Describes the Parent Observation System, a recent effort to provide help for resistant parents. This effort attempts to get specific parents into a more active involvement in their child's education and thus reduce the parent's resistance to school personnel services. Parent observation forms and related materials are appended. (NB)

This paper explores some of the historical and political ancestries of constructivism. In it, I suggest that there are dark and potentially ecologically disastrous themes hidden in the happy use of constructivism in contemporary education.

In this personal essay, the author describes her development as a teacher over a quarter of a century. Specifically, she discusses how, from her originally negative attitude toward content reading strategies, she grew to embrace the concept in her science classes. Drawing on her experiences, she provides examples of how her teaching has changed…

This paper describes a strategic, paradoxical therapy approach useful in family therapy. A discussion of the criteria for case selection indicates the ideal profile to be a case which has been treated by several therapists, using various modalities, with virtually no change. Other indications of the need for strategic therapy are discussed,…

If art, when defined by existential and phenomenological boundaries, promotes self-understanding, then the verbal arts in particular offer fully developed hypothetical analogues of humans in action. The need to find some measure of self-knowledge through art does not diminish with age, but the self-understanding promoted by the portrayal of the…

A college level unit which investigates stereotypes of aging in the United States is described. The three-class unit serves as an introduction to the study of social gerontology. Its purpose is to address issues of negative stereotypes of old age reinforced by the media and by our cultural roots; the lack of knowledge about the normal changes that…

This conference presentation describes a six-week intervention training program for parents with children who exhibit negative behavior (noncompliance, temper tantrums, whining). The focus of the program is to increase positive parent-child interaction, as well as to teach parents how to make and follow through on commands to their children.…

In first year college composition classes, teachers often encounter "writing-resisters"--students who enact their disrespect, students who feel they are better off flirting, students who refuse to turn in papers. In addition, there are students for whom writing seems irrelevant. Teachers can articulate to students verbally and in…

Since school dropouts who receive the General Education Diploma are discriminated against because they do not possess a standard high school diploma, a plan is presented that recognizes such discrimination and provides a process for making standard diplomas available to dropouts in special education and general categories of intelligence. (MH)

This article explains how and why stress mechanisms operate in students who participate in sports. Students respond to different sport situations with various physical, psychological, and social reactions. When developing and supervising sports, school personnel should take into consideration the physical and psychological development of…

Successful implementation of mainstreaming special needs preschool children requires a comprehensive and meaningful planning stage. An approach is described which emphasizes breaking down negative attitudes of parents and teachers, and uses reverse mainstreaming in which children from regular classrooms visit the classes of handicapped children…

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 the instructor violates the norms of teaching, there is an impact on student learning.

The authors describe ethical issues they have encountered when teachers develop narratives about their own practice and then again when these narratives are later explored using drama techniques. Specifically, they look at the developmental process itself, both in the creation of the original narrative and the subsequent creation of a dramatic…

This document contains two papers about past and present implications for rehabilitation given at a national conference on the needs of the nonwhite disabled population. In the paper "Rehabilitation for the Nonwhite Disabled: A Formidable Challenge," E. Anderson states that blacks are overrepresented among the handicapped in America. Through…