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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. By what title was Tolstoy known to his students?

2. What composer was Ashton-Warner playing when her students began doing expressive dancing?

3. Which student chose "King of the Rocket Men" as a key word?

4. What teacher did Ashton-Warner describe as being on the "high mountain" at the beginning of "Workbook"?

5. What color crayon did Ashton-Warner use for the key vocabulary?

Short Essay Questions

1. In what way does nature provide lessons that books or indoor plantings cannot?

2. What is wrong with the cadence in many published first readers?

3. What did Ashton-Warner mean by "tone" in the classroom?

4. How did Russian peasant students react to Leo Tolstoy's experimental school?

5. By what process was spelling taught in Ashton-Warner's classroom?

6. What did Ashton-Warner mean when she wrote that "we don't waste enough in school?"

7. Why did Ashton-Warner say that the discussions of the children's stories were the "most significant" feature of the class?

8. In "Workbook," what did Ashton-Warner mean when she said that one cannot plot life?

9. What was the role of handwriting in the Maori students' stories?

10. Into what two main categories did Ashton-Warner place many of her students' first words?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Ashton-Warner rejected the use of corporal punishment, while pointing out that many prominent philosophers embraced it. Write an essay exploring this issue. Is corporal punishment ever effective? What short-term and long-term impacts does it have on children? Does it make a difference if it is administered at home or in a school setting? What other disciplinary techniques can be used, both at home and at school? Include in your essay whether most schools today allow corporal punishment and how attitudes have changed since Ashton-Warner first wrote "Teacher."

Essay Topic 2

Ashton-Warner wrote in detail about the importance of "first words" for beginning readers and how the traditional reading books used among young children did not use those words. Write an essay exploring how the use of a child's first words can enhance the learning process. Do children from different cultures develop different first words? Does learning to read from another culture's books necessarily lead to stunted development? If individual children are given their own unique texts, at what point can a teacher introduce standardized books to the entire classroom?

Essay Topic 3

At one point in the book, Ashton-Warner admitted that at least one of her white students would have performed better had he been given access to the "white" readers she hated so much. Did her efforts on behalf of her Maori students come at a cost for her white students? Is it possible to help one previously disadvantaged group while also ensuring that the "advantaged" group does not fall behind? Should teachers base their teaching on reaching specific groups or should all the students, regardless of background, be expected to conform to the standard used in that classroom? Is it possible--or desirable--to differentiate instruction in a diverse classroom?

(see the answer keys)

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