Defines Law-Related Education and describes its goals: citizenship and ethics education, delinquency prevention, teaching survival, and critical thinking skills. Justifies Law-Related Education's place in the social studies curriculum. (CH)

Premised on E.D. Hirsch's call for cultural literacy, argues that school curricula should include law-related courses to promote legal literacy. Contends law-related courses incorporate reading and critical thinking skills and teach citizenship responsibilities. Defines objectives and rationale of law-related courses. Includes list of law-related…

Recommends bringing community legal resource persons into the classroom for effective teaching of law-related courses. Discusses the value of using their expertise. Includes a list of those available to assist. Describes appropriate teaching methods, stressing student participation in role playing and simulations. (CH)

Reports findings of a survey exploring the status of law-related education in public and private middle and high schools in Oakland County, Michigan. Examines relationship between wealthier school districts and frequency of law-related classes. Identifies primary textbooks. Concludes a high percentage of schools offer law-related classes. (CH)

Profiles a law-related education (LRE) specialization as part of Michigan State University's Master's degree in social studies instruction. Develops a course of study using upper division and Master's of Arts level law-focused courses. Outlines course objectives of two LRE graduate seminars. Considers future implications for LRE training given…

Examines how children's time concepts affects the learning of history. Discusses implications for the teaching of history. Analyzes four dominate views of how temporal and historical concepts develop: (1) development cognitive, (2) psychosocial/developmental, (3) organic curriculum, and (4) developmental historical. Offers eight approaches to help…

Examines how student worksheets provided by the Museum of London could be implemented in Michigan museums. Stresses the value of field trips to museums and worksheet exercises: student participation, cooperative learning, and personal development through discovery. Describes worksheet sets. Proposes learning activities using worksheets at the…

Encourages geography teachers to use biographies to reveal a sense of place and life in a given geographical context. Highlights the life of John Mullett, a surveyor during the settlement of Michigan as a model for using biography in geography instruction appropriate for grades 6-12. Includes surveyor maps and sources of additional biographies.…

Posits that schools must help students evaluate their culture and seek social change where warranted. Analyzes features of rationality in the mandate that schools provide students with tools for reasoned, logical, and unpartisan social criticism. Suggests that radical theorists have not clearly proposed to schools rational structures for…

Contends that the complexity and pace of change in society requires that educators help students to develop critical thinking skills. Outlines methods to teach reasoning skills to be used throughout a student's lifetime, including structured controversy and C.S. Hughes' teaching strategies. Suggests that these methods should be incorporated into…

Advocates use of microcomputers in teaching social studies in Michigan because of student ability to quickly process large amounts of information. Outlines a pilot unit using a U.S. history database. Lists available microcomputer-based social studies lessons. Proposes the development of a Michigan Social Studies MicroNetwork. (CH)

Observes that preparing and searching a database will help students analyze, synthesize, and evaluate data, but stresses the need to distinguish between teaching how to process information and how to think. Sees the database as a tool in teaching social studies but maintains that the primary goal is to teach thinking skills. (CH)

Stresses the crucial role that parents play in improving student motivation and achievement in school. Sees the parent-teacher conference as an invaluable tool for involving parents in their children's education and winning community support for public schools. Advises how to conduct a productive parent-teacher conference. (CH)

From personal experiences teaching in a prison, suggests how the topic of prisons can be included in social studies instruction. Ideas include learning about prison terminology, recidivism, and student attitudes concerning prisons. Lists resources to aid in teaching a unit on prisons. (CH)

Applauds the adoption of National Standards in Civics and Government as necessary and overdue. Briefly describes the consensus-building process that produced the standards. Contains a list of the five significant questions asked, along with guidelines for classroom implementation of the standards. (MJP)