Out Of School

The Information Age Publishing new book series, Current Issues in Out-of-School Time, is designed with a purpose to disseminate original research and promising practices that further the OST field. This first book sets the foundation on which the series rests upon, by offering an analysis of the progress made since the 2000s, as well as by looking toward the future for areas of considerations. Leading OST experts explore latest knowledge, intentionally bridging research and practice, and propose new areas of inquiry within each of the following six sections: 1. OST as a vehicle for young people’s development; 2. socio-cultural dimensions of OST; 3. professional development within OST; 4. research- and evaluation-informed field; 5. OST advocacy; and 6. future directions for the OST field. The OST field has grown considerably over the last two decades. Today, we have the frameworks, practice- and research-based knowledge and tools, and burgeoning paths to advance the field across multiple dimensions: demographic, stakeholder groups, contexts, systems and sectors, and disciplines. The hallmark of the OST field has been the ability to remain agile and adaptable to change in a way that complements the field and supports all children and young people in diverse ways. This anthology is designed to be a platform for research-practice discussions and future directions that could further grow, sustain, and improve the field. We hope this book inspires both reflections and conversations on the OST field. Endorsements: It has been clear for some time that the so-called achievement gap is driven in part by gaps in educational opportunities. Providing access to high quality out-of-school learning experiences is one of the most important measures that can be taken to reduce disparities and level the playing field. The authors in this important new book show us not only how to create such programs but why it matters to our collective future. Timely, relevant, and readable, this book is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to close gaps in educational opportunities. Pedro A. Noguera, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Education, UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies As the chair of the NAS/NRC committee that wrote the report Community programs to support youth development, I am delighted by this book. When we wrote the report in 2002, there were few systematic attempts to organize and theorize the emerging field of positive youth development. As the editors and chapter authors in this book make very clear, a great deal has happened at all levels of scholarship in this field over the last 15 years. Both this volume and the new book series that it is initiating signal the maturing of this field from childhood, through adolescence, and now into emerging adulthood. The breadth of work discussed in this collection is exceptionally broad, ranging from psychological theorizing about the impact of youth serving programs in the out-of-school time period to social policy analyses of how to grow the profession of OST Youth Professionals and create steady funding streams to support OST programming. All topics are critically discussed and new directions are suggested. I consider this book to be required reading of all students, scholars, professional, and practitioners in the field of positive youth development and OST programming. I go even further by suggesting it be read broadly by anyone interested in the education and development of young people around the world. There is no better collection available for educators, parents, community activists, and social policy makers concerned with positive youth development. I believe this collection lays a very strong foundation for achieving the goal set forth by Karen Pittman for the field to move from "Where and when to what and how." Jacquelynne S. Eccles, Distinguished University Professor of Education, University of California, Irvine The impressive growth of OST programs represents one of the brightest spots on the American educational landscape. Importantly, as this book portrays, what began a series of programs and local initiatives has now grown into a maturing field, with standards, scholarship, organizations, policies, and funding at the national, state, and local levels. And more than a field, OST carries the urgency, energy, and passion of a movement for social justice. The Growing Out-of-School Time Field offers a comprehensive review of earlier decades of work and points the way forward for the field’s future development. It should be read not only by those involved in the OST field, but by all educators who seek to create inclusive and powerful learning environments. Policymakers, as well, would benefit from deeper knowledge of this movement. It holds a key to preparing today’s youth for an uncertain future, where the nature of work is changing, norms of society are shifting, and multicultural, global perspectives are needed. Milton Chen, Ph.D., Senior Fellow & Executive Director, Emeritus, George Lucas Educational Foundation (edutopia.org) Book reviews: Journal of Youth Development: Book Review of The Growing Out-of-School Time Field: Past, Present, and Future Youth Today: The Growing Out-of-School Time Field: Past, Present, and Future (book review)

This book offers a highly revealing and troubling view of today's high school students and the ways they pursue high grades and success. Denise Pope, veteran teacher and curriculum expert, follows five motivated and successful students through a school year, closely shadowing them and engaging them in lengthy reflections on their school experiences. What emerges is a double-sided picture of school success. On the one hand, these students work hard in school, participate in extracurricular activities, serve their communities, earn awards and honours, and appear to uphold school values. But on the other hand, they feel that in order to get ahead they must compromise their values and manipulate the system by scheming, lying, and cheating. In short, they do school, that is, they are not really engaged with learning nor can they commit to such values as integrity and community. The words and actions of these five students - two boys and three girls from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds - underscore the frustrations of being caught in a grade trap that pins future success to high grades and test scores. Their stories raise critical questions that are too important for parents, educators, and community leaders to ignore. Are schools cultivating an environment that promotes intellectual curiosity, cooperation, and integrity? Or are they fostering anxiety, deception, and hostility? Do today's schools inadvertently impede the very values they claim to embrace? Is the success that current assessment practices measure the kind of success we want for our children?

In this book, John MacBeath brings together eight of his most influential writings including chapters from his best-selling books, articles from leading journals, and excerpts from his contributions to the press.

This volume focuses on social and emotional learning (SEL) from a variety of perspectives. The goal of the volume is to offer a clear framing of SEL in relation to other related out-of-school time concepts and initiatives. SEL has gained popularity as a concept in recent years and there remains confusion as well as great interest in the meaning and implementation of SEL in OST. Policymakers, researchers, and practitioners are pursuing work related to SEL in OST and this volume offers an opportunity to share that work by: - Defining and explaining SEL in a variety of out of school contexts and highlighting opportunities for integration and alignment with other fields (e.g., formal education) - Clarifying the language and framework confusion and honoring the field's foundation in thinking about social and emotional development through high quality youth development practice - Sharing information about current trends and new developments and how that work is shaping the field across the developmental continuum - Making the research to practice connection by including in each chapter foundational research on the topic, evidence of effective efforts, and practical implications - Offering recommendations for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers related to SEL in OST settings

The Indian Residential School in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, was established by the Canadian government in 1929 to provide residential education to orphan, destitute, neglected, and other Mi'kmaw Indian children aged 7-16. Since many Indian parents were poor and unable to provide for their children, they felt the school was a chance for their children to have adequate clothing and food as well as an education. The parents did not understand that when they signed school registration papers, they were transferring guardianship of their children to the school principal. The school's staff of 10 nuns and a priest (principal) provided room and board and education to an annual population of about 200 until the school closed in 1967. The 5-year-old author and her brother and sister were sent to the school in 1936. She was a resident at the school for 11 years. This book relates her memories, and other students' memories, of their life at the school: physical, emotional, and sexual abuse by the nuns and priest; inadequate food and clothing; lack of care when ill or injured; enforced labor in the kitchen, laundry, barn, and fields; and beatings for speaking their native language. Even though some children were allowed to go home for summer vacation and parents were allowed to visit on Sunday, no student was allowed to permanently leave the school. The school's suppression of the children's Indian language, culture, and heritage caused severe social and personal adjustment problems, which are related through quotations from former students. Rumored to have been built on an old Indian burial ground, and haunted, the remnants of the school mysteriously burned down in 1986. Government officials and the Catholic church apologized to Native people for treatment at the school in 1991. Chapters are: "Origins" (nonformal Native education and child rearing); "Everyday Life at the School"; "Work and Play"; "Rewards and Punishments"; "Ghosts and Hauntings"; "Resistance"; "The End of the School"; "The Official Story"; and "Out of the Depths." Includes photographs. (SAS) -- from ERIC dbase.

“Themes out of School . . . cannot help but urge us to think, in fresh and undistracted ways, about the world that actually confronts us.” —Jay Parini, Hudson Review In the first essay of this book, Stanley Cavell characterizes philosophy as a “willingness to think not about something other than what ordinary human beings think about, but rather to learn to think undistractedly about things that ordinary human beings cannot help thinking about, or anyway cannot help having occur to them, sometimes in fantasy, sometimes as a flash across a landscape.” Fantasies of film and television and literature, flashes across the landscape of literary theory, philosophical discourse, and French historiography give Cavell his starting points in these twelve essays. Here is philosophy in and out of “school,” understood as a discipline in itself or thought through the works of Shakespeare, Molière, Kierkegaard, Thoreau, Brecht, Makavejev, Bergman, Hitchcock, Astaire, and Keaton.

The catastrophe in public education and what we can do about it.

Through a series of focused and interconnected case studies, Out of School explores the long history of information art associated with the Toronto School of Communication. It highlights the perspectives of artists inspired by the speculations of Marshall McLuhan and colleagues as well as the philosophical underpinnings of the Toronto School’s ideas about information. Using pre-Internet media such as telex and the telecopier, the artists explored in this book materialized visionary concepts of information without the aid of computers. Harbingers of contemporary digital culture, Bertram Brooker, N.E. Thing Co., Robert Smithson, Wyndham Lewis, General Idea, and other artists approached information as something embodied, sensorial, and social. Art historian Adam Lauder recontextualizes this qualitative philosophy of information in relation to quantitative discourses and methodologies, which these creative figures make visible – sometimes inadvertently or satirically – through artworks that operate at the interface between art and business. While exploring how utopian information ontologies struggled to account for markers of identity and difference, including Indigeneity, gender, and sexual diversity, this book also highlights instances when information art was able to carve out spaces of agency and resistance. Offering an essential reassessment of the legacies of the Toronto School of Communication, Out of School broadens the network of practitioners connected to the school to include visual artists active both within and beyond Canada. In doing so, it proposes that artists made significant contributions to theory in their own right.