Schools and Instruction Books

I enjoyed this book. It spent two pages on every topic that's important to beginning artists. It never rambled on about useless, trivial information. The author focused in on clear definitions and illustrations. This reader was never confused by the book's precise method in handling complicated exercises. These exercises not only explained the material, but also led to completed works of art. The book also had a small, but vital glossary. The glossary helped to reiterate important concepts, such as scumbling, aerial perspective, fat-over-lean painting and high-key colors (just to name a few). Reading this book is like taking an art class. It focuses in on the most important concepts; and, it explains them in a brief, succinct manner.

My soft-cover version of this highly-attractive book has plenty of nice features. The overall concept is sound, (although a little cursory in places, even for a book aimed at beginners); the instructional and informational content is generally useful and interesting; the illustrations and reproductions are excellent. There are even some health and safety tips that were very welcome.

So, what's the problem? The low rating I gave this book falls squarely at the feet of the editor(s). Simply put, there are far too many mistakes for a book of this size!

Completely wrong labels on a graph of oil content in paints makes for total confusion, especially if you're trying to come to terms with the "fat over lean" concept or similar technical ideas. Page cross-references that are incorrect are frustrating, but tolerable, in a monthly magazine or daily newspaper, but not in a textbook! There are numerous other little labelling, spelling, word-usage and grammatical errors, as well as a couple of invented words ("sawned off" is going to stick in my memory for a long time!) and a few "explanations" that don't explain anything.

I'm not sorry I bought the book, but it would be so much easier for my wife, who is just starting out in oil painting, and who is not a native user of English, if the information were a bit more reliable.

I purchased another Ray Smith book [Portraits, hardcover] and have no real criticisms of that book. I would consider buying others in the series, but this one is a little disappointing. A very beautiful book spoiled by sloppy editing. It's really a shame!

This is the kind of book that organizes the information you need to know in a logical and straight-forward manner. A great place to start for any aspiring artist.

I recently picked this book up for a group guitar class (Middle and High School Level). I found that the amount of material covered is very nice and the sequential presentation of concepts is quite good as well. My two critiques of the Guitar School Method concern its visual layout and its reliance on tablature in later sections. While there are several foundational concepts coevered (open-string chords, notes in the first position, basic rhythmic and accompaniment skills) these concepts are burdened by too much text. Often, it seems that the author tried to fill as much information as possible at the expense of ease of comprehension and playability. I also dislike the authors reliance of tablature in the accompaniment sections of the book. By this point in the text the students will know the notes in the first position so why show them arpeggios in tablature? Again, this is the authors mistake of trying to introduce too many concepts at the cost of readability and comprehension.

I have found that the High School students tend to do much better with this book than the Middle school students, although by spending more time and with repetition the Middle schoolers do understand and retain the material quite well.

I would highly recommend getting the Teacher's edition of this book as well if you will be using it in a group setting. The teacher's edition contains several reproducible handouts as well as lesson plans.

this book is great my husband is using the book in collage taking a guitar class and learning to read music he has been playing for 30 years by ear and now this book is teaching him to read music the book is super thank you.............

This book is probably the best book ever written for learning guitar for the older child, middle school level to high school level, and especially college level elementary education major class guitar. Also perfect for individual guitar lessons as well, not just for guitar class in school. It's not for children 12 and under as it will be too difficult and some techniques too advanced. Get his "Basic Instructor Guitar" book instead if your child is 12 and under.

Jerry Snyder has been writing, rewriting, and polishing this book's contents since 1974, when his first instructional guitar books came out. He has been teaching class guitar in a public school setting for 30 plus years and it shows in the way the material in this book is presented.

There's preliminary insight into theory. technique, scales, or harmony, whatever is needed to clarify the objective and outcome. Then a presentation by Jerry himself on guitar (which is included on the CD) which you can play along with and which can fill in for a teacher in between lessons. Guitar essentials like note reading are covered but he makes it much more interesting than any other book and includes a variety of duets to practice with a teacher in a variety of styles. This book progresses nicely into book two where you learn jazz, classical, and rock improvising. Great for "test driving" guitar styles to see what stylistic direction (jazz or classical) you may want to pursue in future formal studies. Jerry Snyder also has a supplemental Classical For Guitar in TAB book that is the perfect repertoire book for the beginning classical guitarist. Book 1 and Book 2 and all you need for learning guitar in a compresensive approach.

Lots of information on different areas of music education for children, a good resource.

Music In Childhood was the textbook for two classes I took during my undergrad - Methods for Early Childhood Music and Methods for Middle Childhood Music. Both were really important segments of my music ed. degree. Even though I will never be more than a private piano instructor, I found this textbook to be packed with vital help about children and their ability to learn music - bottom line. I don't ever plan on teaching school and I am quite happy with my piano studio, but there are some things that are universal in teaching music and this text seems to highlight each and every one of them. I didn't hang on to any of my conducting books or vocal methods books, but this one I kept. I have used it many times as a reference and I know I'll use it in the future. This is almost essential to any music teacher out there, whether you're in the schools or simply have a private studio like I do.

This book is excellent, very comprehensive. It was used as the textbook for my teaching elementary music class. I will keep it in my library forever, lots of valuable information for the early music education of young students.

I thought this book was a very good general introduction to oil painting. It covers everything from materials to techniques, and has a step by step guide to creating quite a few oil paintings (as a means of practicing or learning about painting techniques). I learned quite a bit about using different sorts of techniques and it was beneficial to see them put into practice in the exercises in the book. If you are thinking about taking up oil painting, this is a good book to use to get started! My only criticism is that some of the 'step by step' paintings did not show some of the steps that I would have found interesting and informative, but overall I recommend this book.

I began painting with the guide of this book. It's really a good help when you don't know nothing about oils and you want to start painting without a teacher. It tells you step by step what to do, the colours to use, the brushes and lots of other tips.

I am really enjoying this book. First she explains basic materials, and doesn't go into all the advanced materials that aren't useful for beginners. This is good because other books overwhelm the beginner with material they don't need. Then she explains color theory in a way that was very easy to understand. Many books skimp on this but her concise explanation and examples were great. Finally the step-by-step examples are good. There are more steps than in most books, which I really liked. Unfortunately there are never enough steps though and beginners often get lost. But to have all the steps would make the book 1,000 pages. So I think the author did the best possible in a book this size. I've compared this book with a few others and I really believe it is the best.

This is one of my all time favorite books to teach with. I teach elementary school and it's a great way to get kids into writing. The illustrations are amazing and it's one of those books that not many people are familiar with, so the chances that they kids have heard it before are smal.

You've heard it over and over: one great teacher can make a difference in a kid's life. I never had such a teacher. This is probably why nobody writes stories about my childhood, spent idling away entire school years waiting for the rest of the class to catch up to me.

Luckily, the "ordinary boy" in this tale gets jolted out of his zombie existence when Mr. Gee bursts into the class with an oddball assignment. Not all the students are up to the imaginative leaps and mental stretching he requires, of course. But Ordinary Boy will never be the same, and takes to the task with awed glee, as if flicking on a light to discover he was in a theme park instead of a closet.

Though it takes place in Britain, this story could be yours, or your child's, as his drab, colorless world ignites into vivid, passionate sprays of color. Perhaps this story couldn't be told by an American, however, requiring as it does a lack of cynicism about public education.

This is a great story about the power of music. A new teacher comes to school and introduces the "ordinary" children to music. Some of them love it, some of them don't but the main character falls in love with it. He imagines wonderful, colorfully drawn scenes inspired by what he hears. The music changes this ordinary boy's black and white world to color, a transition that is not lost on the reader.
I loved that the book is honest about how music does not have the same transformative powers for everyone but how it does have the ability to touch people's lives. The illustrations are wonderful and the story is direct and quick to read. My 6 and 8 1/2 year olds really enjoy this book. One caveat - the word "pee" is used as part of the story, but if you don't like that, it is easy to skip it in the places it is used.

I am an international preschool teacher in Japan whose husband also happens to be Japanese (I am American) and I found this book to be very insightful and relevant to both my professional and personal lives. It is extremely well written, easy-to-follow, and above all interesting. The author explains the acquisition of a second language in very understandable terms. I enjoyed to book imencly.

This book is very good for an introduction to second language teaching. It offers practical classroom advise on areas you need to pay attention to.

The book arrived two days ago and I only finished a third of it, but I can't help writing this to share how much I liked it. I had searched on the web for information on what a young child (1-5yr), whose home language is not English, will go through when he/she first goes to a English-speaking preschool. I was frustrated for the past two months when my 3-year-old son started preschool. A child at this young age does not have enough social skills to compensate for his lack of competence in a different language, which is again needed to be socially accepted in the new environment. Such a child can become a loner, being ignored by other children, and unable to spell out his feelings. This book is the answer to my several sleepless nights. I am going to copy a few pages which describe the phase my son is going through and give them to my son's teacher so that she will understand what he feels and become more supportive. This is a great book, and I will request my local library to buy it, and I strongly recommend any parents who have the same concerns as I did to read it.

PERFECT LAYOUT OF THE CONCEPT/i AM AN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION MAJOR WITH AN EMPHASIS ON CHILD DEVELOPMENT/GREAT RESOURCE BOOK!

Overall, I found the history of the Bank Street College of Education and its founder Lucy Sprague Mitchell very interesting. With all the psychological studies being made after the turn of the century involving how people learn, I believe we are truly blessed that someone with Mitchell's parental insight was at the forefront. During this time period, children were to be "seen and not heard" according to the history books. Fortunately, Mrs. Mitchell took the time to break the mold and form her own view of how children should be educated. Yes, social reform remained the underlying purpose of her educational focus, but society was in turmoil and in need of optimistic leaders able to carry forward a positive insight into tomorrow's future. Mitchell's courage to make a difference in education has proved to be compelling, and her approach is carried on today through the developmental-interaction approach as well as other influenced teaching methods.

To begin with, the title of this wonderful book is problematic. A better one would be:"Revisiting Bank Street College of Education via Its Developmental-Interactive Approach." The word "pedagogy" gives pause; it puzzles many people. One has to get around it, or over it, before relaxing into the cradle of content. A pro pos, when I was a college senior majoring in elementary education, my uncle asked, "So how's the pedagogy going?" I had no idea what he was talking about. Here I was in my fourth year of study in a sophisticated college, school of education, having completed many method courses and student-teaching, with a 4. grade average, and I hadn't come across this word, pedgogy; or if I did, it made no lasting impression on me. And now, many years later, I still find the word off-putting. Perhaps, as many dictionaries point out, the word has negative historical associations, such as "pedantry" or "tutor of boys."

Maybe the authors wanted to avoid the phrase "progressive education" with its varying interpretations and responses. It is helpful to read the note, at the end of # 1 on page 34: "We are aware of the limitations of relying on any single term to describe the complex reciprocal relationships of individuals and their social and physical environments." Yes, indeed, "developmental-interactive" is a mouthful. I think referring to the phrase as D-I would be more friendly.

Characteristic of this book is its meandering readership-objective. For whom is it written? Part I is a turn-off for 90% of students in teacher-education programs. Although, it is personally fascinating and vividly interesting to this reviewer, who enjoys grappling with ideas, vocabulary and strings of knowledge --- faced with Part I, prospective future teachers will be discouraged from reading Parts II and III. This is too bad, for if given a chance, they would find much information, cogently written. (Part I would benefit from a Glossary. Examples: microgenetic, ontological, societal, phylogenetic, mediate, paradigms, schemas, enculturate, substrate, goal formation, functional system, genetic approach, etc.) Words are used like blankets thrown over desks when company comes, to hide the hard-work mess stowed beneath. (To call this use "educational jargon" dismisses it too readily and diminishes the damage done.)

Part II and III revisit that very body of knowledge needed to be in place through years of classroom teaching experience in order to make sense of Part I! Part II is teaching "how to teach" (Or at least it is describing some very good teaching.) So, it comes across as old-hat to anyone able to get through Part I. "Been there; done that; teaching it now."

It remains puzzling as to why these two very different educational purposes were addressed in the same book. Why did the editors choose to anthologize these particular articles.? The over 600 references, with over-laps, sprinkled in parentheses throughout the articles, and listed at the end of each, loom formidably; could even be over-whelming. (If they were all listed at the end of the book it might be less intimidating.) When averaged out over 16 contributors, it comes to approximately 38 books/articles per person --- a reading list for a four-year college course!

Section # 3 in Part I contains a wonderful (and needed) review of Vygotsky's theories and approach. The author(s) use an unfortunate adjectival construction with Vygotsky's name (and similarly with others) resulting in "Vygotskian," which sounds rather creepy. And although this section starts out talking about Vygotsky, it ends up viewing his theories through a prism of praises for the "D-I" approach. I was somewhat surprised at no mention of Noam Chomsky, especially when reading the sentence, "So, for instance, while we may be wired for depth perception, an infant still needs experience in three-dimensional space to develop its use to a function level" (Page 77) But all is redeemed by one of the closing paragraphs: "The developmental-interactive approach does not claim to be value-free. In fact, following Dewey, it holds that education that promotes mental and moral growth is what is authentic in a democratic society. Dewey (1938) wrote that only if an education promotes further growth is it worthy of the label 'education.'" (Page 87)

I think Part I, with some expansion and additions, could be published as one volume, perhaps entitled simply, "Educational History and Theory." It could become the primary text for a course so named, followed with a book containing Parts II and III, for a methods course in implementation.

These exercises are invaluable to those looking to develop dexterity on the keyboard, especially in terms of digital independence. They have stood the test of time and are beloved for their simple progression of concepts and interesting patterns.

Educators and students alike will benefit from this collection of exercises. These studies are meant to played slowly with proper technique and then eventually faster and more confidently...thus, the School of Velocity.

Do yourself and/or your students a favor and pick up a copy of this book.

It is essential for students, Everyone should study Czerny's Studies. It has a good reviewing and the press is really black: you see everynote. The negative point is the book format, it should be spiral formatted, because it is almost impossible to leave this book opened and flat on the piano.

I am a serious piano player, almost went to music school to study it for life...And this is my textbook.

Soul Stories by Anne Streaty Wimberly explains, by use of case studies and activities, a four step process of Proclaiming the story to our youth in Christian Education. This African American view of Christian Education, offers instruction to adults for a "How to..." when teaching other youth. Dr. Wimberly states the importance of understanding the liberation thought of the early African American Educators and it's importance to the art of vocation. The book is laid out for the reader to engage in study of the African American prespective of educating the Christian Faith. Using four primary pahses, the reader can examine the everyday story, the Christian Faith story in the Bible, the Christian Faith story in African American heritage and in Christian Ethical decision making. These processes will enhance a person's understanding of the biblical text in how it liberates one to follow the call to a God inspired vocation.

Book Review: Soul Stories

Name of Book; Soul Stories: Author; Anne Streaty Wimberly: Number of Pages; 155. Anne stories' are about " The Soul's Search for Liberation and Vocation" in African Americans. She is an Associate Professor of Christian Education and Church music at Atlanta's Interdenominational Theological Center, an experienced teacher and researcher. Based on her years of teaching across all ages and cultures, especially in the African American Culture, she feels she has developed and reintroduced a "new-yet-old" teaching style. Anne further believes this type of teaching can be resourceful and successfully implemented when "working with black children, youth and adults in their struggles to experience themselves as whole."

Anne Argued that this model and style of teaching are best demonstrated by a process of linking Christian Faith Stories with every day life experiences. In this exercise, the participants are encouraged to reflect critically on historical events, along with current life experiences. As a result they are able to discern the liberating activity of God and accept his calling for their vocations. According to Anne, this model can be both encouraging and inspiring in the lives of those who are faced with life circumstances with which they can identify. Anne listed" five primary assumptions undergird the story- linking model in Christian Education". (1) The reclaiming of the story-linking process found in the early slave community. (2) Story-linking model is appropriately undertaken in an intergenerational Christian educational setting. (3) Similarity between the issues as well as the contexts that are addressed in Scriptures and the issues and the contexts African Americans address today. (4) The model can be appropriately used in traditional setting, such as church, bible study settings, homes, communities, and across ages. (5) The model holds importance for Christian education leaders, teachers and participants alike.

I thoroughly enjoyed the reading of this book. If I had to rate on a scale from 1-5, I would give it a 4.5. As a reader, I didn't find research, other than her case studies, to support her argument. However, I would recommend this book especially to Christian Educators. The model of linking Faith Stories to Everyday life experiences, in my opinion, could be utilized cross- cultures. At some point in our lives we can all reflect back to a time or a crisis in our life. By linking it to a Scripture could be a form of liberating us from our problem, or having a better understanding of what is going on in our life.

Soul Stories offers a practical model for teaching adults. The author engages the reader through the use of storylinking, in conjunction with reflective excercises and activities.This book is easily adaptable for all teaching styles. You'll find the real life stories enlighting.Can be used for any audience.

My daughter has been thrilled with the Suzuki violin book and cd. Her playing skills and confidence have improved tremendously.
Thank you,
Michelle

This is a good product. I just didn't realize it was a revised edition until I received it, but it still works!

I bought this to help me learn to play the violin (I am in my 30's). I played the cello as a kid so I was already familiar with stringed instruments and note reading. This a progressive program that builds on itself. The book comes with a CD to help you hear how the songs should be played and that you can play along to.

I'd also recommend the "I Can Read Music" book for Violin.