They also relate what they have done in school with their life at home, in order to see the relevance of their school experiences to their lives.

Home Links involve family members in the child's learning experiences. Families are encouraged to be actively engaged in their children's learning through home visits, the Home Links Page newsletter, book bags, interactive story reading videos, and participation in classroom activities. These aspects of the program help keep families informed of their child's school day so that family members can model reading and encourage their children's learning.

Training, Materials, and Support
A comprehensive school reform program like Curiosity Corner requires considerable support and training. A Curiosity Corner Coach for each cluster of about 12 classes monitors and supports the teachers throughout the school year. This person participates in the teacher training and in additional training by the Curiosity Corner training team. All teachers and assistants working in the preschool receive training in the program. Workshops are conducted for staff on aspects of teaching or the program that they find challenging.

Curiosity Corner comes with teacher manuals, theme guides, over 150 children's literature books, puppets, manipulatives, games, and other materials to supplement the basic supplies to create a stimulating, developmentally appropriate program for young children.

For more information about Curiosity Corner contact:
Dr. Bette Chambers
Director of Early learning
Success for All Foundation
200 W. Towsontown Blvd.
Baltimore, MD 21209
1-800-548-4998 ext. 2420
bchambers@successforall.net
You can also visit the SFAF website at www.successforall.net

A Radical Constructivist Does CL
Ed Dubinsky

I consider myself to be a radical constructivist. Presumably this implies that I know what radical constructivism means. The term was coined by Ernst von Glasersfeld, but the idea goes back, at least, to Jean Piaget. My understanding of this philosophical position is that there is no external reality, or at least a human being can never know that there is, but rather each person constructs reality for her- or himself. This notion of reality applies both to ideas in our minds and to what we refer to as physical reality, or the "real world".

I suppose it is the inclusion of physical reality among the phenomena we construct that leads to the adjective "radical". For the purpose of discussing such matters, I think it is reasonable to define physical reality as those phenomena to which we have access through our senses such as books and chairs and rocks; whereas we might include allother phenomena such as concepts of love, as well as mathematical concepts, for example, function, in what we might call mental reality.