Constructivism assumes that people create knowledge from the interaction of their existing knowledge or beliefs and the new ideas or situations they encounter. While constructivism is emancipating and empowering, classroom application is neither widespread nor systematic. Teachers should construct feasible, well-conceived implementation plans and…

Creative Arts in Learning, a master's degree program at Lesley College Graduate School, acknowledges the importance of teacher creativity. By feeding teachers' inner lives, the arts can transform the tone of classrooms or entire schools. Courses in storytelling, visual arts, and drama help teachers demystify the arts, learn alternative…

As an art historian and reviewer, the author honors formal artistic categories, styles, and movements; as a parent and educator, she tries to expand the concept of art, to blur the distinctions between fine and applied art. Every child has a developing sense of aesthetics. Older children are particularly interested in artists' work outside school…

For almost 50 years, the 8th-grade graduating class at a New Jersey private elementary school has presented an expertly produced Shakespeare play, alternating between "The Tempest" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The whole school becomes involved, from younger kids reading story versions of the plays, to older kids making props in wood shop.…

El Paso-Juarez is the world's largest international border community. An independent consortium of educators created the Border Music Project, a radically different approach to classroom music instruction based on various local musical genres, including Tejano pop and other border-influenced styles. Introducing students to music and musicians aids…

Currently, youth services are uncoordinated, youth workers are underpaid, and youth programs survive on hand-to-mouth funding. Although schools touch every child's life, they cannot singlehandedly repair this damaged youth ecosystem. Community development, a necessary partner in education reform efforts, will enmesh schools with other agencies in…

After 20 years of working with "reluctant" readers of all ages, the author believes a teacher's own literacy is her best resource, best strategy, and only hope. Teachers with wide-ranging reading tastes can honor children's reading preferences while nudging them to try more challenging books. Encouraging a child to read Nancy Drew stories without…

Sometimes, the incidental, in-between, hang-loose, unstructured times in classrooms are teachers' and students' best times together. Examples are songs sung together before the bell rings for assembly, the anecdotes children share before daily morning exercises begin, and the complicated hand/clap/chants students teach each other in the "free…

When critiquing a 1992 IEA study of reading in 31 nations, Herbert Walberg unfairly panned U.S. reading instruction, considering that American 9-year-olds finished second and 14-year-olds tied for eighth place. Apparently, "progress" was down for high-scoring countries. Two UCLA researchers discovered that the Los Angeles student transiency rate…

Discusses a California case involving a tenured professor's controversial teaching style, which focused on "obscene" topics and assignments that allegedly humiliated female students. The professor eventually prevailed in a Ninth Circuit appeal. The lesson: when attempting to eradicate sexual harassment, we cannot abandon important First Amendment…

Debunks mythologizing reform data concerning technology, inclusion, multiculturalism, and money. Finds little evidence that technology improves student achievement, that mainstreaming serves all special-needs students, or that minorities will soon dominate U.S. demographics. Americans' low-bid attitude toward education has created a plethora of…

Before urban educators can teach work values to their students, they must first stop reinforcing youngsters' antiwork attitudes and their self-defeating "street" ideology. Teachers must stop relying on "nowness," or relevant, fun-time activities and work with students and parents to counter youngsters' passivity, excuse-making, noncooperation,…

Teachers must learn to navigate an increasingly polluted ocean of educational hype. During his second year of teaching English, the author was handed a compass. Discussing her underachieving daughter, a black mother advised this teacher to drop the "relevant" units on gangs and give her daughter everything he knew (about Shakespeare and hard…

By the time many poor children enter school, the best educators can do is prepare them for nonexistent unskilled jobs. Remedial programs cannot compensate for deficiencies in early intellectual development. A study involving 42 families showed that well-educated mothers spoke more to their 3-year-olds, did more explaining, asked more questions,…

Describes how a neglected Boston middle school transformed itself into an inviting, tree-lined campus with comfortable reading and study areas and an exemplary physical education program. Project Adventure is an intense six-week physical training course that teaches advanced rock-climbing skills. With classmates' encouragement, participants…