Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) is the ultimate child prodigy. It is said that Mozart, after attending a service at the Vatican, wrote down an entire sacred piece of music after one hearing. There are countless examples of the amazing feats that Mozart accomplished through his childhood, not to mention his huge compositional output throughout…

Some may think being a school librarian requires the same talents and skills at all grade levels. The author, having a masters in library science, thought she could handle any library-related issue no matter what the patron age. In this article, she describes three distinct moments from her first day as an elementary librarian which made her…

This study explored the role of digital video in promoting self-reflection in 30 seven- to eight-year-old primary school pupils and examined the presumption that making films about one's own everyday classroom science learning experiences may serve as an individually tailored platform for exploration of the self. In an effort to understand the…

This paper examines the complex matter of initial principal preparation in a context where traditionally beginning principals have learned their role from experience, on the job. Using data from both novice and experienced primary principals it was found that while what was needed in the job was agreed upon--how to deal with place, with people,…

This review and investigation draws on principles from attachment theory regarding the importance of early relationships and their impact on the coherence and organisation of psychological functions. Comparisons are made between the narrative coherence scores of an experimental group of 17 looked-after children with problematic relationship…

This paper presents a study about how schools of education impact their students' ability to be successful in urban schools. What experiences--if any--in teacher education programs shape the development of race-conscious White teachers? To address her goal, the author conducted a qualitative study of six teachers currently employed in urban…

The purpose of the present study was to identify and investigate critical incidents at school that require ethically sensitive teaching. This kind of knowledge is needed in teacher education to prepare future teachers for their profession. The data included narrative interviews with 12 teachers from four urban schools in Finland. Critical…

This study emerged out of a year-long narrative ethnography that investigated the first year of ESL teachers. It describes key personal, contextual, and structural factors that influenced the teachers' professional beliefs and practices. The focus of this study centers on the conversations of three middle school ESL teachers during new teacher…

How do issues of equity inform music teaching and learning? What does it mean to teach music through the lens of social justice with social consciousness? The two authors of this paper challenged each other to reflect on these questions and how they pertain, past and present, to their lives as performers, pedagogues, and researchers in various…

This paper is based on a year-long ethnography of a K-1 class. I report on the way gender was a significant implicit feature of interpreting kids' everyday classroom activities, like why boys tended to go to the computer center and girls did not. In addition to explicating the gendered interpretations, the paper also discusses the way teachers…

The author is a learning support teacher and works with children at Key Stage 3 (KS3) who are struggling to keep up with their peers in most areas of the curriculum. Many of them have specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia and dyspraxia and problems may emerge in reading, spelling, writing, mathematics, speaking or listening.…

The number of Korean migrants in the United States has steadily increased in recent years. Korea has struggled with a new social phenomenon: "exodus Korea." Despite its potential impact on the sending and receiving countries, the issue of the increasing number of Korean migrants has not received much research attention in its impact on…

Rafe Esquith has taught for 23 years at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School in Los Angeles. In a neighborhood plagued by gangs, guns, and drugs, his is a special classroom known as Room 56. Within its walls, children living in poverty play Vivaldi concertos, perform unabridged plays by Shakespeare, and go on to attend top universities. In 2003,…

This article explores the particular challenges and possibilities of service learning pedagogy for basic writers. Because a number of scholars of service learning and basic writing (Adler-Kassner, Arca, and Kraemer) are concerned primarily with developing underprepared students' academic literacies, I investigated how the students in a service…

Narrative is used to describe and understand how people construct meaning of their lives and experiences and how they think about their own and others' identities. We examined narrative as both data source and method of analysis for investigating learning in non-traditional school settings with students from diverse socio-economic status and…