Although Virginia's Governor Lowell Weicker comes from a privileged background, he has drawn himself close to the people. A liberal Republican with some strong conservative values, Weicker believes privilege means sacrifice in terms of time commitment and tax effort. Weicker has spearheaded legislation to benefit learning-disabled and economically…

Canada Natives have experienced many educational changes. Their traditional education and culture were negated by Euro-Western schooling, leaving Aboriginal people in a deficit position without a strong voice for many years. Only recently have Aboriginal people strengthened their voice in calling for their cultural values and beliefs to be the…

Citing the revolutionary ideas that Theodore Baird brought to his freshman composition classes at Amherst College (Massachusetts)--ideas such as requiring students to write often and from experience--this book examines the innovative work and groundbreaking ideas of Baird and his staff. The book focuses on Baird's pedagogy and his belief in a…

Alvin Kernan's personal memoir traces life in elitist American universities from post-World War II to the 1990's by recounting his life and career as a student, faculty member, and administrator at Columbia University (New York), Yale University (Connecticut), and Princeton University (New Jersey). The book describes what is was like to be at…

The 18th and 19th centuries saw a real tension between inductive and deductive methods of reason. Spokesperson for her era through her association with the popular "Godey's Ladies' Book," Sarah Josepha Hale addressed this tension in 1858, citing an article by Thomas Henry Buckle ascribing the method of deduction to women and that of induction to…

John Holt was a key figure in the free school movement. His belief that school procedures worked against children's natural ways of learning came from his own experiences. Recognizing that genuine democracy can only happen within a genuine community, he felt that social institutions, particularly education, must nourish experiences of belonging,…

Dividing elementary classrooms into three reading groups has become a U.S. educational tradition. Reading groups seem to have been an experiment in meeting the needs of students of different abilities, but the original caveats about flexible groups seem to have been forgotten. With the popularization of leveled basal readers, where changing groups…

Courses in communication theory in the 1990s may emphasize the social sciences, critical theory, or both, depending on the orientation of the professor. The modern field of communication in the United States arose after World War I in response to increasing technology and the progressive, pragmatic philosophy that has dominated American life.…

Within the context of school improvement and school reform, it is important to examine Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences (MI theory). His work has far-reaching implications for curriculum development and classroom implementation. Gardner believes that the culture defines intelligence too narrowly. He sought to broaden the scope of…

A review of the past, the present, and the future offers an enlightening view of literacy in America. A 1967 issue of the "Illinois Journal of Education" has articles on phonics, linguistics, spelling, modalities of learning, disadvantaged children, vision screening and vision training, readiness, Montessori, partnerships between…

It is unlikely that Harvard University (Massachusetts) considered "outcomes assessment" for its first class of nine students in 1640, and most certainly the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States did not offer a public relations curriculum. A short history of education in the United States shows increasing numbers of…

The wealth of information gleaned from reading research both past and present needs to be applied to a practical eclectic reading methodology. First, an emergent instruction model needs to be created that takes into account the immediate interests and needs of the learner. This model should recognize that learning is a transaction, with the…

The diary of Lydia Short indicates that college study at Butler University provided somewhat more positive experiences for women than scholars such as Jill Conway, Ronald W. Hogeland, and LeeAnna Lawrence found in other coeducational institutions where women still occupied their prescribed roles. The second woman to graduate from Butler University…

The aim of this monograph is to place reading in an ecological connection (i.e., systems reaching far beyond mere classroom reading) and to illustrate the relations between some of the many factors influencing today's reading material, reading education, and reading research. Reading is examined in connection with different societies, in an…

When discussing plagiarism and cheating these days, college faculty seem to find themselves using the rhetoric of crime and punishment ("It's easier to steal from the Internet") on their students rather than a rhetoric more attuned to their actual mission. A short overview in this paper of the history of plagiarism and the development of the…