When teaching a course on American diversity, Jessica Lander realized that to understand the complexity of justice-related policies and events in U.S. history, students needed to relate personally. She had students write personal reflections on what it means to be American, which dealt with issues from immigration journeys, learning a new…

As I began my first year of graduate school--admittedly, a shaky start of my own--a group of my former students began to struggle with their transition to high school. Upon hearing this from my friend, colleague, and their current theatre teacher (who I will call Ms. M), I developed a workshop curriculum focused upon health for the artist to…

Since 2007, when the Massachusetts Inclusive Concurrent Enrollment Initiative (MAICEI) was launched, college students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) have been involved in advocacy efforts to promote inclusive postsecondary education. These efforts include informing legislators, higher education personnel, school…

As one of the premier pediatric hospitals in the United States, Boston Children's Hospital serves a wide range of children and provides top quality medical care, including a program for deaf and hard of hearing children that extends services beyond the medical scope. Within this program is a unique and particularly critical position--that of…

In recounting the history and present dynamics in the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College, Sherry Deckman presents a portrait of what it means to leave a space better than you found it through song. The story of Kuumba--Harvard's oldest black student organization and now its largest multicultural organization--is told through the experiences of…

Personal narratives are integral to autobiographical memory and to identity, with coherent personal narratives being linked to positive developmental outcomes across the lifespan. In this article, we review the theoretical and empirical literature that sets the stage for a new lifespan model of personal narrative coherence. This new model…

This article describes 40 years of interactive friendship and work between William Demmert, Jr. and Rosemary Christensen, who met during the First Convocation of American Indian Scholars in March 1970 at Princeton University and then in the fall of that same year as they both arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts as graduate students in the first…

The author never worked "with" a boss before working with Ted at Brown University. She had always known of Ted--he was Dean at Harvard Graduate School of Education when she was a student there, just beginning her teaching career. Ted arrived at Brown University in September 1984. She was working at Brown in President Howard Swearer's…

In this article, the author describes his intellectual growing-up and how Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA) entered into his intellectual frame and became more prominent in his philosophical-educational world. He states that for someone who set out to be a classroom science teacher, he has been inordinately fortunate in, so to…

Many teachers, fueled by their passion, classroom experience, and entrepreneurial verve, decide to start their own schools. With the needs of children driving their every decision, teachers can create successful schools where students thrive. In this article, teachers who established their own schools--from public charters to private…

In this article, the author relates how a summer class he taught has reminded him of why he wanted to return to teaching. Having a master's degree in English and little training in the sciences, he relates how he had been reluctant at first to take up the high school geology class which was offered to him by a friend. However, during the course of…

Cambodian refugees in the United States, in addition to suffering loss of homeland, culture, and families, are survivors of a holocaust that has affected every Khmer family. Summarizes the history of Cambodian conflict and genocide, and describes its lingering effects on refugees attempting to rebuild their lives in this country. (AF)

In the Fall of 2004, after many years of discussion by adults in the City of Somerville, Massachusetts, the Somerville Youth Council started. For several months, a youth planning group met weekly to craft the mission of the council and the by-laws. There was a critical need to create a process to enable youth of the city to explore possible…

The stories of 12 bilingual children in Massachusetts public schools, aged 6-14 and born in 9 different countries, are presented. The case studies were compiled through classroom observation and interviews with the children, their teachers, and their parents, and were conducted both in the child's native language and in English. The purpose was to…