In The Languages of LearningKaren Gallas offers a new approach to understanding how young children in early and elementary grades communicate their knowledge of the world and the ways in which that kind of understanding can transform the educative process. In addition to expanding the traditional definition of narrative to include all forms of expression, the book also offers an original conceptualisation of what a classroom community is and how it is shaped. The book introduces new models for learning about science as well as an argument for, and description of, how the arts can transform the curriculum. Finally, Gallas describes, first hand, the process of doing teacher research, and what distinguishes that process from other kinds of educational research.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
On Being an Aboriginal: A Model for Teacher Research
Part I Epiphanies of the Ordinary
Sharing Time: When Children Take the Chair
Making Room for Many Voices
``Bad'' Boys in the Classroom
Part II Stories about Science
Making Thinking Visible
Pigs Are Science
Rainbows on the Floor
Part III Art as Story
The Flexible Mind of Childhood
Arts as Epistemology: Enabling Children to Know What They Know
