Letter from the Editor - Volume 7 - 2006 - Journal Archive - Thinking Classroom Journal - Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking

Some realize that old methods do not work, and start looking for new ones. Others can't imagine themselves without professional communication, sharing creative ideas and discoveries.

I also have my own background, and my own story. I'm a university lecturer, a translator, and an editor. It so happened that five years ago I translated an article for Thinking Classroom. The first one was followed by a second, a third... A translator, as you may know, has to empathize with and experience the author's ideas, mentally (sometimes physically) performing whatever actions are described in the source text. As a result, many of the ideas that I had encountered while translating found their way into my work with students. I soon began to realize that my teaching was still full of untapped possibilities and that the unique spirit of this journal, always questioning, critical, and reflective, had already become a part of me.

That was how I remained in my Thinking Classroom—first as a translator, then as an editor. And always, as a most interested reader. For me, each issue, including the one you are now holding in your hands, opens up new horizons in my profession.

I know that many teacher-practitioners (and I certainly count myself as one!) turn their attention to practical pieces first: something we can read, adapt to our needs, and use in class. No wonder that in any new issue we look for William Brozo's column: Here it is, good! This time Brozo and his co-author Kristine М. Calo focus on the importance of systematic and effective ways of working with nonfiction texts. To help the young readers comprehend informational text, some teachers use think-alouds. You may ask, what's so new about this strategy? Surely anyone can remember at least one considerate, thoughtful teacher who knew how to encourage student comprehension processes by reading and thinking aloud! However, many teachers find the method too time-consuming and are reluctant to use it in class. All the more reason for reminding us that think-alouds can be helpful, reliable, and effective.

Cinzia Bonotto from Italy is the author of another practical piece. She invites teachers to make connections between school mathematics and everyday knowledge. A simple and familiar tool, such as a ruler, can help the children develop new mathematical knowledge. Why necessarily mathematical, though? Many teachers know well enough that students' out-of-school experiences provide a mighty support for any school learning. So maybe it's worth asking ourselves: What notions do not come easily to our students? And is there a "ruler" at hand that may help them digest these notions?

Practical advice is always interesting and welcome, that's agreed. And yet as Lorraine Ling from Australia reminds us, professional educators cannot afford to turn away from theory and "expect practice to be the be-all and end-all." Quite so. If we do not want to become armchair experts, let us not forget that theory and practice in education interact with each other, creating and recreating each other continually.

Now imagine we've studied the theory, we know what to do in practice, we even have all the necessary conditions to make our effort worthwhile—but something is holding us back. It's stereotypes, our own assumptions, often unconscious, but restricting our creative and professional development. "How can we help teacher-practitioners change their own thinking, so that they approach new practices with an open mind?" Questions of this kind quite often remain unanswered... but not in Thinking Classroom. The article by Yury Vasiliev from Kyrgyzstan is an account of some steps he and his colleagues are taking toward finding a satisfactory answer, and of the first results their joint efforts have yielded.

The society of tomorrow is molded by the school of today. It's the task of school—our task—to prepare students for life in this society. How do we open students' minds and hearts so that they learn to understand and value both themselves and other people? How do we read and analyze books portraying diverse cultures? Two articles from the United States, one by Bette Goldstone, the other by Mary Gove and Kay Benjamin, address the ongoing challenges of multicultural education.

Look at pages 5-7. These are pictures by schoolchildren from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Canada. The young artists are separated by wars and oceans, by language and political differences. But through this project they can communicate and understand each other, because art is a universal language. Kathy Sanford and Tim Hopper from Canada tell us about the Global Arts project, its origin and growth, the obstacles it faced, and the response it received in the world. Such initiatives have much to teach us about making the world we live in a little more like the World We Want.

Teaching is many-sided. So is life.

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