The polarisation of attitudes towards dyslexia appears to be contingent upon the awareness of the implications of adopting a medical model to interpreting dyslexia (as a medical 'condition') or applying an educational overlay, based upon difficulties in certain areas, to interpreting and making provision for those with dyslexia. Specifically, it…

Anxiety has been on the rise since the pandemic, yet teachers are often unsure how to help students with anxiety. Anxiety is characterized by rumination and negative or distracting thoughts, and teachers can help by changing those inaccurate thoughts. In this updated version of a November 2019 Kappan article, Jessica Minahan provides a series of…

A sense of disillusionment grips many doctoral students as they face financial distress, lack of adequate mentorship, concern about job prospects, and other challenges. The Old Testament book of Malachi is a little-recognized resource for students struggling with feelings of disillusionment. Malachi's audience faced disappointment after joyfully…

Up to two-thirds of U.S. children have experienced at least one type of serious childhood trauma, such as abuse, neglect, natural disaster, or experiencing or witnessing violence. Trauma is possibly the largest public health issue facing our children today (CDC, 2019). Traumatized students are especially prone to difficulty in self-regulation,…

Singers are sometimes plagued by an ongoing sense of anxiety that has the potential to negatively affect their work. This article addresses the issue of chronic anxiety as distinct from the more frequently considered topic of performance anxiety. Strategies are outlined to help teachers identify and address this problem in to order to help…

The stress of a spelling bee or a challenging science project can enhance a student's focus and promote learning. But the stress of a dysfunctional or unstable home life can poison a child's cognitive ability for a lifetime, according to new research. Those studies show that stress forms the link between childhood adversity and poor academic…

Affective factors seem to play a crucial role in success or failure in second language acquisition. Negative attitudes can reduce learners' motivation and harm language learning, while positive attitudes can do the reverse. Discovering students' attitudes about language will help both teacher and student in teaching learning process. Anxiety is…

Many students are struggling with more depression and anxiety than ever before. These are characteristic dangers of the "consumer class"--1.7 billion people worldwide who are "characterized by diets of highly processed food, desire for bigger houses, more and bigger cars, higher levels of debt, and lifestyles devoted to the accumulation of…

Metacognitive theory and therapy views the persistence of negative beliefs and thoughts as a result of metacognitions controlling cognition. This paper describes, with reference to the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and social phobia, how metacognition contributes to cognitive stability and to change. Metacognitive therapy offers…

So opined Adam Cohen recently in the "International Herald Tribune", and so, too, according to a recent book by Joshua Foa Dienstag, a political scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles, "Pessimism: Philosophy, Ethic, Spirit "(Princeton University Press, 2006). In his defense of pessimism as an appropriate and realistic philosophy,…

This chapter sets out to explore the six significant findings of this study by relating the interview content to the sociological risk literature. It examines thinking behind loss zones and gain zones and then moves on to look at individual versus collective risk and perceptions of risk. A child and youth care understanding is noted within the…

Monty Roberts is a real life "horse whisperer" who creates connections between horses and humans. This article extends these concepts to the challenge of connecting with guarded, distrustful youth. It presents a description of one youth, followed by seven profiles that are compilations of the work of Nicholas Long, Frank Fecser, and Mary Wood…

When older students fail to gain rapid and accurate decoding skills by the third or fourth grade, they not only struggle with reading comprehension, but they also fall behind their average reading peers in academic performance and achievement--and they rarely catch up. When presented with academic tasks that require reading, these students often…

Describes the development and execution of a course entitled, "The Psychology of Sexual Orientation," the purpose of which is to examine the experiences of lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals in a thoughtful, scholarly, and informative manner. Course content addresses a broad range of issues including sexual norms, heterosexism,…

This paper presents information regarding two university field programs in two elementary schools in New Orleans (Louisiana), serving culturally diverse children, and it attempts to reveal the influences of each school context on preservice teachers' acquisition of pedagogical content knowledge, their concerns and dilemmas, and their frames of…