Prospect Center

 

 

* Have you been thinking about how to use the Prospect Descriptive Processes more in your own teaching?

* Do you have questions about how to better support one of the children in your class?

* Have you wondered about the value of an activity or the best use of space in your classroom?

* Do you want to practice framing inquiries and chairing or co chairing Descriptive Reviews?

 

We invite you to participate in the second Institute on Exploring Classroom Questions, a five day institute for parents, teachers, and other educators. This institute provides opportunities for people who have attended the Institute on Descriptive Process (or an equivalent experience) to focus on their own practice using the Descriptive Processes. As a participant, you are invited to bring work related to classroom questions and issues. Before the end of the school year, leaders of the Institute will help you begin to frame your inquiry and identify what you should bring with you. The planning process will continue at the Institute. We will do this planning in small collaborative groups so you will have experience with framing and planning your own and at least one other inquiry, and can participate as chair, co-chair, or note-taker in another inquiry as well as presenting your own.

 

In this Institute you will learn more about the Descriptive Processes - their formats, their values, their uses as inquiry. The Descriptive Processes have been developed at Prospect Center and through the ongoing work of the Prospect Board, its institutes, conferences, and publications. Prospect, with its in-depth focus on children and their strengths, provides educators with small and large ways to keep the well-being of children and their families at the center of their practice. Educational issues are considered from the strong, radical perspective that ALL persons are actively making sense of the world. Prospect vigorously challenges practices that reduce, ignore, or squelch the vitality of the person and the inexhaustible variety of human expressiveness.

 

The Institute on Exploring Classroom Questions arose out of the expressed interests and needs of recent participants in other institutes. Our first year (2004) was an intense and powerful experience for the ten of us, as we all engaged in one another's inquiries throughout the week. While each inquiry had a life and value of its own, common themes emerged.

 

To build the coherence of the institute, it is important that participants attend all five and a half days, from 2:00 on Sunday, July 31st through 3:00, Friday, August 5, 2005. It is also important to register before May 15th, so that leaders have time to confer with you and plan the institute. Rhoda Kanevsky and Joan Bradbury will lead this institute for a second year.

 

This institute runs concurrently with the Institute on Descriptive Process and the Institute on Descriptive Inquiry, and this summer there will also be a group working with the Prospect Archive. Since meeting rooms and dorms will be nearby, participants in all groups will have the opportunity to share informal talk, to join in some common sessions, and to socialize together.

LOCATION AND ACCOMMODATIONS

The Institute takes place at Bennington College, Bennington, VT. Rooms are single or double occupancy; bathroom facilities are shared. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are served at the College Dining Hall.

 

FEES AND CREDITS

The Institute fee is $600. This fee includes all program costs as well as room and board at Bennington College for the week. Limited financial aid is available. Please contact Ann Caren, Treasurer of the Prospect Board, for more information about financial aid (acaren@twcny.rr.com or call 607-257-7959).

 

Two credits can be earned through the Graduate School, Antioch New England. These credits cost an additional $300. Please indicate on your application form if you are interested.

 

Prospect's top priority is to expand and diversify participation in all its institutes and conferences. We want more educators speaking out for democratic values and for schools responsive to children. Diversity of all kinds immeasurably strengthens that message.

 

Prospect does not discriminate on the basis of race, sexuality, gender, gender expression and identity, age, ability, religion, or national or ethnic origin in the administration of its admissions policies or practices. If you have further questions about Prospect Center, please check out our website at www.prospectcenter.org

 

APPLICATION PROCESS

The Institute on Exploring Classroom Questions can accommodate a minimum of six and maximum of ten participants, who will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. To enroll in the Institute, please return the attached application form with a nonrefundable $100 deposit by May 15, 2005. Because this institute requires conversations between the leaders and the participants before the institute starts, we urge you to respond as soon as possible.

 

The balance of the fee may be paid upon acceptance to the Institute. In the event of over- or under-enrollment, your deposit will be returned. You will receive a prompt acknowledgment of your application (by email or postcard), and sometime in May or June you will receive a letter with more information about program specifics, schedules, and readings.

 

Please make your $100 deposit check payable to PROSPECT CENTER and send it with the application form to:

                        Prospect Center, Box 328,

                        North Bennington, VT 05257.

                        Phone: 802-442-8333, Fax: 802-442-8444, email: prospect@sover.net.

                         www.prospectcenter.org

 

Further questions about the Institute on Exploring Classroom Questions should be addressed to: Joan Bradbury, 773-281-7544, jbradbury@fwparker.org; or Rhoda Kanevsky, 215-438-6207, RDKanev@aol.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Art by (Oscar), from the Prospect Archives

PROSPECT SUMMER INSTITUTE ON EXPLORING CLASSROOM QUESTIONS

July 31 - August 5, 2005

 

APPLICATION FORM

 

Name: _________________________________________________________________

Address: _______________________________________________________________

 

Phone: _______________________ email address: _____________________________

 

Place of work: ___________________________________________________________

Work address: ____________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

Work phone: ___________________

 

        I am interested in earning credits from Antioch College

 

Please make your $100 non-refundable deposit check payable to PROSPECT CENTER and send it with the application form to: John Recco, Assistant to the Board, Prospect Center, Box 328, North Bennington, VT 05257; tel: 802-442-8333; Fax: 802-442-8444; prospect@sover.net

 

Further questions about the institute should be addressed to Rhoda Kanevsky (215-438-6207, RDKanev@aol.com) or Joan Bradbury (773-281-7544, jbradbury@fwparker.org)