The Future of Childhood
Alliance for Childhood
Articles for the Brussels Conference
October 2000

Edited by Christopher Clouder, Sally Jenkinson and Martin Large

Softbound

Regular Price $16.95

Alliance Discount Price: $13.59

Children create our future with their gifts and talents, yet what does childhood mean for us today? Is childhood vanishing under the impact of poverty, commercialism, stress, social breakdown and hot housing? The experience of childhood is influenced by changing cultural patterns and trends. How can we then ensure that all children are given a good foundation for their future life.

The Alliance for Childhood is a forum where individuals and organizations can work together out of respect for childhood, in a world wide effort to improve children's lives. The Alliance convened this Brussels Conference to explore the following questions:

• What is childhood to today's children?
• What rights do children have?
• How are parents, professionals and policy makers shaping children's lives?
• How are commercialism and the media affecting children?
• What is the impact of hunger, violence, discrimination and abuse?
• What guidelines will help form a better environment for childhood?

This lively collection of articles by Conference presenters offers stimulating insight for dialogue about how we can give due respect to children. Contains useful references, contacts and resources for networking.

The Child and the Machine
How Computers Put Our Children's Education at Risk

Alison Armstrong and Charles Casement

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$12.80

Alison Armstrong began simply as a parent wanting to know more about the decision to increase the use of technology in her children's schools. What she learned was not at all what she expected to find and led her to team up with Charles Casement to produce The Child and the Machine. Instead of discovering well-designed studies that supported what the educational technology enthusiasts were saying, namely, that computer use enhanced the outcomes of education, the sobering facts of hundreds of school visits, studies and expert interviews led inescapably to the conclusion that our uncritical rush to use computers in schools has been one of the most expensive and most counterproductive "revolutions" in education history. Very highly recommended!

Failure to Connect
How Computers Affect Our Children's Minds - and What We Can Do About It

Jane M. Healy, Ph.D.

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$13.95

Computers and software, when used incorrectly, may do more harm than good to a child's growing brain and social/emotional development. This includes areas of attention span, creativity, problem-solving, developing patience and perseverance, and much more. In this comprehensive and practical guide to children and computers, Jane M. Healy, Ph.D., author of Endangered Minds, examines the advantages and drawback of computer use for kids at home and school, exploring its effects on their health, mental development, and creativity. Additionally, Healy presents concrete examples of how to develop a technology plan and use computers successfully with children of different ages; offers resources for reliable reviews of child-oriented software; and gives advice on managing computer use at home.

The Hand
How its use shapes the brain, language, and human culture

Frank R. Wilson

Softbound

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$12.80

The Hand is one of the most incredible books I've read in years. What a beautiful, thorough study of that feature of our bodies which, in absolute fact, makes us truly human. Wilson so completely and so beautifully demonstrates the relationship between the way we use our hands and the way we come to see our world and are enabled to see our world that the argument that there is little difference between a virtual experience and a real, hands-on experience ought to evaporate once and for all. The implications for education are both clear and vast - as are the implications for how we choose to live our lives and guide our children in other ways. Please read this wonderful book - when this information becomes commonplace, children's lives will be so much more as they truly need to be and the world will sing for joy.

The Growth of the Mind
And the Endangered Origins of Intelligence

Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D.

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$14.00

This is what I call "research with a heart." I found that the way the material was presented offered both a way to understand our society and others as well as a pathway toward understanding my own heart and patterning. Dr. Greenspan's compelling book reveals the six fundamental levels that form the architecture of our minds. Progress through these levels depends on a series of critical but subtle emotional transactions between an infant and a devoted caregiver. Greenspan reveals not only the origins of creative and analytic thinking, but warns that these mind-building experiences are being eroded in child-rearing and educational practices. He offers specific solutions to restoring them in families, daycare, schools, and in social policy. Outstanding!

In the Absence of the Sacred
The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations

Jerry Mander

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$11.20

In the Absence of the Sacred is a wonderful companion to Earth in Mind. Mander is the consumate insider in the world of technology - at one time he was president of Freeman, Mander & Gossage advertising agency. In the 1970s, he left that position to devote himself to public interest advertising campaigns. He knows media and electronic communications technology inside and out. He also knows well the nature of the human being and finds that the current juxtaposition of media and humanity is a deeply unhealthy, potentially fatal situation. In his presentation we find a threat to the human body, soul and spirit that we would do well to address. We also find a pathway toward health in the life-attitudes and lifeways of the indigenous peoples world wide. Masterful and inspiring.

Earth in Mind
On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect

David W. Orr

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$17.95

Earth in Mind offers us a rare examination of the relationship between the kind of education we offer children and the kind of world adults create. The combination of Orr's intelligent, knowledgable prose with his warm caring and concern about the future of our Earth and humanity itself is also rare. Orr sees education as the very pivot upon which the future of our world and our lives themselves turns - and draws us a picture of what a living education, based upon a living world, would look like. Radically different, decidedly human. A wonderful, inspiring book.