Robert Fisher – författare

Settlement Houses Under Siege: The Struggle to Sustain Community Organizations in New York City examines the past, present, and future of the settlement house in particular and nonprofit community-based services as a whole. Too often viewed as an artifact of the Progressive era, the settlement house remains today, in a variety of guises, a vital instrument capable of strengthening the social capital of impoverished communities. Yet it has been under attack in recent years, particularly in New York City. Cutbacks in social service funding at federal, state, and local levels during the late 1990s left many nonprofit agencies in an essentially untenable position, dependent on a public sector interested primarily in cutting costs. Both this trend and a concomitant shift to privatization continue today, challenging the flexibility and creativity of social service administrators and undermining neighborhoods and community organizations. The findings contained in this book extend well beyond just settlement houses.The tension between the ever more restrictive business practices required by government contracts and the provision of effective social services is a powerful trend in the larger world of nonprofit agencies. Michael B. Fabricant and Robert Fisher offer a ground-level exploration of the complexity of developing and implementing a service-based community-building agenda in a hostile climate. Community building, they argue, will be the most important social service work of the twenty-first century. Drawing on more than one hundred interviews with directors and staff members of social service and nonprofit agencies throughout New York City, Settlement Houses Under Siege makes the case for a holistic view of the structural pressures confronting poor communities, one that seeks not only to reposition the idea of social service and revision social assets in a conservative age but also to pose important questions about our broader civic life.

Community forestry focuses on the link between forest resources and livelihoods and contributes to forest conservation and reforestation. It is widespread in Nepal, with a very high proportion of the rural population involved, and is widely recognized as one of the most successful examples of community forestry in Asia. Through a combination of literature reviews and original research, this volume explores key experiences and outcomes of community forestry in Nepal over the last four decades as a model for improving forest management and supporting local livelihoods. The book takes a critical approach, recognizing successes, especially in forest conservation and restoration, along with mixed outcomes in terms of poverty reduction and benefits to forest users. It recognizes the way that community forestry has continued to evolve to meet new challenges, including the global challenges of climate change, environmental degradation and conservation, as well as national demographic and social changes due to large-scale labour migration and the growing remittance economy. In addition to examining the changes and responses, the book explores ways that community forestry in Nepal might move forward. Lessons from Nepal have relevance to community forestry and community-based approaches to natural resource management around the world that are also experiencing global pressures and opportunities.

Creative Dialogue is an essential guide to dialogic learning for every trainee and practising teacher. It presents practical ways of teaching children to be more thoughtful and creative, and to learn more effectively through speaking and listening in school and at home. The book includes:practical ways to develop dialogic learning across the curriculum a guide to developing talk for thinking in the classroom more than 100 activities for stimulating talk with children of all ages and abilitiesadvice on using dialogue to support assessment for learningideas for developing listening skills and concentration. Written by a leading expert in teaching thinking, Creative Dialogue is essential reading for all who wish to understand and develop dialogic learning in education today.

Creative Dialogue is an essential guide to dialogic learning for every trainee and practising teacher. It presents practical ways of teaching children to be more thoughtful and creative, and to learn more effectively through speaking and listening in school and at home. The book includes:practical ways to develop dialogic learning across the curriculum a guide to developing talk for thinking in the classroom more than 100 activities for stimulating talk with children of all ages and abilitiesadvice on using dialogue to support assessment for learningideas for developing listening skills and concentration. Written by a leading expert in teaching thinking, Creative Dialogue is essential reading for all who wish to understand and develop dialogic learning in education today.

This inspired bio musical about The One and Only begins with Groucho as an old man doing his famous Carnegie Hall show. It then goes back to the beginnings of the Marx Brothers and their struggles to make it in vaudeville their rise to stardom and their eventual break up. All classic Groucho songs are included. One actor plays Groucho another plays Chico and Harpo and one actress plays all the wives girlfriends and Margaret Dumont. A hit in New York across the U.S. and in London this show will delight Marx Brothers fans and the as yet uninitiated.

In an era of global transition, contemporary grassroots organizing represents the dominant form of resistance available to people who seek to control their lives. It is the basis for restoring public life, empowering individuals and communities, and challenging the state and the capital. Through empirically based case studies and theoretical essays, Mobilizing the Community discusses strategies, tactics, ideology, and leadership often used in grassroots mobilization. It covers citizen initiatives, ethnic self-help organizations, community-based development and service delivery programs, political lobbying and advocacy efforts, political party building, and direct action protest groups. The empowerment of various groups--middle-class suburbanites, the poor, women, gay men, lesbian women, communists, neopopulists, workers, immigrants, hispanics, and blacks--is addressed. This comprehensive volume provides powerful suggestions to scholars, practitioners, and analysts of urban studies and political science, as well as activists. "This is a very useful volume. Its emphasis on the process of community organizing leads to a focus on tactics, strategy, resource acquisition and alliance formation. This compliments the more usual survey studies of movement participants which tend to be static and give equal weight to each individual." --Housing Studies

What do community organizations and organizers do, and what should they do? For the past thirty years politicians, academics, advocates, and activists have heralded community as a site and strategy for social change. In contrast, Contesting Community paints a more critical picture of community work which, according to the authors--in both theory and practice--has amounted to less than the sum of its parts. Their comparative study of efforts in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada describes and analyzes the limits and potential of this work.Covering dozens of groups, including ACORN, Brooklyn's Fifth Avenue Committee, and the Immigrant Workers Centre in Montreal, and discussing alternative models, this book is at once historical and contemporary, global and local. Contesting Community addresses one of the vital issues of our day--the role and meaning of community in people's lives and in the larger political economy.

With the election of a community organizer as president of the United States, the time is right to evaluate the current state of community organizing and the effectiveness of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). Since 2002, ACORN has been dramatically expanding and raising its national profile; it has also been weathering controversy over its voter registration campaigns and an internal financial scandal. The twelve chapters in this volume present the perspectives of insiders like founder Wade Rathke and leading outside practitioners and academics. The result is a thorough detailing of ACORN's founding and its changing strategies, including vivid accounts and analyses of its campaigns on the living wage, voter turnout, predatory lending, redlining, school reform, and community redevelopment, as well as a critical perspective on ACORN's place in the community organizing landscape.

With the election of a community organizer as president of the United States, the time is right to evaluate the current state of community organizing and the effectiveness of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). Since 2002, ACORN has been dramatically expanding and raising its national profile; it has also been weathering controversy over its voter registration campaigns and an internal financial scandal. The twelve chapters in this volume present the perspectives of insiders like founder Wade Rathke and leading outside practitioners and academics. The result is a thorough detailing of ACORN's founding and its changing strategies, including vivid accounts and analyses of its campaigns on the living wage, voter turnout, predatory lending, redlining, school reform, and community redevelopment, as well as a critical perspective on ACORN's place in the community organizing landscape.

First Published in 2005. Promoting creativity can be a powerful way of engaging children in their learning. Showing how creativity can be developed across the curriculum, this book offers advice on how to: Develop children's capacity for creative thinking and achievement; use creativity to increase levels of motivation and self-esteem; teach the creative skills pupils need for success in learning and life. Combining the latest research with practical ideas and tasks, this multi-dimensional book is a must for teachers, students and educators who wish to know more about creativity in teaching and learning.

An edited collection describing key issues in supporting literacy development, this book helps to 'unlock' the mysteries behind helping children learn to read, write, speak and listen. It explores ways to help children develop their skills in literacy, thinking and learning, and shows how literacy teaching can be used creatively and imaginatively with children of all ages and abilities. The new edition of this well-known text: reflects the importance of creativity and the new Primary Strategyoffers approaches to teaching literacy that accord with and beyond the literacy hourincludes coverage of the Foundation Stage curriculum in every chaptercovers the inclusion agenda and supporting EAL pupilshighlights the importance of popular culture and visual literacy in children's lives.Interweaving pedagogy with theory and practical suggestions, this book is firmly based in classroom and academic research to support both trainee and practising teacher in the realities of teaching and learning in literacy.

Community forestry focuses on the link between forest resources and livelihoods and contributes to forest conservation and reforestation. It is widespread in Nepal, with a very high proportion of the rural population involved, and is widely recognized as one of the most successful examples of community forestry in Asia. Through a combination of literature reviews and original research, this volume explores key experiences and outcomes of community forestry in Nepal over the last four decades as a model for improving forest management and supporting local livelihoods. The book takes a critical approach, recognizing successes, especially in forest conservation and restoration, along with mixed outcomes in terms of poverty reduction and benefits to forest users. It recognizes the way that community forestry has continued to evolve to meet new challenges, including the global challenges of climate change, environmental degradation and conservation, as well as national demographic and social changes due to large-scale labour migration and the growing remittance economy. In addition to examining the changes and responses, the book explores ways that community forestry in Nepal might move forward. Lessons from Nepal have relevance to community forestry and community-based approaches to natural resource management around the world that are also experiencing global pressures and opportunities.

The Anti-HDR HDR Photography Book contains everything you’ll need to know in order to get the best results from your High Dynamic Range images. Designed for those who want to extend the dynamic range in their work, but are frustrated by over-processed and hyper-saturated images, this book proves that HDR techniques are capable of producing photographs that are both stunning and realistic.In addition to helping you choose the right equipment and settings to optimize your shoot for HDR, the book explains how to use post-processing software to create natural-looking photographs, blend source images with layer masks, and establish an efficient workflow. By teaching you to effectively use all the most important tools of HDR, it will expand the scope of your portfolio and allow you to create images that you never thought were possible.Key features include: What to look for when choosing a camera for HDR Description of gear that is important to the HDR photographer How to use the HDR software applications Photomatix and SNS-HDR Pro to achieve natural-looking results Discussion of blending multiple source images using simple masks and techniques An in-depth examination of the use of Luminance Masks for blending and editing bracketed images to a photorealistic composite Guide to workflow, from organizing images on the computer to pre-merge editing of RAW files using both Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Bridge The use of black-and-white in HDR and image-blending, including ways to convert color images to black-and-white

The Anti-HDR HDR Photography Book contains everything you’ll need to know in order to get the best results from your High Dynamic Range images. Designed for those who want to extend the dynamic range in their work, but are frustrated by over-processed and hyper-saturated images, this book proves that HDR techniques are capable of producing photographs that are both stunning and realistic.In addition to helping you choose the right equipment and settings to optimize your shoot for HDR, the book explains how to use post-processing software to create natural-looking photographs, blend source images with layer masks, and establish an efficient workflow. By teaching you to effectively use all the most important tools of HDR, it will expand the scope of your portfolio and allow you to create images that you never thought were possible.Key features include: What to look for when choosing a camera for HDR Description of gear that is important to the HDR photographer How to use the HDR software applications Photomatix and SNS-HDR Pro to achieve natural-looking results Discussion of blending multiple source images using simple masks and techniques An in-depth examination of the use of Luminance Masks for blending and editing bracketed images to a photorealistic composite Guide to workflow, from organizing images on the computer to pre-merge editing of RAW files using both Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Bridge The use of black-and-white in HDR and image-blending, including ways to convert color images to black-and-white

Want to achieve spectacular success in your personal and business life? Looking for ways to mold and capture superior teamwork, cohesion, and bone-deep dedication? Put Real Dream Teams on your list of must reads.From the headlines used to describe groups such as the 1992 U.S. Olympic basketball team, to Hollywood production moguls, to attorneys clashing in major criminal cases, we have all heard the phrase "dream teams" used and misused. Real Dream Teamsis a book that focuses on extraordinary efforts by conditioned winners who have achieved outstanding results through what the authors call "synergistic group dynamics."Let Real Dream Teams point you in the direction of becoming a more effective team leader and team member. Read of team efforts and extraordinary practices and results as demonstrated by recipients of the Nobel Prize, the Medal of Honor, national championships, and best-in-industry awards. Take tips from those who have achieved their membership in Real Dream Teams: