Current efforts to create safe schools concentrate on peace-keeping and peace-making strategies (negative peace), that may enforce mutual mistrust and marginalize "suspicious" persons. Peace building tries to build beloved communities by providing nonviolent ways to empower students, model appropriate behaviors, and manage conflicts.…

Children come to school with a variety of factors impinging on their academic success (Rose, 1998). The impact of these factors varies in degree. Furthermore, children from high-risk urban areas may experience barriers that not only hinder academic success, but also support their disengagement from educational institutions. Therefore, working with…

Calls for greater attention to pedagogical challenges and opportunities to integrate service-learning and academic study, particularly in maintaining both content coverage and empowerment as objectives. Draws on transcripts of class discussions and student writing in a community service learning course focusing on literacy to trace students'…

Looks at the discussion of a small group of girls (ordinarily reticent or diffident in class) in a senior English class as they interpreted the character of Ophelia in Shakespeare's "Hamlet." Discusses the idea that thinking can develop through dialogic (collaborative) rather than dialectic (conflictive) transactions. Notes classroom…

Discusses the classroom use of educational technology, highlighting teacher and student empowerment by analyzing a PowerPoint classroom presentation about ancient Babylon for eighth graders. (PEN)

This paper concerns the relationship between learning English as an additional language (EAL) and school mathematics. In bilingual education, Cummins has proposed a distinction between coercive and collaborative power-relations as an important consideration in the education of such students, advocating collaboration as a means to empower such…

How does a history of discrimination and marginalization affect Chicanos' perceptions of schooling? This article offers a brief analysis of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo as an instantiation of a historical metanarrative of colonialism. Using a critical theoretical framework, the article explores the destructive impact of this narrative on…

Torey Hayden's portrayal of classroom behavior management in her teacher lore, autobiographical writings about teaching children with emotional and behavioral disorders, is examined. Five of her books were sampled: "One child", "Somebody else's kids", "Just another kid", "Ghost girl" and "Beautiful child". Each of these books unfolds within the…

Rereading the history of basic writing can serve as a context for and a springboard to a reading of selected contemporary basic writing textbooks. For critical scrutiny, articles by Joseph Harris and David Bartholomae offer retellings of the history of basic writing, retellings that challenge the more "heroic" tellings that have become…

Teachers are given too much power in a reading classroom. We choose the texts, design the course syllabuses, and put up a written exam after another written exam. However, we cannot stop our students from becoming book haters as soon as they leave our classroom. By implementing literature circles, we teachers might return the power back to our…

This paper suggests the need for a research-validated framework to help preservice and inservice teachers and higher education faculty understand fundamental learner needs that must be met in any setting and any reform effort. It describes a learner-centered framework based on the research-validated "Learner-Centered Psychological…

Reviews and critiques three viewpoints that currently predominate in debates over vocational education. Demonstrates that the current debate overlooks opportunities to address vocational life as a meaningful and socially liberating area for study. Discusses features needed for an education that empowers students to enter vocations with critical…

A proposed model for preservice teacher practicums, the Reflective and Critical Internship Program, is designed to encourage students to voice their concerns and produce their own solutions to classroom issues, particularly in relation to classroom management. Within this model, the problem-solving process is both individual and collective.…

Sexual harassment is prevalent on both school and college campuses. Parents and educators can eliminate sexual harassment in schools by teaching students to be assertive and report offensive behavior to an adult, documenting children's encounters with sexual harassment, checking with other parents, and filing a formal complaint. Schools need…

Drawing on the experience of a program that trained adult international students as teachers for U.S. urban classrooms, this article explores ways to empower these teacher candidates in classrooms in which they are in a minority and how their contributions can educate the dominant culture as the text or teacher cannot. (SLD)