The Finnish education system has received worldwide attention due to the top academic performance of Finnish school students. Physical education, as an integral part of the Finnish education curriculum, potentially contributes to the overall success. The purpose of this article is to summarize Finnish physical education reform during the past…

Physical activity (PA) participation levels among youth remain well below national recommendations. Thus, a variety of strategies to promote youth PA have been advocated, including multifaceted, school-based approaches. One identified as having great potential is a comprehensive school physical activity program (CSPAP). The goal of a CSPAP is to…

Community engagement is central to the public and civic mission of a growing number of colleges and universities, and numerous faculty members are applying their expertise to issues of importance to local communities and the larger society. However, there have been few first-hand descriptions of the career paths of faculty who engage in…

This article offers a brief and personal account of the historical background, implementation and principal findings from the Trois-Rivieres regional project, a large-scale quasi-experimental intervention that tested the impact of providing a daily hour of specialist-taught quality physical education upon the physical and mental development of…

At the beginning of the 20th Century, collegiate campus recreation programs were moved from student controlled entities and placed under the supervision of academic or athletic departments (Milton, 2008a). As such programs grew and became more popular among the general student populations on America's college campuses, administrative oversight was…

There is broad consensus in the literature that despite dramatic gains in the knowledge-base regarding best practice in teaching, teacher education, and related pockets of effective programming in the schools, the majority of physical education programs are in disarray. In a recent article, Kretchmar (2006) referred to this dilemma as life on…

Data show that 46% of all teachers in public schools will leave the profession within their first 5 years of teaching (Ingersoll, 2003). These data refer to teachers from all disciplines including physical education. To address these problems school districts have developed teacher induction programs that show promising results. Our literature…

School physical education plays an important role in public health. Nonetheless, there are few evidence-based, health-related, physical education programs and very little is known about how to disseminate them for widespread use. This article (a) presents background information and a review of the completed research on the SPARK (Sports, Play, and…

Elementary school libraries are not often thought of as suitable spaces for learning commons because most elementary school libraries operate on a fixed schedule, allowing only one class at a time to use the space. Elementary school libraries are too often the drop-off location for a specific class during the classroom teacher's planning…

Six years ago Jessica Gilcreast accepted the position as the school librarian in a diverse urban elementary school (80 percent low-income student population). The library had a bare-bones automation system, block scheduling, and no library assistant. None of this, however, was her biggest challenge. Inheriting an institutional, cold,…

Matthew Lighthart and Creedence Spreder, librarians, describe a partnership that proved successful for the school and library in their community of Pungo, nestled in Virginia Beach's vast but sparsely populated agricultural center. This community was facing a dual challenge: their only elementary school (Creeds) was in dire need of renovation…

Proud Readers Own What's Learned (PROWL) was developed out of the need to find an engaging, creative process for readers to express what they have read and, frankly, to let teachers see that the students actually read the books. In other more prescriptive reading programs students can go through the motions and actually pass tests without…

One of the most memorable achievements of adolescence is the independence gained from obtaining a driver's license. Students are highly motivated to study the rules of the road, hone their skills behind the wheel, and meet all the state requirements to reach their goal. They are invested in the process because they value the outcome. The…

It was early March 2008, and the author was only a few months from finishing her third year as an elementary school librarian. During the morning recess the school library was humming with the sounds of students. Suddenly, three students rushed in asking the author to help them find a silent-reading book for class. Looking at the clock and seeing…

This article is presented by four librarians who have come together as a creative team at Ethical Culture School in New York City. As elementary school librarians, their goal is to develop and support curriculum where children's developmental needs are given central importance. By putting the thinking, interests, information needs, and the…