'Growing Pains'

I was lucky to find the book Helen Parkhurst wrote in 1962: "Growing Pains".
(Doubleday & Company, Inc. - Garden City, New York)
I've found it at Amazone and this copy came from the Los Angeles Public Library.
Growing Pains is the outgrowth of a series of radio programs of the same name, built around tape recordings of interviews with teen agers.
This is a statement I like very much.

Dalton in Czech Republic

The Czech Dalton  Association is terminating its existence in the end of this year . But there has been an another organization founded,     

"Czech Dalton", which will follow up with what the Associations of Czech Dalton Schools was doing for more than 15 years. As an organization that walks in the steps of ACDS, they are cooperating with Dalton International.

Transfer your dominance

During my seminars I always draw attention to the dominance of the teacher.
Children are hungry to do it themselves, but many teachers think that 'spoon feeding' education is the most effective way.
Some of them even try to convince that by instruction to the whole group of silent children in the classroom, they learn most.
But this teacher doesn't understand why there are so many questions left after this kind of  instruction.

Children has to take as many initiatives themselves as possible.
Helen Parkhurst says: "Under the Dalton Plan the teacher's principal job is to instruct or teach by answering the questions asked by individual children or groups of children".
I was nicely surprised that I found an article this morning in the newspaper in which the provocating photo's in my PowerPoint were given a scientific basis.
Larissa Samuelson, professor psychology at the University of Iowa researched the behaviour of very young children. She noticed very soon that children who were allowed to make a mess during their activities, were learning very quickly new words.

See an article about this here

Dalton training

Dalton International assists in the implementation of  Dalton classroom management.
During a training with teams of teachers the following aspects will be worked out.

            1. TRAINING SELF- RELIANCE      
            ·         a process in 20 special school agreements
                       

            2.  GROUP ORGANIZATION                                         

·         day colours

·         household – assignment

·         day rhythm structure

·         work – assignment board or formulary

·         organizing the registration

·         arrangement of the furniture

·         all aspects of classroom management

3.      ASSIGNMENTS                                                        

·         selecting subjects and material

·         daily,  weekly, monthly

·         structure for  planning

·         self-correction

·         assignment as a contract

·         integrated ‘free-choice-assignments’

·         creating on different levels

·         using competences – no competition

·         testing and reports

·         portfolio development

4.      EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTION                                                          

·         what do we instruct

·         what is the effect of instruction

·         balance with independent learning

·         instruction on different levels

·         use of action guides

·         recognize different learning styles

·         what kind of interaction

·         model for strategic action

5.      INDEPENDENT WORK                                                      

·         the effect of independent work for teacher/student 

·         organizing the delayed attention

·         action guides as a school model

·         training responsibilities

·         evaluation and reflection

·         scoring system

6.      CO-OPERATION                                                       

·         Systematically use of techniques

·         Variation in co-operative learning activities

·         Work with teams, mates, mentor, tutor

This book was writtenby Helen Parkhurst in 1962

Proud to announce the concrete initiative to start the official
Dalton Association in Austria.


Jürgen Peters is co-ordinating this development.

Information: dalton.austria@gmail.com