Including students in school governance isn't just a way to teach them about civics, it's a smarter way to run a school. Schools tend to govern themselves as a single-loop learning organization. The better model is a double-loop organization that would promote greater participation, deliberation, feedback and, ultimately, more buy-in from…

Burns B. Crookston was a man ahead of his times. He left a legacy to the student affairs profession that inspired the practice of student development education. His writings described a role for higher education in training students to become active citizens by learning about leadership, decision making, and conflict resolution in democratic…

Michael Garrison has earned his bachelor's and law degrees at West Virginia University, the state's flagship institution, where he was president of the student government. He rose rapidly to high-powered political posts, including chief of staff to a previous governor. Garrison then became a lobbyist with the longest client list in West Virginia,…

A major component of the college student experience is the engagement with out-of-class activities. This involvement has been linked to a variety of success indicators, including higher levels of academic achievement, high retention and matriculation, and overall collegiate satisfaction. One of the key areas for student engagement is college…

Assessment of student learning is a growing concern for programs in gerontology. This report focuses on the conception, design, funding, and implementation of an innovative online workshop to assess and improve writing skills of students enrolled in distance-learning gerontology classes. The approach is multidisciplinary and involves a…

Education for citizenship is firmly on the policy agenda throughout Britain, and there is an expectation that teachers will create a participative, consultative ethos in schools. This paper identifies three main vehicles for pupil consultation: elected pupil councils, democratic and participative classrooms and opportunities for pupils to engage…

The racial desegregation of the student bodies of historically white universities in South Africa has had significant political implications for student politics and university governance. I discuss two key moments in the governance history of the University of Cape Town (UCT) critically. The first involves the experience of racial parallelism in…

The middle level years are a crucial time for student development, a time when the path for school success is set for many students. Educators who focus on character and leadership development realize that training in these areas can play a significant role in developing students who will become effective leaders and active citizens in middle…

Teachers may reap rewards on payday during the upcoming school year, thanks to increasingly flush state coffers and the political dynamics of an election year. Governors from both political parties, in many of the 36 states holding gubernatorial elections in the fall of 2006, are urging their legislatures to raise pay for teachers or give them…

Regardless of a school's size or whether its setting is rural, urban, or suburban, the establishment of a student council organization can serve as a unique and valuable learning laboratory for civic education. Student council teaches students many intangible life skills and allows students to take on different roles and learn when to step back,…

Six years ago, students at Birch Meadow Elementary School (Reading, Massachusetts) were polite to adults, but callous and uncaring toward each other. Today, thanks to a "Just Community" approach modeled on Lawrence Kohlberg's philosophy, students feel a sense of school ownership and responsibility for their classmates. (MLH)

The author discusses the advantages of student self-government and describes the work of student committees at Belper High School, Derbyshire, in setting up a student coffee shop, planning school sports, and orienting new students. (SJL)

Describes a student government developed at the Ralph Dunlap School (Santa Maria, CA) that is modeled on a constitutional monarchy using the parliamentary governing system. (MD)

A middle school teacher describes the way in which a gifted program gained prominence and its students acquired peer esteem through a model congress approach in which students learned parliamentary rules and debate principles. (CL)

After student court justices at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock closed their deliberations to the student press, an attorney general reviewed the incident and decided that student court meetings fall under the Freedom of Information Act. (GT)