Journal articles on the topic 'Ontario Teacher's Association'

A survey was conducted to describe professional characteristics of instructors teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) to adults in non-credit programs in Ontario. This province-wide survey was the first data-gathering phase in a three-phase project leading to the establishment of a protocol and uniform standards for the certification of instructors teaching non-credit Adult ESL in Ontario. The study was initiated by the Teachers of ESL Association of Ontario (TESL Ontario) and conducted in collaboration with the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training. Findings provided detailed descriptions of professional characteristics of1,196 respondents, including their age and gender, educational backgrounds and professional qualifications, teaching experience, employment, conditions of employments, and opportunities for professional development. Professional issues of concern to the instructors and their recommendations for addressing these issues were also summarized.

Lois Burdett and Helen Edmonds teach grades 2 and 3 in Stratford, Ontario. The curriculum requires that students in those grades be introduced to their community. Burdett and Edmonds realized that in Stratford where a festival of Shakespearean plays is mounted annually, where streets are named after characters in those plays, where the schools where they teach are called “Hamlet” and “Avon,” an introduction to the community is necessarily an introduction to Shakespeare. Accordingly, the teachers asked their students to research the life and times of Shakespeare. So surprised were they at the children’s interest in the playwright and his work that they decided to expand the unit. Their account of this project, “Shakespeare and the grade 2 and 3 student,” appeared in the Federation of Women Teachers’ Associations of Ontario Newsletter (April/ May 1987).

Objetiva investigar a abordagem de números binários, a nível escolar, em diretrizes curriculares de Matemática e de Computação. Para tal, recorre à Teoria Antropológico do Didático como elemento teórico e, mais especificamente, a praxeologia como ferramenta de pesquisa. Não identifica abordagem de números binários em diretrizes curriculares internacionais de Matemática: Ontario (2005, 2007). No entanto, identifica abordagem de números binários em diretrizes curriculares internacionais de Computação: Ontario (2008, 2009) e Computer Science Teachers Association (2011). Os números binários configuram-se como tema ou setor de estudo necessário para a compreensão de outros saberes, próprio, da Computação. Identificamos dezesseis tipos de tarefas, duas técnicas e princípios de tecnologia nessas diretrizes curriculares internacionais de Computação.

AbstractIntroduction:In Ontario, Canada, Emergency Medical Care Assistants (EMCAs) have many opportunities for continuing education. However, little is known about how EMCAs learn.Objectives:The intent of this study was to explore the distribution of learning styles, preferences for major learning environment characteristics, and the associations between these two factors among the EMCA population in Ontario, Canada.Methods:Following review of the literature, a 32-item survey of learning environment characteristics was constructed to measure the respondents' preferences. Using a random number generator, 386 EMCAs were selected for participation. Each received: a) an explanatory cover letter; b) a copy of the Kolb Learning Style Inventory (LSI) questionnaire; c) a second questionnaire consisting of learning environment characteristics; and d) a stamped, return addressed envelope. Completed surveys were scored to determine the respondent's Learning Style. The LSI and Learning Environment survey results were entered into a data base and subjected to Dual Scaling analysis in order to 1) Identify the distribution of learning styles; and 2) Explore associations between styles and environmental characteristics.Results:A total of 75 completed surveys were returned, each of the four styles of learning (Converger; Diverger; Assimilator; and Accommodator) were identified in the sample. Dual Scaling analysis indicated a noteworthy association (R(jt) correlation >0.300) between learning style and 10 of the 32 environmental characteristics. The data describe the usefulness of each of the learning styles.Accommodators believed courses with a strong emphasis on practical applications and working in groups to be very useful, but were less interested in courses with a strong emphasis on theory. Assimilators felt lectures and courses with a strong emphasis on theory very useful, but were less interested in providing input into course objectives. Divergers found that a lot of verbal explanation is useful, but were less interested in working with teachers who act as coaches. Convergers believed that working with teachers who act as coaches is useful. They also preferred courses with a strong emphasis on practical applications, but were less interested in courses with a strong emphasis on theory.Conclusion:The findings in this study, provide some additional insight into the connections between learning style and elements of the learning environment, and their application may contribute to operationalizing learning theory.

This paper draws on data collected as part of a study of the discourses of teacher professionalism amongst union active teachers in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Ontario. Interviews revealed a triad of influences on the professionalism discourses of participants: engagement in teacher associations, the larger policy environment, and teacher agency. The manner in which this triad played out in each case, however, was unique to the particular political and organizational contexts framing the spaces in which such discourses were created. Using cross-case analysis, this paper specifically highlights the complex and contextualized nature of teachers’ conceptions of professionalism, paying particular attention to the nuanced enabling and limiting conditions identified between the cases.

A most successful teaching strategy has been developed in my gifted/talented classes. Students question their peers about classwork, homework problems or aspects of the lesson, instead of doing the explaining themselves. Using the Students Questioning Students method (SOS), students stimulate their class-mates to think. Since students are involved in questioning, they become more attentive listeners to other students and to me during the lesson. Often the more capable students ask questions which reflect a high level of thinking skills. The students are taught strategies for asking questions and strategies for providing positive and specific feedback to their peers. With SQS, students have a piece of the action in learning. Their personalities emerge and the process is great fun! The students report that they wished SQS were used in all their classes at The Bronx High School of Science. SQS was a segment of the American Federation of Teachers program, “Teaching Children to Think,” in the series, “Inside Your Schools,” hosted by Steve Alien and shown on national TV in February, 1986. The entire series of programs for 1985–1986 was shown in the New York City area on educational TV in May, 1986. The presentation, which would be suitable for teachers of grades 7 through 12, has been given to the following professional organizations: Alliance for Invitational Education Association of Mathematics Teachers of New York State National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Summer Mathematics and Science Institute, Lehman College Sixth World Conference on Gifted and Talented Children The Ontario Association for Mathematics Education.

COVID-19 significantly impacted the delivery of education with widespread disruptions, particularly disadvantaging racialized and low-income families. Our research project explored how community-based programming can be adapted and mobilized to mitigate opportunity and achievement gaps for Black, Indigenous, people of colour (BIPOC), and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. The project as a case study examined an afternoon and weekend supplementary academic program called the Community School Initiative (CSI), offered from September 2020 to May 2021 to members of the Jane and Finch community in Toronto, Canada at a subsidized cost. CSI is a partnership between the non-profit organization Youth Association for Academics, Athletics, and Character Education (YAAACE) and the for-profit enterprise Spirit of Math. It delivers a structured math curriculum to students in grades two to eight aged 8 to 14 years, old supported by a team of caring adults including parents, coaches, and Ontario certified teachers. The efficacy and outcomes of the CSI was assessed through surveys with parents (n=33), students (n=33), and teachers (n=4), and a focus group with seven teachers delivering the curriculum in the CSI. We also discuss the significance of how the research was conducted in the wake of COVID-19. Hence, this article is about the findings from the data, but just as much about the community-driven approach to how the research was conducted, by the community and for the community.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of leaders on knowledge creation and mobilization. Design/methodology/approach – This mixed methods study included three high-performing districts based on provincial assessment results and socio-economic factors. Interviews and questionnaires were used to gather data from 53 participants including: 11 principals, 11 teacher leaders, 26 teachers, and five system leaders. Findings – The findings of the study emphasized the importance of leaders supporting knowledge creation and mobilization processes through practices such as engaging school-based knowledge influencers and fostering cultures of trust and risk taking. The author defined knowledge influencers as leaders, formal or informal, who have access to knowledge creating groups at the local and system level. These leaders influenced knowledge mobilization at different levels of the district. Research limitations/implications – A research limitation of this study was present based on the sole use of high-performing districts and schools. Participation was determined via comparisons of provincial assessment results (Ontario, Canada) and socio-economic status (SES) factors. Although causal effects are cautioned, districts and schools from various SES communities (high, medium, low) were chosen to support broad generalizations and associations. Practical implications – This study provided pragmatic considerations and recommendations for system and school leaders, those charged with increasing student achievement (e.g. use of knowledge influencers and an expanded array of data use while creating knowledge). Originality/value – A knowledge creation model was developed by the author based on a synthesis of the findings. The model and study will be of interest to those wishing to further implement or study the creation and mobilization of knowledge within organizations.

Abstract Background The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends developmental screening at multiple visits using both a general developmental tool and an autism spectrum disorder (ASD)-specific tool. The Canadian Paediatric Society recommends screening at a single visit at 18 months. There is no consensus on which tool is best suited for one-time screening. The Infant Toddler Checklist (ITC) identifies children who are at risk for communication impairment, may detect ASD, and may be a useful screening tool at the 18-month visit. Objectives To examine the screening test accuracy of the ITC at the 18-month visit to predict school readiness at kindergarten age. Design/Methods This prospective cohort study included children who attended primary care health supervision visits in Toronto, Canada. Parents completed the ITC at the 18-month visit and teachers completed the Early Development Instrument (EDI - a population-level measure of school readiness in kindergarten) at 4-6 years. An ITC screen is positive if there is concern for expressive speech delay (speech composite below the 10th percentile) and/or other communication delay (social composite, symbolic composite or the total score below the 10th percentile). Children were considered overall vulnerable on the EDI if at least one of five domains was below the 10th percentile of the Ontario population: language and cognitive development; physical health and well-being; social competence; emotional maturity; communication skills and general knowledge. We calculated screening test properties with 95% confidence intervals (CIs), using EDI vulnerability as the criterion measure. We used multivariable regression models to examine the association between the ITC and EDI domains. Results Of 293 children, 30 (10%) had a positive ITC. At follow-up, 54 (18%) children had a teacher-reported EDI vulnerability. The specificity (range, 87%-96%) and negative predictive value (range, 83%-95%) for the ITC were high; false positive rate was low (range, 4%-13%); sensitivity was low (range, 11%-37%). A positive ITC was associated with a lower score in EDI language and cognitive development (b= -0.62, 95% CI: -1.25, -0.18; P=0.046) and EDI communication skills and general knowledge (b= -1.08, 95% CI: -2.10, -0.17; P=0.036). We found no evidence of an association between ITC and EDI vulnerability. Conclusion The ITC at 18 months had high specificity (87%-96%) suggesting that most children with a negative ITC will demonstrate school readiness at 4-6 years. False positive rates were low, minimizing over-diagnosis. The ITC, with its focus on speech and language, communication disorders and ASD, may be a candidate for screening at the 18-month visit.

This paper will critically analyze the degree to which the Ontario government, led by then Premier Mike Harris, embarked on a neoliberal agenda that led to a crisis in Ontario’s educational system. The period from 1995-2000 was one of the most contentious in Ontario’s educational history, and two pieces of legislation, The College of Teachers Act (Bill 31) and the Education Quality Improvement Act (Bill 160), pitted teacher unions, in particular, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA), against the Harris government. Bill 160 led to a ten-day protest by teachers across Ontario, which signaled a dramatic shift in teacher and state relations that marked a crisis period in Ontario’s educational sector.

For most of a century, female elementary teachers in Ontario's public schools were represented professionally by the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario (FWTAO), while their male counterparts were members of a separate organization, the Ontario Public School Men Teachers' Federation. Increasingly, a minority of women teachers sought the right to join the male body, which dropped "Men" from its official name in 1982. One of these, Margaret Tomen, launched both a legal and a human rights case to overturn regulations which forbade her from leaving FWTAO. The court proceedings upheld the status quo, but the human rights appeal resulted in victory for Ms. Tomen. By this time, the two rival federations had agreed to unite, and in 1998, the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario was founded. The underlying issue of how best to define and achieve equality for women was left unresolved, however - a challenge for subsequent generations.

AbstractBy 1874, the interdenominational Protestant Sunday school community in Ontario was wellestablished, with over 4,000 schools and 34,000 teachers connected through the SabbathSchool Association of Canada. From private prayer to centralized normal schools with qualifyingexaminations, various approaches to teacher education were debated and practiced withinthe Sunday school community. This paper traces the increasingly formal training that Sundayschool teachers underwent over the last half of the nineteenth century. This analysis highlightshow Sunday schools across Ontario continued to be directed by their workers at the locallevel, even as there was increasing centralization and standardization over the last half of thenineteenth century. It also suggests that the adult education provided within this communityextended well beyond the Sunday school classroom.RésuméEn 1874, le réseau des écoles du dimanche interconfessionnelles protestantes étaient bien établiesen Ontario avec plus de 4 000 écoles et 34 000 enseignants réunis au sein de la SabbathSchool Association of Canada. De la prière en privé aux examens de qualification des écolesnormales centralisées, diverses approches de formation en enseignement étaient discutées etmises en pratique dans la communauté des écoles du dimanche. Cet article retrace la formationde plus en plus standardisée dispensée aux enseignants des écoles du dimanche durant la secondemoitié du 19e siècle. Notre analyse souligne que les écoles du dimanche étaient toujoursdirigées par des travailleurs locaux, malgré les processus de standardisation et de centralisationdurant cette période. Nous affirmons également que l’éducation aux adultes dispensée danscette communauté continuait bien au-delà de la salle de classe de l’école du dimanche

IntroductionResearch to date has established that the COVID-19 pandemic has not impacted everyone equitably. Whether this unequitable impact was seen educationally with regards to educator reported barriers to distance learning, concerns and mental health is less clear. ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to explore the association between the neighbourhood composition of the school and kindergarten educator-reported barriers and concerns regarding children's learning during the first wave of COVID-19 related school closures in Ontario, Canada. MethodsIn the spring of 2020, we collected data from Ontario kindergarten educators (n = 2569; 74.2% kindergarten teachers, 25.8% early childhood educators; 97.6% female) using an online survey asking them about their experiences and challenges with online learning during the first round of school closures. We linked the educator responses to 2016 Canadian Census variables based on schools' postal codes. Bivariate correlations and Poisson regression analyses were used to determine if there was an association between neighbourhood composition and educator mental health, and the number of barriers and concerns reported by kindergarten educators. ResultsThere were no significant findings with educator mental health and school neighbourhood characteristics. Educators who taught at schools in neighbourhoods with lower median income reported a greater number of barriers to online learning (e.g., parents/guardians not submitting assignments/providing updates on their child's learning) and concerns regarding the return to school in the fall of 2020 (e.g., students' readjustment to routines). There were no significant associations with educator reported barriers or concerns and any of the other Census neighbourhood variables (proportion of lone parent families, average household size, proportion of population that do no speak official language, proportion of population that are recent immigrants, or proportion of population ages 0-4). ConclusionsOverall, our study suggests that the neighbourhood composition of the children's school location did not exacerbate the potential negative learning experiences of kindergarten students and educators during the COVID-19 pandemic, although we did find that educators teaching in schools in lower-SES neighbourhoods reported more barriers to online learning during this time. Taken together, our study suggests that remediation efforts should be focused on individual kindergarten children and their families as opposed to school location.

ObjectivesThe COVID-19 pandemic has not impacted everyone equitably, including children (e.g., Li et al., 2021). The objective of this study was to explore the association between school neighbourhood composition and kindergarten educator-reported barriers and concerns regarding children’s learning during the first wave of COVID-19 related school closures in Ontario, Canada. ApproachIn the spring of 2020, we collected data from Ontario kindergarten educators in an online survey on their experiences and challenges with online learning during the first round of school closures. We asked educators whether they experienced a number of barriers to learning and concerns about returning to school in the Fall. We linked the educator responses to 2016 Canadian Census variables based on the school postal code. Poisson regression analyses were used to determine if there was an association between neighbourhood composition and the number of barriers and concerns reported by kindergarten educators. ResultsEducators (n = 2569; 74.2% kindergarten teachers, 25.8% early childhood educators; 97.6% female) who taught at schools in neighbourhoods with lower median income reported a greater number of barriers to online learning (e.g., students' lack of access to electronic devices) and concerns regarding the return to school in the fall of 2020 (e.g., concerned about differences in how much students learned during the school closures). Educators also reported a greater number of concerns regarding the return to the classroom in neighbourhoods with a greater proportion of single-parent families. ConclusionOur study confirms that the educational impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic may not have been felt equitably even by kindergarten children, as educators teaching in schools in lower SES neighbourhoods reported both more barriers to online learning, and more concerns about returning to the classroom in September 2020.

This study compared two groups of education students. One group consisted of students in a consecutive program, and the other consisted of students in a concurrent program. A survey that collected a sample of responses from 88 students in an Ontario faculty of education in the 1995-1996 academic year was analyzed quantitatively. The findings, contrary to some previous claims and present assumptions that concurrent students are better prepared than consecutive students, suggest that the combined effects of classroom instruction and practicum are sufficient to enable students enrolled in a consecutive program to develop feelings of preparedness to teach equivalent to those of the concurrent students. The results also suggest no significant difference in the number of self-reported classroom management and discipline problems encountered by the two groups during their practicum. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate a positive association between student teachers' feelings of preparedness to teach and their reported practicum classroom management experiences.

IntroductionChildren with special educational needs (SEN) often struggle academically. Previous studies found that children’s abilities in kindergarten are predictive of their future SEN status. It is currently unknown whether these predictors differ in children with and without an early identification of a special need in kindergarten (SN-K). Objectives and ApproachWe investigated early predictors of SEN in Grade 3, in a cohort of Ontario children, with and without SN-K (1,824 and 62,842, respectively), who attended kindergarten between 2003/04 and 2005/06. Early Development Instrument data, a teacher-completed checklist of children’s development, were linked to Grade 3 standardized reading, writing, and mathematics test scores. Controlling for children’s demographics, multivariate binary logistic regressions were conducted examining the association between children’s developmental outcomes, their functional impairments, the necessity for further assessment (all reported by their kindergarten teacher) and their SEN status in Grade 3. ResultsOverall, 69.8% of children with SN-K had SEN in Grade 3, while 11.6% of children without SN-K had SEN. Our analyses revealed that, for children with SN-K, having a functional impairment was the most significant predictor of having SEN in Grade 3 (Odds Ratio=3.61, 2.59-5.02 95% confidence interval). For children without SN-K, teachers reporting the need for further assessment was the strongest predictor of having SEN in Grade 3 in children without SN-K (Odds Ratio=2.70, 2.49-2.93). Conclusion / ImplicationsEarly predictors of SEN in Grade 3 differ for children who receive an early identification (SN-K) compared to those who don’t. How children with SN-K function in a classroom is the best predictor of SEN in Grade 3, while teachers’ observation that a child needs further assessment is the strongest predictor of SEN in Grade 3 for those without SN-K. Addressing these areas early on may help reduce the number of children with SEN in later grades and may positively impact their future academic success.

The Canadian History of Education Association awarded its biennial publication prizes at its 2022 conference held in Victoria, British Columbia from October 13th to 15th. The awards cover the period 2018–2020 and 2020–2022. L’Association canadienne d’histoire de l’éducation a décerné ses prix bisannuels lors de son congrès tenu à Victoria, Colombie-Britannique, du 13 au 15 octobre 2022. Ces récompenses couvrent les années 2018–2020 et 2020–2022. Meilleur ouvrage ou anthologie en langue française / Best French-language book or anthology, 2020Bousquet, Marie-Pierre et Karl Hele. La blessure qui dormait à poings fermés : L’héritage des pensionnats autochtones au Québec. Montréal : Recherches amérindiennes au Québec, 2019. Meilleur ouvrage ou anthologie en langue française / Best French-language book or anthology, 2022Larochelle, Catherine. L’école du racisme : La construction de l’altérité à l’école québécois. Montréal : Les presses de l’Université de Montreal, 2021. Best English-language book or anthology / Meilleur ouvrage ou anthologie en anglais, 2020Gidney, Catherine. Captive Audience: How Corporations Invaded Our Schools. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2019. Best English-language book or anthology / Meilleur ouvrage ou anthologie en anglais, 2022Aladejebi, Funké. Schooling the System: A History of Black Women Teachers. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021. Mason, Raymond, Theodore Christou, and Jackson Pind. Spirit of the Grassroots People: Seeking Justice for Indigenous Survivors of Canada’s Colonial Education System. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020. Meilleur article ou chapitre inédit en langue française n’a pas été attribué 2018–2022. / Best French-language article or original chapter was not awarded 2018–2022. Best English-language article or original chapter / Meilleur article ou chapiter inédit en langue anglaise, 2020Clark, Penney. “‘The Most Just of All Educational Legislation’: Provision of Free Textbooks in the Province of Ontario, 1846–1967.” Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d’études canadiennes 53, no. 2 (Spring 2019): 392–422. Best English-language article or original chapter / Meilleur article ou chapitre inédit en langue anglaise, 2022Carleton, Sean. “‘The Children Show Unmistakable Signs of Indian Blood’: Indigenous Children Attending Public Schools in British Columbia, 1872–1925.” History of Education 50, no. 3 (2021): 313–337. Honourable Mention: English-language article or original chapter / Mention honorable pour article ou chapiter en langue anglaise, 2022Cross, Natalie and Thomas Peace. “‘My Own Old English Friends’: Networking Anglican Settler Colonialism at the Shingwauk Home, Huron College, and Western University.” Historical Studies in Education/Revue d’histoire de l’éducation 33, no. 1 (Spring 2021): 22–49. Cathy James Memorial Dissertation Prize / Le Prix commémoratif Cathy James, 2020 Lemieux, Olivier. « L’histoire à l’école, matière à débats...Analyse des sources de controverses entoutant les réformes de programmes d’histoire du Québec au secondaire (1961–2013). » Thèse de doctorat. Université Laval, 2019. Cathy James Memorial Dissertation Prize / Le Prix commémoratif Cathy James, 2022 Pind, Jackson. “Indian Day Schools in Michi Saagiig Anishinaabeg Territory, 1899–1978.” Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Queen’s University, 2021. Distinguished Contribution Prize / Prix pour une contribution exceptionnelle At its 2010 biennial conference, the CHEA/ACHÉ established the Distinguished Contribution Award to be presented to individuals “who have made a distinguished contribution to scholarship in the history of education over their careers and/or to the work of CHEA/ACHÉ.” The 2022 recipient of the award is Elizabeth Smyth, OISE-Toronto. Lors de son congrès de 2010, l’ACHÉ/CHEA a créé un prix à être décerné à des individus« qui ont apporté une contribution remarquable aux connaissances en histoire de l’éducation durant leur carrière ou leur implication dans l’ACHÉ/CHEA. » Le récipiendaire pour 2022 est Elizabeth Smyth, OISE-Toronto.

It is twelve years since the article you are about to read was published. During that time, the philosophy in schools movement has expanded and diversified in response to curriculum developments (see Cam 1993, 1997, 1998; Kennedy 2013; Sprod 2001; Wartenberg 2009, 2013; Worley 2011), teaching guides (see Cam 1994, 2006; Freakley, Burgh & MacSporran 2008; Goering, Shudak & Wartenberg 2013; McCall 2009; Wilks 1996), web-based resources, dissertations, empirical research (Daniel & Michel 2000; Leckey 2001; Garcia-Moryon, Rebollo & Colom 2005; Reznitskaya 2005; Russell 2002) and theoretical scholarship (Davey Chesters 2012; Hand & Winstanley 2008; Haynes & Murris 2012; Kennedy 2006; Kohan 2014a, 2014b; Lone 2012; Lone & Israeloff 2012; Shapiro 2012; Sprod 2001). Philosophy and philosophy of education journals regularly publish articles and special issues on pre-college philosophy. There are more opportunities for undergraduate and graduate philosophy students to practice and research philosophy for/with children in schools. The Ontario Philosophy Teachers Association (OPTA) (founded in 1999) reports that in English-speaking Canada there are over 28,000 senior high school students studying philosophy in over 440 schools, and philosophy is now a Teachable Qualification (for an overview see Pinto, McDonough & Boyd 2006). In the USA, the Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO) was founded in 2009 to create a network of pre-college philosophy teachers. With the loss of its founders—Matthew Lipman (1922-2010), Ann Margaret Sharp (1942-2010) and Gareth Matthews (1929-2011)—the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (IAPC) is developing a digital archive in P4C. My original article was inspired by the design (1999) and pilot (2000) of a new philosophy elective for the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE). This initiative garnered considerable interest from the P4C community because many believed that (a) the decision to offer a VCE philosophy elective reflected the effectiveness and popularity of P4C in elementary schools, and (b) the new philosophy elective would establish P4C as an essential prerequisite for the study of philosophy in senior secondary school and at university. In my view, enthusiasts overlooked an important difference in the conception of philosophy informing the new philosophy elective: it introduced students to the theoretical or academic discipline of philosophy, whereas P4C conceived of philosophy as a wisdom tradition—otherwise known as the art of living.

Greetings all,It has been a long winter in the Edmonton Area so we are very happy to be welcoming spring weather and warm temperatures! This issue’s news items are a bit of a mixed bag of recaps and award announcements:Recap of TD Canadian Children’s Book Week & Lana Button TD Canadian Children’s Book Week was held May 5-12 across Canada. Events across the country featured 400 readings to 28,000 children in 175 communities. At the University of Alberta we featured Lana Button on May 9th for a presentation, showcasing her newest picture book, My Teacher’s Not Here! To read more about Lana Button check out the UAlberta Library Blog: Library News. To read more about other Book Week events see: http://bookweek.ca/CCBC AGMCanadian Children’s Book Centre is holding its Annual General Meeting 2018 on June 14, 2018. This year’s guest speaker is veteran publisher Jim Lorimer. CCBC members and the general public are welcome to attend.WHEN: Thursday, June 14, 2018 at 6:30 pmWHERE: Room 200, Northern District Library40 Orchard View Blvd.Toronto, Ontario The American Library Association Announces Youth Medal Awards for 2018 The annual ALA Medal Awards for 2018 were announced in February. Notable award winners were as follows:John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature: Hello, Universe written by Erin Entrada KellyRandolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children: Wolf in the Snow illustrated and written by Matthew CordellCoretta Scott King Book Awards recognizing African American authors and illustrators of outstanding books for children and young adults: Piecing Me Together written by Renée WatsonMichael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults: We Are Okay written by Nina LaCourStonewall Book Award – Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children’s & Young Adult Literature Award given annually to English-language children’s and young adult books of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender experience: Little & Lion written by Brandy Colbert and The 57 Bus written by Dashka SlaterFor a full description of all award winners see the announcement on the ALA website.Finally, as some food for thought I thought this article from the Family section of The New York Times (April 16, 2018) might be of interest to some our readers. Perri Klass, M.D. writes about how Reading Aloud to Young Children Has Benefits for Behavior and Attention.All the best for an enjoyable spring!Hanne PearceCommunications Editor

06–20Abbott, Chris (King's College, U London, UK) & Alim Shaikh, Visual representation in the digital age: Issues arising from a case study of digital media use and representation by pupils in multicultural school settings. Language and Education (Multilingual Matters) 19.6 (2005), 455–466.06–21Andreou, Georgia & Napoleon Mitsis (U Thessaly, Greece), Greek as a foreign language for speakers of Arabic: A study of medical students at the University of Thessaly. Language, Culture and Curriculum (Multilingual Matters) 18.2 (2005), 181–187.06–22Aune, R. Kelly (U Hawaii at Manoa, USA; kaune@hawaii.edu), Timothy R. Levine, Hee Sun Park, Kelli Jean K. Asada & John A. Banas, Tests of a theory of communicative responsibility. Journal of Language and Social Psychology (Sage) 24.4 (2005), 358–381.06–23Belz, Julie A. (The Pennsylvania State U, USA; jab63@psu.edu) & Nina Vyatkina, Learner corpus analysis and the development of L2 pragmatic competence in networked intercultural language study: The case of German modal particles. The Canadian Modern Language Review (University of Toronto Press) 62.1 (2005), 17–48.06–24Bird, Stephen (U Brunei Darussalam, Brunei; sbird@fass.ubd.edu.bn), Language learning edutainment: Mixing motives in digital resources. RELC Journal (Sage) 36.3 (2005), 311–339.06–25Carrington, Victoria (U Plymouth, UK), The uncanny, digital texts and literacy. Language and Education (Multilingual Matters) 19.6 (2005), 467–482.06–26Chung, Yang-Gyun (International Languages Program, Ottawa, Canada; jchung2536@rogers.com), Barbara Graves, Mari Wesche & Marion Barfurth, Computer-mediated communication in Korean–English chat rooms: Tandem learning in an international languages program. 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While the term “visual literacy” has grown in popularity in the last 50 years, its meaning remains nebulous. It is described variously as: a vehicle for aesthetic appreciation, a means of defence against visual manipulation, a sorting mechanism for an increasingly data-saturated age, and a prerequisite to civic inclusion (Fransecky 23; Messaris 181; McTigue and Flowers 580). Scholars have written extensively about the first three subjects but there has been less research on how visual literacy frames civic life and how it might help the public as a tool to address disadvantage and assist in removing social and cultural barriers. This article examines a forerunner to visual literacy in the push to create an international symbol language born out of popular education movements, a project that fell short of its goals but still left a considerable impression on graphic media. This article, then, presents an analysis of visual literacy campaigns in the early postwar era. These campaigns did not attempt to invent a symbolic language but posited that images themselves served as a universal language in which students could receive training. Of particular interest is how the concept of visual literacy has been mobilised as a pedagogical tool in design, digital humanities and in broader civic education initiatives promoted by Third Space institutions. Behind the creation of new visual literacy curricula is the idea that images can help anchor a world community, supplementing textual communication. Figure 1: Visual Literacy Yearbook. Montebello Unified School District, USA, 1973. Shedding Light: Origins of the Visual Literacy Frame The term “visual literacy” came to the fore in the early 1970s on the heels of mass literacy campaigns. The educators, creatives and media theorists who first advocated for visual learning linked this aim to literacy, an unassailable goal, to promote a more radical curricular overhaul. They challenged a system that had hitherto only acknowledged a very limited pathway towards academic success; pushing “language and mathematics”, courses “referred to as solids (something substantial) as contrasted with liquids or gases (courses with little or no substance)” (Eisner 92). This was deemed “a parochial view of both human ability and the possibilities of education” that did not acknowledge multiple forms of intelligence (Gardner). This change not only integrated elements of mass culture that had been rejected in education, notably film and graphic arts, but also encouraged the critique of images as a form of good citizenship, assuming that visually literate arbiters could call out media misrepresentations and manipulative political advertising (Messaris, “Visual Test”). This movement was, in many ways, reactive to new forms of mass media that began to replace newspapers as key forms of civic participation. Unlike simple literacy (being able to decipher letters as a mnemonic system), visual literacy involves imputing meanings to images where meanings are less fixed, yet still with embedded cultural signifiers. Visual literacy promised to extend enlightenment metaphors of sight (as in the German Aufklärung) and illumination (as in the French Lumières) to help citizens understand an increasingly complex marketplace of images. The move towards visual literacy was not so much a shift towards images (and away from books and oration) but an affirmation of the need to critically investigate the visual sphere. It introduced doubt to previously upheld hierarchies of perception. Sight, to Kant the “noblest of the senses” (158), was no longer the sense “least affected” by the surrounding world but an input centre that was equally manipulable. In Kant’s view of societal development, the “cosmopolitan” held the key to pacifying bellicose states and ensuring global prosperity and tranquillity. The process of developing a cosmopolitan ideology rests, according to Kant, on the gradual elimination of war and “the education of young people in intellectual and moral culture” (188-89). Transforming disparate societies into “a universal cosmopolitan existence” that would “at last be realised as the matrix within which all the original capacities of the human race may develop” and would take well-funded educational institutions and, potentially, a new framework for imparting knowledge (Kant 51). To some, the world of the visual presented a baseline for shared experience. Figure 2: Exhibition by the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Vienna, photograph c. 1927. An International Picture Language The quest to find a mutually intelligible language that could “bridge worlds” and solder together all of humankind goes back to the late nineteenth century and the Esperanto movement of Ludwig Zamenhof (Schor 59). The expression of this ideal in the world of the visual picked up steam in the interwar years with designers and editors like Fritz Kahn, Gerd Arntz, and Otto and Marie Neurath. Their work transposing complex ideas into graphic form has been rediscovered as an antecedent to modern infographics, but the symbols they deployed were not to merely explain, but also help education and build international fellowship unbounded by spoken language. The Neuraths in particular are celebrated for their international picture language or Isotypes. These pictograms (sometimes viewed as proto-emojis) can be used to represent data without text. Taken together they are an “intemporal, hieroglyphic language” that Neutrath hoped would unite working-class people the world over (Lee 159). The Neuraths’ work was done in the explicit service of visual education with a popular socialist agenda and incubated in the social sphere of Red Vienna at the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum (Social and Economic Museum) where Otto served as Director. The Wirtschaftsmuseum was an experiment in popular education, with multiple branches and late opening hours to accommodate the “the working man [who] has time to see a museum only at night” (Neurath 72-73). The Isotype contained universalist aspirations for the “making of a world language, or a helping picture language—[that] will give support to international developments generally” and “educate by the eye” (Neurath 13). Figure 3: Gerd Arntz Isotype Images. (Source: University of Reading.) The Isotype was widely adopted in the postwar era in pre-packaged sets of symbols used in graphic design and wayfinding systems for buildings and transportation networks, but with the socialism of the Neuraths’ peeled away, leaving only the system of logos that we are familiar with from airport washrooms, charts, and public transport maps. Much of the uptake in this symbol language could be traced to increased mobility and tourism, particularly in countries that did not make use of a Roman alphabet. The 1964 Olympics in Tokyo helped pave the way when organisers, fearful of jumbling too many scripts together, opted instead for black and white icons to represent the program of sports that summer. The new focus on the visual was both technologically mediated—cheaper printing and broadcast technologies made the diffusion of image increasingly possible—but also ideologically supported by a growing emphasis on projects that transcended linguistic, ethnic, and national borders. The Olympic symbols gradually morphed into Letraset icons, and, later, symbols in the Unicode Standard, which are the basis for today’s emojis. Wordless signs helped facilitate interconnectedness, but only in the most literal sense; their application was limited primarily to sports mega-events, highway maps, and “brand building”, and they never fulfilled their role as an educational language “to give the different nations a common outlook” (Neurath 18). Universally understood icons, particularly in the form of emojis, point to a rise in visual communication but they have fallen short as a cosmopolitan project, supporting neither the globalisation of Kantian ethics nor the transnational socialism of the Neuraths. Figure 4: Symbols in use. Women's bathroom. 1964 Tokyo Olympics. (Source: The official report of the Organizing Committee.) Counter Education By mid-century, the optimism of a universal symbol language seemed dated, and focus shifted from distillation to discernment. New educational programs presented ways to study images, increasingly reproducible with new technologies, as a language in and of themselves. These methods had their roots in the fin-de-siècle educational reforms of John Dewey, Helen Parkhurst, and Maria Montessori. As early as the 1920s, progressive educators were using highly visual magazines, like National Geographic, as the basis for lesson planning, with the hopes that they would “expose students to edifying and culturally enriching reading” and “develop a more catholic taste or sensibility, representing an important cosmopolitan value” (Hawkins 45). The rise in imagery from previously inaccessible regions helped pupils to see themselves in relation to the larger world (although this connection always came with the presumed superiority of the reader). “Pictorial education in public schools” taught readers—through images—to accept a broader world but, too often, they saw photographs as a “straightforward transcription of the real world” (Hawkins 57). The images of cultures and events presented in Life and National Geographic for the purposes of education and enrichment were now the subject of greater analysis in the classroom, not just as “windows into new worlds” but as cultural products in and of themselves. The emerging visual curriculum aimed to do more than just teach with previously excluded modes (photography, film and comics); it would investigate how images presented and mediated the world. This gained wider appeal with new analytical writing on film, like Raymond Spottiswoode's Grammar of the Film (1950) which sought to formulate the grammatical rules of visual communication (Messaris 181), influenced by semiotics and structural linguistics; the emphasis on grammar can also be seen in far earlier writings on design systems such as Owen Jones’s 1856 The Grammar of Ornament, which also advocated for new, universalising methods in design education (Sloboda 228). The inventorying impulse is on display in books like Donis A. Dondis’s A Primer of Visual Literacy (1973), a text that meditates on visual perception but also functions as an introduction to line and form in the applied arts, picking up where the Bauhaus left off. Dondis enumerates the “syntactical guidelines” of the applied arts with illustrations that are in keeping with 1920s books by Kandinsky and Klee and analyse pictorial elements. However, at the end of the book she shifts focus with two chapters that examine “messaging” and visual literacy explicitly. Dondis predicts that “an intellectual, trained ability to make and understand visual messages is becoming a vital necessity to involvement with communication. It is quite likely that visual literacy will be one of the fundamental measures of education in the last third of our century” (33) and she presses for more programs that incorporate the exploration and analysis of images in tertiary education. Figure 5: Ideal spatial environment for the Blueprint charts, 1970. (Image: Inventory Press.) Visual literacy in education arrived in earnest with a wave of publications in the mid-1970s. They offered ways for students to understand media processes and for teachers to use visual culture as an entry point into complex social and scientific subject matter, tapping into the “visual consciousness of the ‘television generation’” (Fransecky 5). Visual culture was often seen as inherently democratising, a break from stuffiness, the “artificialities of civilisation”, and the “archaic structures” that set sensorial perception apart from scholarship (Dworkin 131-132). Many radical university projects and community education initiatives of the 1960s made use of new media in novel ways: from Maurice Stein and Larry Miller’s fold-out posters accompanying Blueprint for Counter Education (1970) to Emory Douglas’s graphics for The Black Panther newspaper. Blueprint’s text- and image-dense wall charts were made via assemblage and they were imagined less as charts and more as a “matrix of resources” that could be used—and added to—by youth to undertake their own counter education (Cronin 53). These experiments in visual learning helped to break down old hierarchies in education, but their aim was influenced more by countercultural notions of disruption than the universal ideals of cosmopolitanism. From Image as Text to City as Text For a brief period in the 1970s, thinkers like Marshall McLuhan (McLuhan et al., Massage) and artists like Bruno Munari (Tanchis and Munari) collaborated fruitfully with graphic designers to create books that mixed text and image in novel ways. Using new compositional methods, they broke apart traditional printing lock-ups to superimpose photographs, twist text, and bend narrative frames. The most famous work from this era is, undoubtedly, The Medium Is the Massage (1967), McLuhan’s team-up with graphic designer Quentin Fiore, but it was followed by dozens of other books intended to communicate theory and scientific ideas with popularising graphics. Following in the footsteps of McLuhan, many of these texts sought not just to explain an issue but to self-consciously reference their own method of information delivery. These works set the precedent for visual aids (and, to a lesser extent, audio) that launched a diverse, non-hierarchical discourse that was nonetheless bound to tactile artefacts. In 1977, McLuhan helped develop a media textbook for secondary school students called City as Classroom: Understanding Language and Media. It is notable for its direct address style and its focus on investigating spaces outside of the classroom (provocatively, a section on the third page begins with “Should all schools be closed?”). The book follows with a fine-grained analysis of advertising forms in which students are asked to first bring advertisements into class for analysis and later to go out into the city to explore “a man-made environment, a huge warehouse of information, a vast resource to be mined free of charge” (McLuhan et al., City 149). As a document City as Classroom is critical of existing teaching methods, in line with the radical “in the streets” pedagogy of its day. McLuhan’s theories proved particularly salient for the counter education movement, in part because they tapped into a healthy scepticism of advertisers and other image-makers. They also dovetailed with growing discontent with the ad-strew visual environment of cities in the 1970s. Budgets for advertising had mushroomed in the1960s and outdoor advertising “cluttered” cities with billboards and neon, generating “fierce intensities and new hybrid energies” that threatened to throw off the visual equilibrium (McLuhan 74). Visual literacy curricula brought in experiential learning focussed on the legibility of the cities, mapping, and the visualisation of urban issues with social justice implications. The Detroit Geographical Expedition and Institute (DGEI), a “collective endeavour of community research and education” that arose in the aftermath of the 1967 uprisings, is the most storied of the groups that suffused the collection of spatial data with community engagement and organising (Warren et al. 61). The following decades would see a tamed approach to visual literacy that, while still pressing for critical reading, did not upend traditional methods of educational delivery. Figure 6: Beginning a College Program-Assisting Teachers to Develop Visual Literacy Approaches in Public School Classrooms. 1977. ERIC. Searching for Civic Education The visual literacy initiatives formed in the early 1970s both affirmed existing civil society institutions while also asserting the need to better inform the public. Most of the campaigns were sponsored by universities, major libraries, and international groups such as UNESCO, which published its “Declaration on Media Education” in 1982. They noted that “participation” was “essential to the working of a pluralistic and representative democracy” and the “public—users, citizens, individuals, groups ... were too systematically overlooked”. Here, the public is conceived as both “targets of the information and communication process” and users who “should have the last word”. To that end their “continuing education” should be ensured (Study 18). Programs consisted primarily of cognitive “see-scan-analyse” techniques (Little et al.) for younger students but some also sought to bring visual analysis to adult learners via continuing education (often through museums eager to engage more diverse audiences) and more radical popular education programs sponsored by community groups. By the mid-80s, scores of modules had been built around the comprehension of visual media and had become standard educational fare across North America, Australasia, and to a lesser extent, Europe. There was an increasing awareness of the role of data and image presentation in decision-making, as evidenced by the surprising commercial success of Edward Tufte’s 1982 book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Visual literacy—or at least image analysis—was now enmeshed in teaching practice and needed little active advocacy. Scholarly interest in the subject went into a brief period of hibernation in the 1980s and early 1990s, only to be reborn with the arrival of new media distribution technologies (CD-ROMs and then the internet) in classrooms and the widespread availability of digital imaging technology starting in the late 1990s; companies like Adobe distributed free and reduced-fee licences to schools and launched extensive teacher training programs. Visual literacy was reanimated but primarily within a circumscribed academic field of education and data visualisation. Figure 7: Visual Literacy; What Research Says to the Teacher, 1975. National Education Association. USA. Part of the shifting frame of visual literacy has to do with institutional imperatives, particularly in places where austerity measures forced strange alliances between disciplines. What had been a project in alternative education morphed into an uncontested part of the curriculum and a dependable budget line. This shift was already forecasted in 1972 by Harun Farocki who, writing in Filmkritik, noted that funding for new film schools would be difficult to obtain but money might be found for “training in media education … a discipline that could persuade ministers of education, that would at the same time turn the budget restrictions into an advantage, and that would match the functions of art schools” (98). Nearly 50 years later educators are still using media education (rebranded as visual or media literacy) to make the case for fine arts and humanities education. While earlier iterations of visual literacy education were often too reliant on the idea of cracking the “code” of images, they did promote ways of learning that were a deep departure from the rote methods of previous generations. Next-gen curricula frame visual literacy as largely supplemental—a resource, but not a program. By the end of the 20th century, visual literacy had changed from a scholarly interest to a standard resource in the “teacher’s toolkit”, entering into school programs and influencing museum education, corporate training, and the development of public-oriented media (Literacy). An appreciation of image culture was seen as key to creating empathetic global citizens, but its scope was increasingly limited. With rising austerity in the education sector (a shift that preceded the 2008 recession by decades in some countries), art educators, museum enrichment staff, and design researchers need to make a case for why their disciplines were relevant in pedagogical models that are increasingly aimed at “skills-based” and “job ready” teaching. Arts educators worked hard to insert their fields into learning goals for secondary students as visual literacy, with the hope that “literacy” would carry the weight of an educational imperative and not a supplementary field of study. Conclusion For nearly a century, educational initiatives have sought to inculcate a cosmopolitan perspective with a variety of teaching materials and pedagogical reference points. Symbolic languages, like the Isotype, looked to unite disparate people with shared visual forms; while educational initiatives aimed to train the eyes of students to make them more discerning citizens. The term ‘visual literacy’ emerged in the 1960s and has since been deployed in programs with a wide variety of goals. Countercultural initiatives saw it as a prerequisite for popular education from the ground up, but, in the years since, it has been formalised and brought into more staid curricula, often as a sort of shorthand for learning from media and pictures. The grand cosmopolitan vision of a complete ‘visual language’ has been scaled back considerably, but still exists in trace amounts. Processes of globalisation require images to universalise experiences, commodities, and more for people without shared languages. Emoji alphabets and globalese (brands and consumer messaging that are “visual-linguistic” amalgams “increasingly detached from any specific ethnolinguistic group or locality”) are a testament to a mediatised banal cosmopolitanism (Jaworski 231). In this sense, becoming “fluent” in global design vernacular means familiarity with firms and products, an understanding that is aesthetic, not critical. It is very much the beneficiaries of globalisation—both state and commercial actors—who have been able to harness increasingly image-based technologies for their benefit. To take a humorous but nonetheless consequential example, Spanish culinary boosters were able to successfully lobby for a paella emoji (Miller) rather than having a food symbol from a less wealthy country such as a Senegalese jollof or a Morrocan tagine. This trend has gone even further as new forms of visual communication are increasingly streamlined and managed by for-profit media platforms. The ubiquity of these forms of communication and their global reach has made visual literacy more important than ever but it has also fundamentally shifted the endeavour from a graphic sorting practice to a critical piece of social infrastructure that has tremendous political ramifications. Visual literacy campaigns hold out the promise of educating students in an image-based system with the potential to transcend linguistic and cultural boundaries. This cosmopolitan political project has not yet been realised, as the visual literacy frame has drifted into specialised silos of art, design, and digital humanities education. It can help bridge the “incomplete connections” of an increasingly globalised world (Calhoun 112), but it does not have a program in and of itself. Rather, an evolving visual literacy curriculum might be seen as a litmus test for how we imagine the role of images in the world. 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