Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University LibraryÕs preservation reformatting program. ... Read more

Book Description
Since 1800, when president Daniel Sanders welcomed the first class into the “temple of knowledge,” the University of Vermont has pursued a progressive mission of enlightening individuals and, through them, society. Balanced against the demands of national development, cultural change, and increased emphasis on academic specialization, UVM has graduated students who are intellectually curious, consider education to be a lifelong process, and seek to translate academic abstractions into the practical needs of society. University of Vermont tells this story of the students, curriculum, and campus through a unique collection of drawings, paintings, and photographs, many of which are published here for the first time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Exhaustively researched, brilliantly written, DONT MISS THIS!
This well-researcherd and handsomely illustrated volume from promising young writer and historian John D.Thomas, is much more than one has come to expect from the (often staid) "University History" genre.Such books may routinely be dry and formulaic, but not so Mr. Thomas's elegantly penned story of the University on the Hill.UVM's colorful history is brought vividly to life in Thomas's spare, lively and very well crafted prose.

This book may not have the suspense of John Le Carre, the surrealism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the transcendent literary flare of Melville or the staying power of Nathaniel Hawthorne but it is not without poetry or intrigue and (in the mind of this reader anyway), Thomas' richly wrought tome has the ring of a classic to it--truly unusual for the genre.Popular novel it may not be, but for those with a little more depth, intellect and historical curiosity this book is a real page turner, as full of thrilling plot twists as anything Michael Creighton ever turned out! Indeed this elegantly crafted history is the book that belongs on your bedside table this summer, not one those pretentious "best-selling" novels the New York Times Review of Books so breathlessly lard with anemic adjectives like "ethereal," "light-filled,"or "transformative." If there is a story that deserves to be made into a major motion picture, surely it is this quiet, unassuming (but thrilling to the intellectually rigorous) history of the University of Vermont.We are all in debt to this fine historian and writer whose name is sure to become a household word before the ink dries on his masterpiece. ... Read more

Book Description
Small Wonders: Nature Education for Young Children introduces children ages three through kindergarten to the natural world in a special way. Based on a hands-on educational approach, children learn about their environment by seeing and doing. The accurate, scientific content is wrapped in age-appropriate exercises, experiments, and explorations that use children's imagination and natural curiosity.

* Fact-filled essays introduce each subject
* Field-tested activities encourage exploration and discovery
* Scientifically accurate drawings illustrate topics and are incorporated into lessons
* A multidisciplinary approach integrates developmentally appropriate activities in science, language arts, movement, music, and visual arts
* Includes twenty-four nature exploration units grouped around three themes: growth and change, animal homes, and connections to nature

Small Wonders is a perfect tool for teachers, parents, child care providers, camp counselors, and others to spark young children's interests in the environment that surrounds them. ... Read more

Book Description
An intriguing study of a prominent intellectual victim of McCarthyism and of American academic institutions under political stress. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

My Great Uncle Alex
Growing up in a very conservative family I new little of my great uncle Alex. Just that he had been a communist and that that was why my father always argued with him. All I remebered was that he was this happy man that looked to me like a more bald version of Einstein. I later discovered this book and learned what an important and amazing man my great uncle was. If you are interested in cellular biology, jewish american history, communism in america, or the McCarthy Era, then you should read this book. It is the story of a man who was a pioneer in both biology and cancer research that was systematically fired and black listed due to america's paranoia of the time. An interesting history of a dark time in our society ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

SEEING OUR CHILDREN
FROM ANOTHER ANGLEis for teachers and parents--brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles--for any person who knows and loves a child--for anyone invested in helping that child reach his or her full potential as an ethical, creative, intellectual, spiritual, physical being.Pat Carini's compassionate vision of how we might begin to understand and teach our children shines through this collection on the Prospect School and the process of"Descriptive Review."

Margaret Himley has done an exceptional job of editing the volume, juxtaposing detailed descriptions of children and their learning styles with illuminating essays on the guiding philosophies of Prospect's processes.

The Descriptive Review of a Child is based on phenomenology, on the belief that all possible facets of human experience are valuable and important, worthy of inquiry and respectful contemplation.As Margaret Himley says,"Through description the person becomes more visible and real education begins, and it is, finally, this*taproot value of the person*that characterizes Prospect's particular ethical stance and that gives meaning to the descriptive processes.It is the ethical insistence on the hard work necessary to accord others--*all others*--the status of person, with all the complexity, capability, range of emotions and desires, and possibilities that we know ourselves to have."

Indeed, the actual Descriptive Reviews of Three Children--Gabriel, Victoria, and Nile--are at the heart of this remarable volume.Pat Carini and her Prospect colleagues believe curiosity is the core of all passionate learning.Students who are given the opportunity to pursue their natural interests are more inclined to take risks, to challenge themselves to work well beyond the expectations for their ages and grade levels."....

This thoughtful, cyclical work is the core of Prospect processes, a means of discovery that is neither singular nor static.In her lucid essay on the value of"Oral Inquiry,"Margaret Himley reminds us that language must remain fluid, that we must resist the tendency of words to"fix"ideas in our minds or to"explain"things in terms too reductive to be helpful.By participating in dialogues with others, by pooling information, we keep ourselves alert and flexible, willing to interrogate our own biases and perceptions, able to see and celebrate the unique spirits and the limitless potential of our children, our parents, our friends, ourselves.The joyful work of description is an explosive affirmation of life itself, the never-ending miracle of creation.

For twenty-six years, the work of Pat Carini and her colleagues at the Prospect School in North Bennington, Vermont transformed the lives of children and their families.Though the school closed in 1991 when the fragile financial base finally gave way, the work at Prospect continues, and the bold vision of Pat Carini continues to fire the imaginations of all who have ears to hear, voices to describe and encourage, hands to help, and minds to remain forever open and alive and curious.We cannot love our children unless we know them; we cannot nuture their unique interests and gifts unless we allow ourselves to watch them with absolute attention and wonder.Teachers and parents who visit the Prospect School, who read Carini's and Himley's work, who embrace the difficult and rewarding endeavor of Descriptive Review, will be forever changed.There is great hope in this--for all of us. ... Read more