The cause of school and marriage failure is that most people practice stimulus-response psychology. Choice theory helps nurture the warm, supportive human relationships that students need for school success and couples need for marital success. Satisfying four basic psychological needs (for belonging, power, freedom, and fun) helps humans create…

U.S. working mothers wrestle daily with a child-care crisis characterized by unavailable infant care, high costs, and inadequate access and regulation. In Denmark, high-quality child care is a guaranteed entitlement for every child. Other benefits include paid parental leaves, single-parent allowances, housing subsidies, and universal health care.…

Denmark's decentralized public primary and lower secondary "Folkeskole" system offers nine years of compulsory instruction, "class teachers" who coordinate other teachers, and students who remain in the same groups until graduation. A 1994 law issuing curriculum guidelines and committing teachers to team teaching will revolutionize teachers'…

The service-learning movement is widespread in European international schools. The most comprehensive initiative presented at two recent European Council of Independent Schools conferences was the Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS) course that students must pass to graduate from International Baccalaureate schools. Exemplary programs in England…

By using group activities for learning, cooperative student effort for school events, and peer pressure for classroom discipline, Japanese teachers involve and empower their students. While American students feel that classrooms are teachers' sacred ground, Japanese students appropriate them as their rightful community. Instead of stressing…

Education in South Korea is compulsory only through the sixth grade, but most students continue through high school. Parents of high schoolers must pay $1,200 tuition and even more for textbooks and private tutoring. The driving force behind this nation's "education mania" is the take-charge Korean mother, who ensures that youngsters complete…

New Zealand and England's experience with decentralized decision making illustrates that achieving local control and accountability goals may be more elusive than initially envisioned. Additionally, there are problems with training, time management, and principals' professional/personal adjustments. Those advocating radical decentralization in…

The Irish education system is a privatized, state-funded patchwork, with five separate types of secondary schools whose governance structures vary according to church, state, or local authority ownership. A 1995 government white paper recommends a more coherent governance structure with state, regional, and school-site decision-making levels.…

Since 1974, the Scottish education system has legally recognized that all children are educable. Since all children are of equal worth, their individual needs are given equal priority. Structural inequalities are being addressed by early intervention and mentoring schemes and links with higher education. Schools are inclusive in their curricular…

A jaded education professor deplores the endless memorization, mindless assignments, and incessant testing going on in high school classrooms, to the exclusion of intellectually and aesthetically challenging pursuits. He refuses to devise another strategic plan, restructuring, or curriculum standard. Schools must strive to enculturate youngsters…

Fitchburg (Massachusetts) State College, surrounded by rapidly expanding African American, Asian, and Hispanic populations, was awarded a 1990 federal Student Literacy Corps grant to initiate a Literacy Corps Program. The program created and fostered literacy opportunities for area children, adolescents, and adults and helped participants develop…

Newly arrived Hispanic families have needs differing from established families. School staff should recognize that immigrant children may be highly motivated, families may be uncomfortable with English, and parent-school partnerships are unusual in Hispanic cultures. Schools should encourage parents to work with children in their native language,…

To understand urban Native American students more fully, teachers must grasp the contrast between rural/reservation living and urban life (generally more hostile) for these students and their families. Teachers should determine students' home language and their degree of facility in school English. Teachers should also recognize Native American…

Educators are embracing character education as the latest panacea for schools'"crisis of values." Americans want schools to accomplish what is not occurring at home. Values are learned through observation and practice. The challenge is changing behaviors of those influencing children--work-centered parents, inconsistent teachers, and nihilistic…

Singapore students scored highest on the Third International Mathematics and Science Study. Any nation that "outsources" its poverty (Malaysian street sweepers) and its low-achievers (who study in Malaysia) can get high test scores. U.S./Japan score differences stem from Japan's effective teaching practices. Among 13 occupations in the 1992 Adult…