From the category archives:

William Rossi, Creative Director

Creative Education: for many, a new way of thinking

by William Rossi
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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 intellectual. Students need to be able to create an inner dialogue and converse with themselves in order to form a foundation that makes them whole and turns the tide of [...]

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Standards-based Education

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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The Value of a Creative Educational Environment

by William Rossi

Perhaps 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 of [...]

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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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The Basics of Teaching through Mentoring

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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After-School Programs: An Important Educational Environment

by William Rossi

Research has shown that youth engage in the riskiest behaviors in the afternoon or early evening when they are most likely to be unsupervised. This is also the time when most adolescent suicides occur. This would be an ideal time to offer young people a variety of substantial artistic activities. Many at risk people are [...]

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