Although students do need hands-on experiences to master key skills in science, technology, and engineering, Cummins asserts, K-12 teachers should also help students understand key STEM concepts by reading, writing, and talking about the work of professional scientists and engineers. Cummins lists high-quality texts that help young people…

Known for his work with the Coalition of Essential Schools and the Atlas Project, Sizer is a modest but brilliant administrator who is knowledgeable about education and thoughtful about what works in schools under varying circumstances. The coalition counteracts high schools'"intellectual shabbiness" and curricular superficiality by…

Known as "Doc" by his students, as a troublemaker by his critics, as good copy for journalists, and as a dedicated professional by his supporters, Dennis Littky is guided by an impassioned desire to improve education, regardless of the personal risks involved. He became a maverick principal to influence educational change. (MLH)

Recounts the influence of a fourth-grade teacher, who taught the author about Brazil during the Depression era and inspired him to dream about traveling there. Has teachers' dream-building time been squeezed out by an overwhelming emphasis on the basics, test scores, and mandated lesson plans and evaluations? Has the potential for inspiration…

Dennie Palmer Wolf's career has taken her from teaching in a two-room schoolhouse to groundbreaking research on portfolios and alternative assessments. Today she directs PACE (Performance Collaboratives for Education) and is a senior research associate at Harvard Graduate School of Education. In an unequal society, schools are obligated to help…

Examines the life and memoirs of Janusz Korczak (1878-1942), who attained considerable recognition as author, pediatrician, lecturer, publicist, philosopher, and educator. His greatest achievements were founding a unique, progressive child-raising method and directing an orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II--until all were gassed by…

As codirector of Harvard University's Project Zero, David Perkins has conducted long-term research programs on creativity, problem solving and reasoning, and learning in the arts, sciences, and everyday life. He explains a new program designed to help teachers connect thinking strategies with subject matter, so that students can better manage…

Describes the career and professional accomplishments of Siegfried Ramler, from his job as translator at the Nuremberg trials to his current role as administrator at Punahou School in Hawaii. The most powerful expression of Ramler's internationalism is the 20-year-old Pan Pacific Program, now firmly rooted in Hawaiian educational life. (MLH)

After conducting 10 interviews with outstanding educators for the "Educational Leadership" portrait series, the author realized his subjects had more in common than extraordinary achievement. They shared patterns constituting a leitmotif in their careers--characteristics such as vision, tenacity, recursiveness, time commitment, and…

Seymour Papert's brainchild LOGO is present in at least one-third of American classrooms and has expanded internationally to enhance learning in small Latin American towns and rural Soviet schools. His latest project involves teaching 18 Boston public school teachers to program and helping students learn in a computer-rich environment. (MLH)

As head of Brazil's literacy campaign, educator Paulo Freire discovered that overwhelming student apathy required restructuring his values toward empowering instead of controlling students. For education to be linked to progress at an individual level, curriculum must emanate partly from the learners' lives. Includes five references. (MLH)

Profiles Andre Allison and Florence Mondry, English teachers at Shoreham-Wading River High School (New York), who have placed composition at the center of their curricula, giving students more responsibility and fostering cooperative learning. Both use reading logs to help students interpret literature intelligently and extract meaning from their…

Deborah Meier has founded three elementary schools, begun a secondary school, and influenced numerous other schools to create environments enabling kids to become powerful by learning to use their minds well. Her students have honed a set of skills allowing them to negotiate the system and seek out helpful adults. (MLH)

Formerly U.S. Commissioner of Education and Chancellor of State University of New York, Ernest Boyer is a renowned humanist. An avid Civil Rights advocate during the 1970s, Boyer believes knowledge should be channeled toward humane ends. As president of Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching, Boyer broadened the foundation agenda to…

A third grader describes Ms. Gonzalez, his favorite teacher, who left to accept a more lucrative teaching assignment. Ms. Gonzalez' butterflies unit covered everything from songs about social butterflies to paintings of butterfly wings, anatomy studies, and student haiku poems and biographies. Students studied biology by growing popcorn plants…