Shirley Ann Smith – författare

In spite of millions of dollars spent on professional development for teachers, the dream of providing every child with the great teacher they deserve always seems just out of reach. With each new education product and innovation promising to transform teaching and learning, the myth of a silver bullet to cure education’s ills is perpetuated. But the silver bullet is already in the classroom: the teacher. Every teacher has the ability to transform their practice if he or she is willing to look inside themselves to make the changes necessary. By using methods described in Navigating the Labyrinth: Teacher Empowerment Through Instructional Leadership, educators can establish a metacognitive process for how they recognize what beliefs they have about how students learn, how they approach research so that it drives instructional decisions, and how they design and deliver instruction that ensures student learning at the highest level. This process is the foundation of effective pedagogy. Daily practice of these methods can establish a standard of professionalism that inoculates teachers against the everchanging “shiny things” in the profession and enable them to become strong instructional leaders.

In spite of millions of dollars spent on professional development for teachers, the dream of providing every child with the great teacher they deserve always seems just out of reach. With each new education product and innovation promising to transform teaching and learning, the myth of a silver bullet to cure education’s ills is perpetuated. But the silver bullet is already in the classroom: the teacher. Every teacher has the ability to transform their practice if he or she is willing to look inside themselves to make the changes necessary. By using methods described in Navigating the Labyrinth: Teacher Empowerment Through Instructional Leadership, educators can establish a metacognitive process for how they recognize what beliefs they have about how students learn, how they approach research so that it drives instructional decisions, and how they design and deliver instruction that ensures student learning at the highest level. This process is the foundation of effective pedagogy. Daily practice of these methods can establish a standard of professionalism that inoculates teachers against the everchanging “shiny things” in the profession and enable them to become strong instructional leaders.

Imperial Designs is the first text in English to deal comprehensively with the subject of the Italian colonial experience in China in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Recent scholarship on both the Liberal and Fascist Italian colonial enterprises centers on the Mediterranean and Northern Africa: expeditions, wars, ultimate occupation of territories, and their effect on Italy. This study looks at three Italian enclaves on the other side of the globe: Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai. These present both a window into the Italian experience in the Far East and confirmation of imperial policy. Their very presence confirms the rhetoric of conquest. Journalist Luigi Barzini, Sr.; diplomats Salvago Raggi, Varè, and Ciano; various military personnel; and other foreign nationals tell the story through letters and diaries. They all interact with the local metropolitan and rural poor and cultivate a generalized colonial white man’s detachment from their surroundings. A brief summary of the presence of chinoiserie in the Italian imaginary shows how the Celestial Empire has continued to function in the construction of Italian identity as part of the dichotomy between self and other.