To Change a Child: A Report on the Institute for Developmental Studies

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"The impetus for this book came from the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and its Program Director, Mr. Oscar Cohen, who believed that maximum communication of existing information is a necessary, aspect of formulating any approach to these problems facing the schools. I am pleased that we at the Institute for Developmental Studies were able Vto cooperate, and I am grateful to Mr. Fred Powledge for producing such a lucid and well-written account of the area which the Institute addresses as well as aspects of its program in early childhood education. The Institute for Developmental Studies is a multi-disciplinary organization. It thus enjoys the opportunity to cut across the different disciplines in the human and social sciences, and to bring to bear on curriculum and educational organization the knowledge and research findings from a variety of fields. This is a difficult process, and not one which leads to speedy solutions to the complex problems of either children’s learning processes on the one hand, or urban education on the other. The current vogue in education places a great deal of faith in psychological testing results as measures of program success. This faith may be well placed, but it tends to overshadow another worthwhile source of evaluation, reports of individual teachers. No matter what test results indicate, the teachers still see children who are stimulated in the areas of curiosity and initiative. It is the teachers, themselves, who are responsible for much of the children’s heightened curiosity and initiative, and it is precisely these two characteristics that the usual testing in schools does not measure." - Preface - Contents - Photos - Contents