Presents strategies to help students resist peer pressure. The peer pressure reversal technique involves checking out the scene, making good decisions about their actions, and acting to avoid trouble. A reproducible student page provides several suggestions of wording for students to use in saying no to their friends. (SM)

Highlights ideas of Paulo Freire that are relevant to the meaning of democratic teaching. Freire believes that the traditional curriculum leads teachers and students to conform, and he advocates "conscientization" or a democratic approach to teaching in which the learner actively participates in understanding and defining the personal…

Explores the Accelerated Christian Education Curriculum used in a working class, fundamentalist Baptist school in upstate New York. This school blends behaviorism and Calvinism, using rules to regulate students' behavior and cubicle "offices" to isolate students. Speculates on the congruency of this social reproduction approach with…

College students (n=80) rated children labeled as male/female, "gifted"/"average" and gender-typical/gender-atypical in academic interests on 30 adjective scales. Children labeled "gifted" were rated closer to "odd" than to "fits in well." Gender-atypical boys were considered more "odd" and gender-atypical girls were rated less "odd" than were…

Tacit educational assumptions based on power and control are compared to current professional knowledge on teaching, learning, and school organization. Points out that educational leadership is needed that engages in self-critical analysis of our current instructional practices. Learning environments must be based on an understanding of young…

Argues that one of the most valuable contributions that an internationally oriented education system can provide is to inhibit the development of an overly conformist attitude. Contends that the ability to dissent is essential for healthy personal and societal functioning. Recommends that education about dissent should be made compulsory. (CFR)

The conflict between Samoan culture and the development of creativity among Samoan students is examined. Creativity is defined as the process of sensing gaps, finding a means of effecting closure, and formulating hypotheses to eventually produce a novel product. The greater the pressure to conform, however, no matter what the source, the fewer the…

Scholar Ivan Illich discusses his educational experiences, the people who influenced his views regarding education, his proposal for "deschooling" society, and how he has concluded that compulsory schooling is a form of social control that creates a class society with many more school failures and dropouts than successes. (LP)

The national socialization of children through public schooling involves "dumbing children down" so they are unable to use democratic machinery and traditions to defend themselves against a managed society. This practice also eliminates local control of educational goals and practices, allowing families to be replaced by the hired voices…

The five essays in this book criticize the "deadening heart" of compulsory state schooling, described as a series of assumptions and structures that stamp out the self-knowledge, curiosity, concentration and solitude essential to learning--a system wherein education and schooling are mutually exclusive terms. The book argues that between schooling…

Compares 1989 National Commission on Social Studies in the Schools' report, "Charting a Course: Social Studies in the 21st Century," to a similar curricular endeavor during the 1930s. Finds the 1989 version conformist, narrow, prescriptive, overly content oriented, and not reflective of educational research. Because of its academic…

Briefly explores differences between educational systems in Switzerland and the United States. Discusses 9 assumptions and 21 contradictions concerning shortcomings of compulsory public schooling in the United States. Suggests that schooling has moved away from intellectual development or skills training toward socializing students to become part…

Increased juvenile violence in schools has led to suggested solutions that are politically expedient but fail to address what makes violence so appealing. Instead of school uniforms, conflict resolution programs, or media rating systems, a grass roots approach of alternative programs, parental involvement, and youth support systems could repair…

Suggests that modern schooling was founded on elitist principles and has resulted in making people dumber, weakening families, replacing religion, lowering incomes, reproducing the class structure by dividing children into classes that correlate closely with family income, and concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a small fraction of the…

Public schooling fails by educating students to become dependent thinkers; by providing irrelevant curricula; and by weakening social institutions such as family, community, and religion. On the other hand, public libraries give students the freedom to choose what they want to read, encourage critical thinking, and be nonjudgmental of students.…