From the category archives:

William Rossi, Creative Director

Educational Reform? Starting Where it Matters.

by William Rossi
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Many students turn away from education and actually turn against it because they are not engaged, stimulated, or motivated and because it is not an opportunity for self-development or healing. Education should encourage self-discovery and enable students to engage with themselves and think for themselves. It should fill the students’ emotional needs along with the [...]

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The Value of a Creative Educational Environment

by William Rossi

I think we need to broaden the current perspective of what constitutes an educational environment. Actually, since children and youth are constantly learning, everything that goes on around them is an educational environment—adults and peers are their teachers, for better or worse. Unfortunately today’s environment contains many negatives. Hopefully in time we’ll realize the meaning [...]

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Standards-Based Education (2)

by William Rossi

As I suggested in my first post on standards-based education, the focus on imposed knowledge greatly minimizes students’ chances to develop into whole human beings. Imposed knowledge never becomes real knowledge—that can only come from within a person. By teaching primarily information, education can break the spirits of students who learn differently or have learning [...]

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Standards-based Education: Suffocation?

by William Rossi

With its focus on a narrow, one dimensional performance, standards-based education not only misses the point, it compounds the mistakes of traditional education by discouraging and repelling those students who can’t relate. One explanation for this is that in its drive to be efficient, standards-based education often approaches students as if they all learn in [...]

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Teaching through Mentoring: It’s all in the Relationship!

by William Rossi

A kingpin of a creative, dynamic teaching relationship is that students are at the center of positive attention from a caring adult who appreciates and facilitates their natural creative tendencies and encourages their individual voice. If this relationship contains the components that are necessary for real growth to occur – if it’s long term, consistent, [...]

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Creativity: An Important Educational Environment

by William Rossi

Many at risk people are looking for something real in the world, something they can trust that contains honesty and speaks to the “cross they have to bear.” Children and youth especially look for this honesty from adults. They need to have authentic, rooted, and multifaceted experiences which, when offered with genuineness, will build both [...]

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