Discusses (1) working conditions and responsibilities of California social studies teachers, i.e., where they work, general working environments, what they teach, and the student population they serve; (2) age, experience, education, and male/female ratios; and (3) professional opportunities. Offers suggestions for strengthening psychic rewards…

Describes a survey of graduate-degree-granting departments of foreign languages, linguistics, and comparative literature designed to investigate the teaching assistants (TA) system. Analyzes the findings of the survey and offers recommendations for a model program of TA training, supervision, and evaluation. (MES)

Constructs an effective and scathing criticism of the lack of supervision involved in one university's student teaching program. Includes a personal narrative of a student teacher dealing with confusing policies and sexually aggressive and drunken students without the benefit of support or supervision. (MJP)

A teacher discusses the negative effects of collective socialization on students in government controlled public schools. Suggested ways to deconstruct mass schooling include requiring educators in nonteaching positions to teach, simplifying the curriculum, making student learning relevant, keeping schools small and independent, getting rid of…

A teacher at an alternative school for at-risk students discusses the development of student assessment that increases students' self-esteem, convinces students that learning is fun, and prepares students to return to traditional school settings. She found that allowing students to participate in the assessment process successfully quantified the…

A Foxfire teacher describes student reactions to a democratic approach implemented in an undergraduate teacher education course and an inservice teacher workshop. Goal was for participants to develop methods and activities that would involve their future K-12 students in active and democratic learning. (LP)

An elementary school teacher changed his teaching approach to one based on John Dewey's philosophy that science should be taught as a method of inquiry, not as a fixed body of knowledge. Students were encouraged to formulate scientific questions and work together in establishing experimental procedures. (LP)

Contends that secondary school teacher careers have been transformed in the past 25 years. Asserts that the increased influence of educators with broader curricular and administrative responsibilities is at the expense of heads of traditional subject departments. (CFR)

The Broken Hill School of the Air provides distance education to isolated rural students in the far west of New South Wales (Australia). Services include correspondence study, radio lessons, home visits, and minischool meetings. A student teacher describes his 10-week experience with Broken Hill, teaching 15 students in grade 5-6. (SV)

Argues that case studies can be used for cooperative learning activities to nurture reflective practice in preservice music teachers. The case studies are fictional narratives illustrating various teaching styles and representative situations. Includes examples of case studies, students' responses, and follow-up activities. (MJP)

Discusses elementary teacher education in Brazil, examining problems teacher educators face (e.g., lack of direct communication between theoretical studies and the practical world and lack of inclusion of practical knowledge and expertise developed by successful teachers). Current educational policies are discussed, looking at: implementation of a…

A teacher describes using some of the Foxfire core practices to teach a "last chance" program for students in grades 7-8 who were angry, oppositional, and defiant. After a cooperative classroom planning process in which counselors helped students articulate their ideas, the students began revealing their interests. These interests, in…

A high school teacher describes how her classroom methods changed from traditional teacher-centered pedagogy to the active and democratic involvement of students in developing their own learning communities. Sidebars describe class projects: an oral history project that blossomed into a "Forties Festival" with 1940s alumni and the…

In this article, the author discusses a partnership between Baylor University and the Waco public schools that embeds every teacher-candidate--from the freshman year on--into the K-12 system. To test whether professional-development schools, modeled after teaching hospitals, can be scaled up so that all of a college's teaching candidates--not just…

This essay aims to provide beginning and experienced history teachers as well as history teaching methods professors with a helpful strategy designed to improve students' knowledge of historical content and competence in historical thinking. It introduces a systematic approach to the use of primary sources which emphasizes the "doing" of history,…