To teach culturally and linguistically diverse learners with language-learning disabilities, teachers should ensure that students understand assigned tasks, seat students from similar linguistic backgrounds together, start lessons with lead statements, use varied questioning strategies, ask for summaries, use multimodal approaches, and relate…

About 96% of youngsters in Northern Ireland are educated either in Catholic schools or in state-operated, predominantly Protestant schools. Since 1985, 40 integrated schools of all grade levels have sprung up throughout the country. At integrated schools, which maintain balanced ratios, students talk about their common history. (MLH)

Faculty discussions, staff-development meetings, parent workshops, and direct classroom instruction are places to raise awareness about needs of nonmainstream students and parents, to support students belonging to diverse religious and cultural groups, and to enhance sensitivity to cultural differences in the curriculum. Sample scenarios and…

A Quaker who rejects the imposition of religion in public education advocates ways to explore the spiritual dimension of teaching, learning, and living. Spiritual questions are embedded in every discipline. Spiritual mentoring helps students find questions worth asking. Teachers may gather to discuss the deepest questions of their teaching lives.…

Unlike the open-classroom movement, which operated on a slim theoretical base, current spiritual pedagogies reflect the work of respected theorists and researchers. The term "holistic" has advanced the idea of universal interconnectedness. Spirituality grows in classrooms when teachers act as agents of joy and conduits of transcendence, rather…

Harold Kushner, the author of "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" (1981), insists that public schools should never advocate particular religious views nor serve as forums for debating religious values. However, shared values such as truthfulness, accuracy, personal responsibility, acceptance of limitations, kindness, and cooperation should be…

History (embodied in Horace Mann's "nonsectarian" Protestant practices) reminds us that today's "generalized spirituality," if encouraging students to explore the inner life and ultimate questions, will not free public schools from anti-Establishment Clause claims. However, First Amendment neutrality does not mean being neutral on values…

Educating for belief or unbelief means educating for religious and spiritual literacy and examining religions from historical and philosophical perspectives. The First Amendment does not forbid teaching about religion as part of our cultural heritage. Spirituality requires no institutional affiliation. Sacred music and art should be restored to…

American public schools have seldom treated spirituality or religion fairly. Horace Mann's common-schools philosophy was grounded in his fear of Catholicism. Today's schools are dominated by secular humanism. Only through state-supported school choice and released time for religious instruction can all students truly experience religious freedom.…

Ethical teaching dilemmas generally fit four patterns: individual versus community, truth versus loyalty, short-term versus long-term, and justice versus mercy. Research discloses five core shared values: compassion, honesty, fairness, responsibility, and respect. When choosing among end-, rule-, and care-based resolution approaches, teachers'…

Both students and teachers can suffer from anonymity. In a spiritual classroom, redemption means deliverance, or liberation from obligatory suffering. Teaching may be viewed as reclaiming students from anonymity (a powerful form of inertia) and leading them toward deliverance. The teacher is simultaneously liberated by believing in a student's…

In seeking to nurture the human spirit while improving intellectual ability and performance, holistic learning tries to provide a broader vision of education and human development. This process is assisted by three key elements: balance, inclusion, and connection. Balance is needed among transmission, transaction, and transformational learning…

The "Passages" program is a curriculum that integrates heart, spirit, and community with strong academics. The program inspires feelings of connectedness in teenagers by addressing their unspoken needs: the search for meaning and purpose, longing for silence and solitude, urge for transcendence, hunger for joy and delight, creative drive, and need…

The "clearness committee," a Quaker practice, might provide an avenue for educators grappling with crises and seeking clarity about their worries and concerns over time. A Lewis and Clark College seminar held in April 1998 dealt with an administrator's fears about carrying on following a former student's suicide. Steps for freeing one's "inner…

To nurture the spirit, young people have to participate in activities that help them make meaningful connections. They must be guided in real-life situations to develop a moral code and sense of civic pride. Service learning is a spiritual, esteem-enhancing affair that often blurs lines between giver and receiver. Compassion is learned by hands-on…