In the spring of 2012 students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Education received national attention when they refused to participate in the field test of a teacher performance assessment being run by Pearson Incorporated and Stanford University. Students, led by their professor, demanded they be given informed consent about…

John Dewey was inspired by what he termed "the miracle of shared experience and shared communication." His faith in the power of individuals working in democratic association also included warnings of a darker side, the "monstrosities" that individuals can become when they live and work in isolation from others. In this father-son letter exchange,…

Many people have ideas about what it means to teach in inner-city schools, but they are often off the mark. This essay explores the challenges, beauties, and complexities of working in an alternative/transfer school in New York City, with a population that is at very high risk for dropping out. Through individual portraits of students, the author…

This article examines the idea of loss in relation to elementary education. The goal is to show the importance of teachers attending to their students' individual experience and, in particular, to the ways schools can make children feel lost or found. The article relies primarily on classroom narratives, focusing heavily on stories about one…

This essay is a call for a more psychoanalytically informed approach to educational psychology and teacher formation. To this end, the author gives an overview of a course in psychology that he recommends for inclusion in teacher education. This course is in two parts. The first part is an introduction to some important elements of psychoanalytic…

True education is the presentation of the conditions necessary for the evolution of personality into freedom. Democracy is the only form of government under which the methods of freedom can be fostered. The great central principle of democracy is mutual responsibility. Democracy in its essence gives to each individual the liberty of becoming free;…

The work of Colonel Francis W. Parker, the man whom Dewey called "the father of progressive education," provides a starting point for reconstructing the loose ambiguities of progressive education into a coherent social and educational philosophy. Although progressives have claimed their approach is more humane and sensitive to children, we need…

If, as many allege, we are the stories that we tell, then these stories might well be seen as constituting a fundamental piece of the self. But stories need to be heard, just as the self requires witnesses. In the lives of most people, counselors and teachers, along with parents, represent the most significant witnesses in our lives and hence to…

By examining the potential of purposefully implemented critical bicultural pedagogy (CBP) for student empowerment, this article responds to "Culture and Power in the Classroom: Educational Foundations for the Schooling of Bicultural Students" by Antonia Darder (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2012). Using a theoretical framework based upon…

What is the lived experience of teachers and students in school? How does that lived experience constitute a kind of learning on its own apart from any particular outcome? This article addresses the ways teachers and students encounter one another in schools and why the quality of those encounters is paramount in both the child's and the…

At a time when serious pronouncements and decisions about education are made by noneducators, it is important to take note of the practice and impact of teachers' collective reflective resistance. This means foregrounding learning that is organic, artful, and contemplative--that puts first the humanity of students and teachers. This is a…

In this article the author examines the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to argue for changes in "standards-based" perspectives and practices that grew out of No Child Left Behind. Drawing on an article by David T. Conley, cochairman of the Validation Committee for the CCSS, the author offers a new model for the professional…

The article examines the enactment of culturally relevant progressivism on the part of the principal of the Social Justice School, a small urban public high school explicitly committed to democratic education. Drawing upon extensive interviews and field observations conducted over the course of an academic year by a teacher-researcher within the…

This personal reflection explores the role of counter-narratives and courageous conversations in the elementary curriculum. It explores how the intentionality of Black Heritage Day at the Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School and its curriculum guides students and teachers in exploring issues of race, culture, and history. (Contains 1…

Education, once known as the "great equalizer," is now being called to task for its tendency to disenfranchise and to legitimate inequality due to its obedience to the tenets of capitalism. Two of the nation's greatest educational thinkers, George S. Counts and Boyd H. Bode provided "instructions" for parents and teachers…