Educational issues revealed

Have you been planning a trip to Italy? Have you already fallen in love with the language and culture? Has the idea of taking classes in Italian crossed your mind? If you are like many people the answer to all of these is yes. The obstacles that you might think would be in your way to learning while traveling have basically all been thought of and overcome by the owners of the Italian language schools in Italy.

If you are worried that indulging in your wish to learn some of the language while you are traveling would interfere with your ability to see all the sights in most areas, don’t fret. Whether attending an Italian language school in Florence, Milan or Rome, schedules are well thought out. In most cases the group classes are organized in the morning so that you have from lunchtime until the streets are emptying to soak up the city and try out your Italian on the locals. Most of the Italian language schools also give you the option of doing strictly private lessons or additional private lessons. This is especially useful if you have a must visit museum or destination where it is necessary to be there in the morning. Then you can just go for a private lesson in the afternoon and make up what you missed during the day.

Italian schools in Italy are spread everywhere, and are generally set up to accommodate students from around the world. This has two great benefits, first, it means that the classes are taught in Italian and it pushes you to learn faster, and second, your fellow students may also speak English, but it is a good likelihood that you will be communicating with them in Italian as well. This means that you get instruction from your teacher, practice with the fellow students of the Italian language school and practice while you are out in the city. You will likely be amazed at the difference in how fast you pick up the language with this level of immersion. The difference between taking a course in high school or your local college and practicing with native speakers both in and outside of your Italian language school will be immense.

When you sign up for an Italian language course it does help to have practiced a little before you set off on your trip. Heading to Barnes and Noble and picking up a basic text and pocket dictionary will not only give you a little vocabulary to begin with, but will also help you in the first few days of attending an Italian language course. In Florence, Milan, Rome and other cities that have huge amounts of tourism you will have many schools to chose from and will easily be able to find a schedule that meshes with your travel schedule. It is also perfectly feasible to take a week long course in Bologna and then another subsequent week long course in Milan without skipping a beat. You may just come back from your vacation semi-fluent and happily planning your next vacation, Italian lessons included.

Link to this article: http://edicational.blogbuddy.ca/2009/uncategorized/are-you-planning-to-visit-italy-take-some-italian-language-lessons/ from the Educational issues website

This fall, four schools will participate in an experiment that combines girls-only classes with online teaching. Supposedly, the classes will be tailored specifically to females because, according to Larry Goodman, director of strategic programming at the Laurel School (one of the four participating schools), “There is no one out there who’s thinking with a specifically feminine audience in mind.” So what would a female-geared online course entail? Goodman claims that “[g]irls thrive best in environments where connectivity is valued.” Therefore, the courses will focus on collaborative projects. The creators of the project hope that in future years, girls from all over the world, including those who attend co-ed schools, will be able to participate in the girls-only online teaching experience.

Both online courses and gender-segregated classrooms have grown in popularity in recent years. Online courses are (obviously) a more recent phenomenon, but private schools have offered single-sex education for ages. These days, public schools are starting to pick up the trend; the number of public schools offering single-sex classes has grown from 11 to over 500 in the last seven years.

The first question I have is why is this project only focusing on girls? Are girls really farther behind, or more distracted by the opposite sex, than boys? The evidence says no. As Judy Berman of Salon.com’s Broadsheet pointed out, boys are struggling in classrooms too. According to experts, their issues have been neglected, whereas there have been attempts to address girls’ issues for decades. So if these online courses are going to devote so much time and energy catering to girls’ “special” educational needs, why not have a boys-only component as well?

Or, as Amanda Hess of The Sexist blog suggests, why not forget single-sex education completely, and instead focus on strengthening co-ed teaching? She finds “this particular solution (single-sex teaching) to gender inequality in education to be utter bulls**t.” Hess doesn’t see online girl-only education as a solution to problems in co-ed classrooms; if girls and boys can’t be taught to work or learn together in the classroom, how are they expected to succeed in the co-ed, real world?

“Girls and boys will be collaborating and competing with each other well past prep school. Learning to collaborate and compete as equals is important, and not just in the interest of everyone getting along. If the sexes have different educational needs, as these segregated programs suggest, why see it as a liability? Why not, instead, see difference as a huge asset to both boys and girls, who can learn valuable tactics from each other?”

After reading up on the evidence, it still remains unclear whether single-sex education is beneficial. The “boys are better at math” myth was debunked, so maybe it’s time to also stop assuming that separate “feminine” and “masculine” ways of learning are the reason kids aren’t succeeding in school. My “learning style” didn’t stop me from acing calculus in a room full of dudes, and if I was utterly confused about something, it probably had less to do with my female mind and more to do with my professor’s lackluster teaching skills. Then again, I can’t say I wouldn’t have been less distracted (from cute boys) in a girls-only environment…

What’s your take on single-sex education?

Source

Link to this article: http://edicational.blogbuddy.ca/2009/news/does-single-sex-education-solve-anything/ from the Educational issues revealed website