, our parents, our friends, ourselves. The joyful work of description is an explosive affirmation of life itself, the never-ending miracle of creation. For twenty-six years, the work of Pat Carini and her colleagues at the Prospect School in North Bennington, Vermont transformed the lives of children and their families. Though the school closed in 1991 when the fragile financial base finally gave way, the work at Prospect continues, and the bold vision of Pat Carini continues to fire the imaginations of all who have ears to hear, voices to describe and encourage, hands to help, and minds to remain forever open and alive and curious. We cannot love our children unless we know them; we cannot nuture their unique interests and gifts unless we allow ourselves to watch them with absolute attention and wonder. Teachers and parents who visit the Prospect School, who read Carini's and Himley's work, who embrace the difficult and rewarding endeavor of Descriptive Review, will be forever changed. There is great hope in this--for all of us.
<< 1 >>
| 
