Friday, February 24, 2012

THANK YOU!

Thank you! I appreciate all of the support, information, and discussion we have had with each other over the past eight weeks. It has been wonderful working with all of you and I look forward to working with you in future classes. I wish everyone the best in moving forward in this adventure.

"Children are great imitators. So give them something great to imitate." ~Anonymous
“A child miseducated is a child lost.” ~ John F. Kennedy

“Even a minor event in the life of a child is an event of that child's world and thus a world event.”~ Gaston Bachelard

Saturday, February 11, 2012

I am torn about formalized testing. I do not take written tests well and I know other people that feel the same way. I believe to really learn what a child is going through is by observing. School age can be a very fragile time for children; they are going through major physical and biological changes. I am not to familiar with this age group, so I am going on what I experienced… As a child I was always worried about how I did because of testing, it controlled my life. Official assessments can show what a child can do on paper but an observation can show what a child does best!

Primary school (Scuola primaria/elementare)
School in Italy is compulsory from the age of six onwards. Recent legislation changes means that children may start scuola primaria from the age of five and a half onwards (this is Testing for Intelligence:
to bring Italian schools in line with European schools regarding school leaving ages). All children who will be six years old by 31 December following the start of the school year can register for primary school.
At primary school children learn to read and write and study mathematics, geography, Italian, English, science, music, computer studies, religion (optional) and social studies.
Primary school lasts five years. Classes have between 10 and 25 pupils each. Until recently pupils had to pass an exam at the end of year five before they could progress to secondary school, but this is no longer the case.
http://rome.angloinfo.com/countries/italy/schooling.asp