Besides linguistic and cultural components, bilingual education should include the "psychoinstructional dimension," that is, the dimension that includes a child's intellectual and personality traits derived from cultural and social class uniqueness. (Author/JM)

Educators can motivate students to achieve if they fulfill students' needs for competence, extrinsic rewards, intrinsic interest, social support, and sense of ownership. (Author/TE)

Rawsonville Elementary, an economically disadvantaged neighborhood school near Detroit, used achievement-goal theory to create a learner-centered school that measures success not by relative ability but by individual accomplishment. Peer tutoring, cooperative learning, and interage cooperation characterize the school's learning-focused classrooms.…

If the labor market rewarded learning in school, high school students would respond by studying harder, and local voters would willingly pay higher taxes to finance better local schools. Instead of using rank in class or relative measurement standards, educators should measure student competency by external absolute standards, the way Scout merit…

Peak Learning System's relationship-centered teaching framework focuses on fulfilling students' fundamental emotional needs to ensure learning willingness. Students are motivated when they believe that teachers treat them like people and care about them personally and educationally. The learning ambience must be safe, of value, successful,…

A former National Teacher of the Year describes his year as ambassador for the profession. He believes most people cannot do what teachers do daily--walk into a classroom and motivate, engage, and teach young people. Society must learn to respect the teaching profession; educators must advance its cause. (MLH)

Describes a creative approach to including Nora, a student with cerebral palsy, in an outdoor adventure--a hilly, seven-mile trek through Eastern Oregon's Ponderosa pine forests. With teachers' and classmates' help, Nora practiced on a simulated horse and saddle, overcame her fear of heights, and eagerly joined classmates on horseback. (MLH)

A high school math teacher describes how U.S. schools unwittingly erode student learning by using assessments to emphasize the wrong goals. He claims that students have begun to see school as a "game" in which collecting the most points--seen as "capital" or wealth--leads them to success. Instead, he argues, assessment should…

Focuses on the philosophy of Sudbury Valley School, Framingham, Massachusetts, which stresses self-motivation, individual freedom, and responsibility. (DS)

Author states that administrators must create curriculum that stimulates students to learn and teachers must implement those programs so students recognize a personal sense of development. (RK)

An Oregon elementary teacher encouraged a group of fourth grade students in a writing pullout program to share their writings in a portfolio she was assembling for an education class. The kids all volunteered their writing, learned to express themselves better, and asked to create their own portfolios. The experience fostered student ownership,…

Both students and teachers can suffer from anonymity. In a spiritual classroom, redemption means deliverance, or liberation from obligatory suffering. Teaching may be viewed as reclaiming students from anonymity (a powerful form of inertia) and leading them toward deliverance. The teacher is simultaneously liberated by believing in a student's…

A parent deplores the overemphasis on socialization and collaboration in his son's seventh-grade classroom. He believes cooperative learning limits his son's educational opportunity, intellectual growth, and motivation to achieve. In the wake of corporate downsizing, there's even greater need for individual initiative and expertise. Social…

Recent research indicates that Americans are reading less than they have in the past, as black-and-white text competes with more visually exciting media, such as the Internet, movies, and television. As a solution to this problem, the author proposes that books and instructional materials engage readers visually through the use of color and…

Mandating portfolios on a systemwide or statewide basis may destroy one of their greatest assets: allowing students to reflect on their learning and feel a sense of hope and control. Once standards are defined by an outside authority, teacher-student collaboration is minimized and the importance of students' own goals and learning assessment…