Some colleges engage in unethical practices to balance their budgets, such as accepting "marginal" students who qualify for loans and government-backed financial aid but not providing these students with the services and programs they need to achieve success. Too many low-income students who are often first-generation students find…

No Child Left Behind illustrates policy that stifles pedagogy and the effective training of a global workforce. In an effort to enhance the educational outcomes of students, critical pedagogy and Gardner's Five Minds for the Future are presented as tools for the cultivation of a more innovative workforce. The pedagogical strategies and…

This article examines the use of silence as a constructive teaching tool in the classroom rather than as a punitive measure. The author offers suggestions for the inclusion of silence to benefit students specifically in a literature high school classroom.

Facing repressive accountability regimes and high-stakes testing in the US and beyond, university and practitioner educators around the world decided to take action. Inspired by the democratic administration movement of the 1930's and 1940's and current scholarship in ethics, we started a movement called the New DEEL (Democratic Ethical…

This article explores one teacher education program's experiment in "turning the souls" of its students to help them understand and care deeply about issues of race and social justice, as well as issues of environmental sustainability. The Putney Graduate School of Teacher Education, (1950-1964) a small, "reconstructionist" program, was based upon…

This work introduces a model of university outreach in rural communities which promotes increasing post-secondary options for rural dwelling African American youth. KEMET (Knowledge and Excellence in Mathematics, Equilibrium, and Technology) Academy is a comprehensive academic enrichment program targeting African American students enrolled in…

Demographic trends suggest that most Latino and Black schoolchildren attending city schools will have White classroom teachers. Consequently, the potential for cultural mismatches may impede meaningful teaching. In response, many teacher educators mull over approaches to prepare student teachers to effectively instruct all schoolchildren,…

While much has been written on teaching equity and social justice issues in the higher education classroom from a faculty perspective, there exists scant literature on these issues from the perspective of graduate Teaching Assistants (TAs). In this paper, a TA of a research intensive university, using a variety of sources of evidence, analyzes his…

As we strive to help pre-service teachers understand both why and how to teach for social justice, we face the challenge of making whole language teaching less abstract and intangible. Frequently pre-service teachers understand the principles of teaching for social justice but have no sense of how to infuse them into their teaching. They accept…

The author situates this paper within ongoing debates in related areas such as reflective practice, critical pedagogy, practical wisdom and critical theory. First, the author identifies some of the problems in the present notions of reflective teaching and progressive teacher education. The analyzes and compares the traditional-technical and…

In this article, the authors explore the life history and home education of Lu Wei, a top student in the 2004 Guangdong Province College entrance examination. The authors argue that the following issues of Lu's home education played an important role in Lu's success: emphasis and nurture of intellectual development in the early years of life,…