Latin: Its study and teaching

The purpose of this scientific paper is to characterize the page 190v of the manuscript of Jagiellonian Library, cat. number 1297. Th e page in question contains the prayers and commentaries. Hitherto researchers have neglected this page so far, so it has not been fully described and some elements of the layout have not been identified (or misidentified) (see the papers of A. Bruckner, W. R. Rzepka and W. Wydra, C.K. Świecki et al.). The foregoing research has considered the page as a separate item, disregarding the surrounding pages. In this paper the author discusses the page as a whole. Th is allowed her to ask new questions concerning: the writer’s intention, the function of the page, and the possible status of an Old Polish text. In the main part of the paper the author makes an attempt to reconstruct the sequence of writing the elements of the layout (page composition), taking into consideration in particular the relations between the elements. According to the author it is possible to reconstruct the probable sequence of the writer’s actions, and therefore to retrace creative process of the scribe (known as Jakub of Piotrkow, the canon of Plock). Th e author assumes the three hypothetical stages of writer’s work. In the first stage he wrote Polish and Latin texts of Pater noster and Credo on the page. Then the page could have been used to lecture the prayers or to teach how to memorize them. Comparing the page on this stage with other known collections of basic prayers, we can eliminate the function of this record as a compendium or collection of common prayers. On later stages the writer added next elements: commentary on the translation of the prayers into Polish, a few words explanations (e.g. „The Holy Trinity: Th e Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit”, the division of water into snow, rain and ice) , an abridged version of Credo, a Polish version of Ave Maria and a paraphrase of Our Father by Ludolf the Carthusian. In the analysis the author points out the motivation behind the writing of consequent elements and their function (preaching and mnemonic). The last hypothetical stage of the creation of the page is writing down the text of Benedictiones mensae, not related to the elements mentioned before. The applied research procedure (reconstruction of the sequence of writing the texts on the page) allows to reconstruct alleged creative process. The analysis proves that the writer’s intention could have changed as subsequent elements were being written on the page. On the first stage the page could have served as a theological lecture or mnemonic teaching aid of the texts (both Latin and Polish). The receivers could have been the congregation (taught the basic prayers in Polish) or clerical students and the priests preparing to ministration (as the texts of prayers in Polish and Latin indicate). On the second stage the function of the page becomes clear: it serves as the teaching aid during lecturing of the articles of faith and explaining theological and linguistic matters (metatextual and metalinguistic commentary on the translations of prayers into Polish). That’s why we should consider the presumptive receivers not only simple folks (as some of the elements on the page are not applicable in this case) but clergymen or clerical students as well. The elements of the page were selected to use, depending on who was on the receiving end of the lecture and what was the purpose of it. According to the latest research on the distinguishing features and character of Old Polish texts we can assert that linguistic relics like this one, closely bound up with orality of medieval language, are not (were not) the complete texts but texts in statu nascendi. The discussed text is an example of genuine teaching aid, serving the writer, Jakub of Plock in ministering, and aft er that – probably the next clergymen.

This paper aims to identify the trajectory of English teacher education in the Arts and Letters courses, and provide an overview of the knowledge produced and put in circulation by teacher educators in Brazil. Based on research paper abstracts submitted to a pioneering event on language teacher education in Latin America, this review analyzes the advances and gaps in this area of research. It firstly summarizes the themes of the studies, from the most to the least recurrent ones. Secondly, it looks at gaps in issues concerning activity and research in teacher education. Thirdly, the paper provides insights into how the members of this community of practice can strengthen their identities as teacher educators and establish a more dialogical and empowering relationship.

The guest editors introduce the Special Issue on English Language Teaching in Public Primary Schools in Latin America by summarizing articles about public primary English language programs in six countries in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. They synthesize the main issues related to English education programs in the region and discuss the common trends and challenges addressed by the authors in the special issue.

School principals play a fundamental role in achieving institutional objectives.Individuals selected to become principals must acquire the necessary skills to strengthen required leadership and management abilities. In countries such as Mexico, teachers promoted to positions as principals possess no prior management training specific for that role. This is also the case in other Latin American countries and Europe. Thus, teaching experience alone, is not enough to make effective school principals. University and college training programs for teachers must include management skills training for future principals within their curriculums. This article analyzes the extent to which literature in this area written in the past few years in Europe and Latin America, have addressed this issue (and other related topics) involving management skills preparedness among primary school principals.

Political determinants of Sustainable Development Goals

American international schools in Latin America can play a vital role in preparing future leaders to effectively interact with people of diverse cultures. These schools provide ideal settings for exploring how policies, programs, and practices that reflect diverse perspectives and encourage intercultural learning might enhance global leadership development. Multidisciplinary reviews of the literature reveal a dearth of studies examining culture and leadership development in American international schools in Latin America. The model of cultural proficiency provides a comprehensive framework for exploring how these schools might proactively and effectively respond to diversity in a cross-cultural environment and develop globally competent leaders. This exploratory study aimed to uncover how formal school leaders, working in American international schools throughout Latin America, would characterize cultural proficiency in these schools and what barriers they might encounter. The Delphi method was used to systematically collect the opinions of a geographically disbursed panel of 35 experts representing 25 schools in 14 different countries. Participants completed three rounds of open-ended, on-line questionnaires to determine group consensus on essential features of cultural proficiency; the influence of school leaders; challenges and barriers; and potential success indicators for measuring and monitoring school-wide cultural proficiency and global leadership development. Key findings supported the theoretical framework and suggested a need for American international schools in the Latin American region to consciously assess cultural proficiency and develop school-wide strategies that consider: shared vision building, global curriculum, cultural awareness training, community service, leader influence and development. Resistance to change and elitist and ethnocentric values of students, parent, and teacher groups were cited as primary barriers to cultural proficiency development. Specific strategies for confronting these barriers were also identified. Recommendations include the need for school leaders and supporting credentialing and international education associations to recognize the tremendous impact of culture in these schools and develop comprehensive strategies for cultural proficiency development and assessment. Graduate education programs should enhance development of culturally proficient, global-minded school leaders and teachers to work in international schools. Future research is recommended to further explore cultural proficiency and leadership development in specific school contexts, using multiple methods.

The aim of this study is to identify the entrepreneurial skills of students from the Business Administration graduate program based on the opinion of the students, teachers, graduates and employers. For such purposes, a quantitative methodology is used, adopting curricula and entrepreneurship theories as well as the Tuning project that analyzes the structure of the generic and specific skills of professionals in Europe and Latin America, which identifies common and shared elements to any degree. The results reveal the need to develop skills to detect business opportunities and business projects, which together with great leadership can accomplish the achievements and goals set by risk management and implementation of a strategic, tactical and operational plan in order to generate an entire business system administration. To achieve this, it requires defining the specific skills related to their areas of expertise. This implies a questioning of the relevance of the educational, curriculum processes, agents and target learning subjects, the context and updating the current curriculum.

Objetivo: Analisar estudos científicos que avaliaram o desempenho acadêmico de estudantes que utilizaram vídeos como ferramenta de aprendizagem de ciências básicas (anatomia, histologia, fisiologia, etc.) no curso de graduação em medicina. Métodos: Realizado revisão da literatura no Centro Latino-Americano e do Caribe de Informação em Ciências da Saúde (BIREME), sendo incluídos estudos indexados na mesma. Os dados dos estudos incluídos foram inseridos em uma planilha e tratados por estatística descritiva. Resultados: A busca total resultou em 962 artigos, que após leitura dos títulos e resumos, culminou em 20 estudos. Destes, dez foram excluídos pois não aplicaram a intervenção de interesse, não esclareceram a inclusão ou não apresentaram dados separados de estudantes de medicina. O desempenho acadêmico se mostrou maior para o grupo exposto aos vídeos em seis estudos, enquanto três estudos apresentaram resultados semelhantes entre estudantes expostos aos vídeos e ao método de controle, e em apenas um estudo o desempenho acadêmico dos estudantes expostos aos vídeos se mostrou inferior. Conclusão: O uso de vídeos como ferramenta de ensino é cada vez maior, apesar disto, esta pesquisa mostra que a literatura acerca do tema relacionado à educação médica é escassa representando uma oportunidade para o desenvolvimento de novas pesquisas.

<p><em>У статті мова йде про низку підручників з риторики, які були написані</em> <em>українськими авторами в період </em><em>XVII–XVIII </em><em>століть. Розглянуто їх структуру</em> <em>та змістове наповнення. Установлено, що українські авторські підручники з</em> <em>риторики, хоч і спиралися на класичні античні зразки, містили власні</em> <em>методичні наробки, які відображали роди, жанри і види ораторського</em> <em>мистецтва популярні в зазначений період, враховували особливості</em> <em>національного красномовства. Визначено, що риторика в Україні цього періоду</em> <em>розвивалася на основі засвоєння шкільною освітою досвіду античної та</em> <em>західноєвропейської традиції, трансформованої середньовічним</em> <em>світоглядом.</em> <em>У створенні латинськомовної теорії красномовства брали участь п'ять</em> <em>культурних компонентів, які по</em><em>-</em><em>різному виявляли себе в риторика різних</em> <em>авторів: античний, візантійський, західноєвропейський, бароковий,</em> <em>слов</em>՚ <em>янський. У статті доведено, що авторські підручники з риторики стали</em> <em>основою для викладання курсів молодих викладачів. Різні за змістовим</em> <em>наповненням і структурою вони давали можливість урізноманітнити процесс</em> <em>викладання, а навчання зробити цікавим і захоплюючим. Авторські підручники</em> <em>та велика кількість рукописів викладачів Києво</em><em>-</em><em>Могилянської академії</em> <em>доводять, що період </em><em>XVII–XVIII </em><em>століть ознаменувався глибокою розробкою не</em> <em>лише змісту освіти, а й її методичним забезпеченням.</em></p>

Cambridge University graduates founded both the Boston Latin School and Harvard College in the 1630s. One might assume local universities kept up an intense commitment to Boston’s public schools for the next 370 years. After all, colleges and universities admit their high school seniors and prepare teachers for city schools. In fact, all but two universities lost interest in Boston schools during the 1930s and, for a generation, the Boston system turned inward, ignoring all but Boston College and Boston State Teachers College.

In Africa and many other developing countries in the Asia Pacific and Latin America, child sexual abuse is a serious problem that is on the increase. Cases of child sexual abuse are rarely reported because the majority of the perpetrators are related or close to the abused children, such as fathers, uncles, brothers, and, in some instances, their school teachers. Utilizing the Zimbabwean experience, this paper examines the problem of child sexual abuse. It argues that although Zimbabwe has ratified local, regional, and international conventions that purport to protect children, child sexual abuse is still rampant in the country. Helping professionals, such as social workers, should put this problem on their agenda.

Policemen comprise a professional group that tends to develop stress. The Burnout Syndrome may develop as a consequence of chronic work stress, giving rise to both physical and psychological alterations and increasing the risk of suffering certain diseases. On the other hand, it deteriorates the professional performance of police officers. Between the years 2000 and 2010, 89 studies were conducted relating to this syndrome within Latin-American countries, in which health care professionals and school teachers were the main focus groups; only 8 of said studies evaluated public security professionals. The results showed that the highest levels of Burnout Syndrome were found among Mexican traffic officers, with a 59.4% prevalence among all the participant officers. Given the increase in violence and the rate of crimes in Latin America, it is essential to analyze how working conditions impact the health of those who make up public security institutions, as determining factors in policies and strategies to reduce insecurity. 

When the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) gave math and language tests in 1997 to 3rd and 4th graders in 13 Latin American countries, researchers were only mildly surprised to find that students in Cuba's lowest-income schools outperformed most upper middle-class students in the rest of the region. These test data confirmed years of anecdotal evidence that Cuba's primary schools are by far the best in the region and may be better than schools in neighboring Florida. UNESCO tested students again in 2007, this time in the 3rd and 6th grades of 16 Latin American countries. No surprise, Cuban students repeated as the region's top performers. Those students in the 25th percentile in Cuba scored higher in both 3rd and 6th grade mathematics than average students in all but two countries--Costa Rica and Uruguay. Although their advantage was not as great in reading, they still scored higher, on average, than students in any other country. How does Cuba--a poor and economically inefficient country living under U.S. economic sanctions for a half century and dependent for many years on Soviet aid--have such high-achieving elementary school students when other countries don't? In 2003-04, two Stanford doctoral students, Amber Gove and Jeffery Marshall, and I set out on an ambitious research project to learn why. We analyzed econometrically the 1997 UNESCO data on individual students in seven of the Latin American countries covered by the survey, and then homed in on a more detailed comparison of Cuban, Brazilian, and Chilean classrooms. We filmed more than 30 3rd grade math lessons, about 10 in each country. We also interviewed teachers, principals, and ministry officials, and we visited university teacher training programs. We found that Cuban children excel academically for fairly straightforward reasons: They attend school for a full day, unusual in Latin America, and the schools are intensely focused on instruction, staffed by well-trained, regularly supervised teachers in a social environment dedicated to high achievement for all. The Cuban system combines quality teaching, high academic expectations, and a tightly controlled school management hierarchy with well-defined goals and responsibilities. That combination distinguishes Cuban education from other systems in Latin America, including Chile and Brazil, where we observed little, if any, instructional monitoring or support by school administrators, and a lot of below-par teaching that could have been improved by knowledgeable instructional interventions. Much more than in Chile or Brazil, the 3rd grade math lessons we filmed in Cuba focused on problem solving and math strategies. Cuban teachers were more likely to have students solve math problems from worksheets during class, then analyze their solutions in full class discussion. A higher fraction of Cuban pupils in the classrooms we filmed, including classrooms in two distant rural schools, were fully involved and seemed to be getting the concepts being taught. The closest thing we found elsewhere to this type of teaching and level of student engagement was in an expensive Chilean private school. Since good teaching seemed to be a key element of Cuban students' success, we analyzed differences in how primary school teachers were prepared and inducted into teaching. Again, we found big differences. In Cuba, teacher preservice training programs focus heavily on how to teach the national European-style curriculum so that children learn language and mathematics skills. Then, when the young teachers start out in a school, they are closely mentored for three years by the school's administration and other teachers who have a clear idea of exactly what good teaching is. In Brazil and Chile, teachers are trained in autonomous universities that decide how best to train their teachers, with minimal control from the central or state governments. …

Latin America in School and College Teaching Materials

Latin America in School and College Teaching Materials. Report of the Committee on the Study of Teaching Materials on Inter-American Subjects