Bob Perry

Sue Dockett

Ole Fredrik Lillemyr

This book brings together an international group of researchers reporting on their work about play and early childhood education across 13 countries – Norway, Sweden, Denmark, England, Germany, Hong Kong, United States of America, India, The Maldives, Sri Lanka, Singapore, China and Australia. It contributes to growing international conversations about play and the role of play in early childhood education. Each of the chapters in this anthology reflects different directions in research as well as a range of approaches to reconceptualising play. Each researcher questions assumptions underpinning young children’s play and early childhood education and explores the implications of these questions for further research, practice and policy. Chapters report a wide range of innovative and transformative research, focusing on areas such as the play of infants and toddlers, the role of values in play, the complexity of connections between play and learning, motivation, the role and understandings of early childhood educators in promoting children’s play, risky play and the impact of Westernised approaches to play in different contexts. This book argues for the importance of children’s play at a time when there is a great deal of pressure to increase the academic focus of early education and to eliminate play that could be deemed risky. Several authors note moves towards pedagogies of play and explore the potential links between play and learning in early education settings. The research reported in this book is a timely reminder of the value of play, for and of itself, as well as the learning potential of play. It provides a pathway into the debates about the role and value of play in early years education for students, researchers and policy-makers.

Theory and Research on Early Years Education

Varied Perspectives on Play and Learning

Stefan Bechtel

After hitting rock bottom through addiction, bowling legend Bob Perry learned that religion is for people who don't want to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there. Perry tells his heart-wrenching, inspiring story of bowling for the mob and drug and alcohol addiction in his new book, Redemption Alley.Perry, considered by many to be one of the most naturally-talented bowlers in the history of the sport, had potential to become one of the best even at the young age of 12. Unfortunately, he grew up in 1970s Paterson, New Jersey, where everyone knew someone who was "connected"--with the mob, that is. Instead of training for championships, Perry began doing odd jobs for wiseguys and hustling hundreds of thousands of dollars in after-house "action bowling" for John Gotti, who later became the boss of the Gambino crime family. Perry's connections with organized crime eventually landed him in federal prison, but not before he became addicted to crack cocaine, alcohol, and painkillers and was homeless on the streets of New York. Ultimately, Perry washed up on the shores of St. Christopher's Inn, a shelter run by Franciscan monks. It was there that he had six fateful encounters with an angelic messenger who no one else could see--a monk whose message was so powerful that Bob Perry has now been sober for 22 years. In Redemption Alley, Perry not only shares his remarkable story of bowling success, his dangerous association with hoodlums and gangsters, and his recovery from addiction, but also his inspiring, decades-long spiritual quest, and his sober journey back into the bowling world.

How I Lived to Bowl Another Frame

Redemption Alley

Some men are born brothers; others become brothers through experiences. Arty, Lance, and Gill share an unbreakable bond tested by their common desire for a woman of charm and beauty, but with secrets that will test their camaraderie. Their friendship is forged in the Cross Timber, an ancient forest separating the vast plains of western Oklahoma from the wooded hills of the east. The thick woodland was described by Washington Irving as "The Cast Iron Forest" because it was so difficult to traverse. Indians native to the plains called it "The Emerald Wall." Set against the backdrop of the Great Railroad Strike of 1922, Brothers of the Cross Timber describes the challenges families faced in the mass migration from the farm to the cities in the early twentieth century. As the "brothers" find their place in a changing and uncertain world, they learn trust is the enduring element to friendship.

Brothers of the Cross Timber

Anne Petriwskyj

This book provides an important compilation and synthesis of current work in transition to school research. The book focuses strongly on the theoretical underpinnings of research in transition to school. It outlines key theoretical positions and connects those to the implications for policy and practice, thereby challenging readers to re-conceptualize their understandings, expectations and perceptions of transition to school. The exploration of this range of theoretical perspectives and the application of these to a wide range of research and research contexts makes this book an important and innovative contribution to the scholarship of transition to school research. A substantial part of the book is devoted to detailed examples of transition to school practice. These chapters provide innovative examples of evidence-based practice and contribute in turn, to practice-based evidence. The book is also devoted to considering policy issues and implications related to the transition to school. It records a genuine, collaborative effort to bring together a range of perspectives into a Transition to School Position Statement that will inform ongoing research, practice and policy. The collaborative, research, policy and practice based development of this position statement represents a world-first.

Transitions to School - International Research, Policy and Practice

Wilfried Griebel

This collection addresses issues related to families and transition, and pays special attention to the transition to school, the effect of this on the family, as well as the effect of the family on that transition. It celebrates the roles of families, locating them as integral partners in time of transition and identifying a variety of ways in which families and educators can work together with children to promote positive transitions. The book draws on a range of theoretical frameworks and research projects to provide multiple perspectives of family involvement in education, family-educator partnerships, the nature of collaboration, issues for families in marginalised or complex circumstances, as well as the multiple intersections of families and transition processes. The research projects reported range from in-depth case studies to the analysis of large-scale data sets and all have multiple messages for practitioners, policy makers and researchers as they seek ways to engage with families as their children start school.

Families and Transition to School

Transition to school is an important process for all involved: children, parents, educators and others. This book presents comprehensive research from the Australian Starting School Research Project and other sources that should be of great value to researchers in early childhood education, practitioners in this field and early childhood teacher education students

Perceptions, Expectations, Experiences

Transitions to School

The Nephilim, a mystic and ancient order, will go to any length to protect their mysteries and the greatest secret of all-the very knowledge of their existence. Ty Roland, stuck in an unsatisfying and routine job, spends his life avoiding responsibility. Life changes suddenly for Ty when his estranged grandfather dies, leaving him and a forgotten cousin Debbie, an unlikely inheritance-and a mysterious note with a cryptic code they must decipher. As they unravel the mysteries of their grandfather's past, a bazaar world of knowledge, power, and deceit threatens everything they believed to be true while bringing Ty and Debbie dangerously close to the shadowy secrets of the Nephilim.

The Nephilim Code

Nadine Ballam

Anders Garpelin

This book presents the latest research on educational transitions from a variety of research traditions and practical contexts set in Australia, New Zealand, and several European countries. It examines, critically questions, and reshapes ideas and notions about children’s transitions to school. The book is divided into five parts, the first two of which emphasise diversity and inclusion, with Part II focusing solely on the transition to school for children from Indigenous cultures. Part III explores the notion of continuity, which has been widely debated in terms of its role in the transition to school. Part IV explores the transition to school through the notion of ‘crossing borders’. The final section of this book, Part V, includes ideas about future directions for work in the area of educational transitions, and presents the notion of transitions as a tool for change to policy, research and practice. The book concludes with a critical synthesis of the research outlined throughout, including recommendations regarding future research related to educational transitions.

European and Antipodean Research

Pedagogies of Educational Transitions

Oliver Thiel

Elena Severina

Structured around Bishop’s six fundamental mathematical activities, this book brings together examples of mathematics education from a range of countries to help readers broaden their view on maths and its interrelationship to other aspects of life. Considering different educational traditions and diverse contexts, and illustrating theory through the use of real-life vignettes throughout, this book encourages readers to review, reflect on, and critique their own practice when conducting activities on explaining, counting, measuring, locating, designing, and playing. Aimed at early childhood educators and practitioners looking to improve the mathematics learning experience for all their students, this practical and accessible guide provides the knowledge and tools to help every child.

Bob Perry

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