The Student Study Guides are important and unique components that are available for each of the books in The World in Ancient Times series. Each of the Student Study Guides is designed to be used with the main text at school or sent home for homework assignments. The activities in the Student Study guide will help students get the most out of their history books. Each student study guide includes a chapter-by-chapter two-page lesson that uses a variety of interesting activities to help a student master history and develop important reading and study skills.

The Teaching Guide to The Ancient South Asian World is a complete, all-in-one resource that provides teachers with the support they need to help their students access the content of the book from the Medieval & Early Modern World series. It contains a collection of important instructional tools for the teacher, and a separate section on reading and literacy with practical strategies for teaching content to students with a wide range of abilities and learning styles. Special multimedia, cross-curricular projects, one for each chapter, designed for mixed-group use gives students of all backgrounds and learning styles a chance to access and interact with the content. Chapter-by-chapter three-page lesson plans that are filled with activities to help teachers get the most out of every chapter in the book, including two chapter activities in blackline master form, graphic organizer reproducibles, project outlines, rubrics and a chapter assessment.

The Christian doctrine of heaven has been a moral source of enormous power in western culture. It has provided astriking account of the ultimate good in life and has for two millennia animated the hope that our lives can be fully meaningful. Recently, however, the doctrine of heaven has lost much of its grip on the western imagination and hasbecome a vague and largely ignored part of the Christian creed. Not only have our hopes been redefined as a result,but our very identity as human beings has been altered.In this book, Jerry L. Walls argues that the doctrine of heaven is ripe for serious reconsideration. He contends not only that the orthodox view of heaven can be defended from objections commonly raised against it, but also that heaven is a powerful resource for addressing persistent philosophical problems, not the least of which concern the ground of morality and the meaning of life. Walls shows how heaven is integrally related to central Christian doctrines, particularly those concerning salvation, and tackles the difficult problem of why faith in Christ is necessary to save us from our sins. In addition, heaven is shown to illumine thorny problems of personal identity and to be anessential component of a satisfactory theodicy. Walls goes on to examine data from near-death experiences from the standpoint of some important recent work in epistemology and argues that they offer positive evidence for heaven. He concludes that we profoundly need to recover the hope of heaven in order to recover our very humanity.

This first book in the new Foundations in Global Studies series offers a fresh, comprehensive, multidisciplinary introduction to South Asia. The variations in social, cultural, economic, and political life in this diverse and complex region are explored within the context of the globalising forces affecting all regions of the world. In a simple strategy that all books in the series employ, the volume begins with foundational material (including chapters on history, language, and, in the case of South Asia, religion), moves to a discussion of globalisation, and then focuses the investigation more specifically through the use of case studies. The cases expose the student to various disciplinary lenses that are important in understanding the region and are meant to bring the region to life through subjects of high interest and significance to today's readers. Resource boxes, an important feature of the book, are included to maintain currency and add utility. They offer links that point readers to a rich archive of additional material, connections to timely data, reports on recent events, official sites, local and country-based media, visual material, and so forth. A website developed by Syracuse University's South Asia Center will feature additional graphic, narrative, and case study material to complement the book.

For the past decade, most South Asian countries have directed their efforts towards achieving universal access to elementary education. While these investments have led to more children being retained in school, they have not translated into better learning outcomes. This report comprehensively analyzes the performance of South Asian educational systems in terms of student learning. It attempts to answer three questions: How well do education systems in South Asia perform? What determines student learning outcomes? What policy options are effective in improving learning outcomes, especially given increasing demand and competition for public resources? Because learning outcomes and skill acquisition in the region are low in both absolute and relative terms, schooling does not translate, as it should, into better life chances, including escape from poverty for many more. Nor does schooling contribute to higher productivity and economic growth, so that countries in the region find it difficult to accelerate economic and social development. Governments in the region now fully realize that they need to direct their attention toward improving quality so that students can aspire to fuller lives as both individuals and labor market participants. Merely spending time in school is not enough; students need to register a significant gain in both noncognitive and cognitive skills if countries in the region are to reap full returns on their investments and generate gains in employment, job creation, and productivity. To examine what policies hold promise for improving student learning, the report reviews evidence from large-scale national learning assessments and findings from impact evaluations being conducted in the region. It identifies the following strategic priorities for improving learning outcomes in South Asia: (1) Make learning outcomes the central goal of education policy; (2) Invest in early childhood nutrition; (3) Improve teacher effectiveness and accountability; (4) Provide additional support to disadvantaged children in early grades; (5) Use financing effectively; (6) Leverage the contribution of the non-state sector; and (7) Build learning assessment systems. Each of these policy options will need to be integrated within a larger agenda of inclusive economic growth and governance reform to be truly effective.

This comprehensive volume provides teachers and students with broad and stimulating perspectives on Asian history and its place in world and Western history. Essays by over forty leading scholars suggest many new ways of incorporating Asian history, from ancient to modern times, into core curriculum history courses. Now featuring "Suggested Resources for Maps to Be Used in Conjunction with Asia in Western and World History".