Teachers at all levels have reported a stark decline in students' ability to interact with others face-to-face in a technology-driven world. In the world of work, communicative soft skills have surfaced as both a concern and focal point for potential employers. Schools can teach these skills using an approach called S.P.E.C.I.A.L, which focuses on…

Research tells us that children's social-emotional development can propel learning. A new program, SECURe, embeds that research into classroom management strategies that improve teaching and learning. Across all classrooms and grade levels, four principles of effective management are constant: Effective classroom management is based in…

Promoting cooperative social behavior is a major task of preschool teachers. Children are taught to be nice, be fair, and share. This mandate, however, runs up against the fact that young children are naturally egotistical and unable to appreciate the perspective of others. This leaves teachers with questions about how strongly they should push…

Students in remote communities face many challenges to get an education. This is especially true for indigenous and native people. To train teachers for these populations, the authors used web-based conferencing, which avoids some of the technological challenges of communicating with students in these communities. The virtual classes also were…

The sense of calling that compels educators to persist through difficult times and cope with stressful situations, also puts educators at risk for burning out. In order to fight potential burnout, both schools and individual teachers must attend to the issue. Schools must develop themselves as supportive work environments and educators must be…

Glen Rock Public Schools in New Jersey transformed instruction by enabling teachers to discover the richness of incorporating various aspects of the arts into their classroom work. In a deeper vein, Glen Rock teachers learned that art should not be peripheralized because the arts have unique potential as vehicles that can open new ways of thinking…

The practice of mentoring new teachers is spreading widely. School systems are finding that beginning teachers who have access to intensive mentoring are less likely to leave teaching. With the growing acceptance of the need to mentor novice teachers comes the danger that schools will attempt to implement mentor programs without paying adequate…

A teacher, responding to the commission and task force criticism of education, points out that for real educational improvement to take place, critics must communicate with teachers. (MD)

Outlines a fictitious but ideal school in which staff work cooperatively and are encouraged to develop their talents. (MD)

Most school improvement begins outside the school, but the greatest promise for school reform with the most potential for lasting changes comes from within the school itself. (MD)

Comments on the author's participation in the Elementary Education Study Group and on United States Secretary of Education William J. Bennett's 1986 report, "First Lessons." Praises Bennett's appreciation of poor families' efforts to help educate their children and his call for more challenging curriculum content and higher academic…

Describes several projects that have enabled teachers to leave the isolation of their own classrooms and think together about student work in the broader contexts of school improvement and professional development. (Contains 18 references.) (Author/MLF)

This paper declares war against the miseducation of young children, who learn best through direct encounters rather than through formalized inculcation of symbolic rules. A variety of socioeconomic forces (including the civil rights and women's movements) are forcing preschoolers into learning environments originally designed for school-age…

Teachers can gain strength to continue in their profession by consciously forging links--personal, parental, professional, promotional, and practitioner--that bind them to various constituencies. (MLF)

Outlines the current status of computer hardware and software available to educators. Presents two very different, but possible, scenarios for the future of computers in education. (MD)