Takes issue with Leslie Hart's concept of the triune brain. Argues that there is no evidence showing the three brains are at war with each other for control or that the threatening classroom inhibits the New Mammalian brain. (Author/WD)

For educators' summer reading enjoyment, "Kappan" editors recommend three books on nature (Robert Richardson's biography "Emerson: The Mind on Fire, William Cronin's edited book "Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature," and Gary Snyder's poetry volume "Mountain and Rivers Without End"). Also…

Teachers must deal with lights that turn off on their own, toilet paper rationing and hot water shortages in the bathrooms, and not enough books for their classes. In this article, the author argues that asking teachers to work in these conditions while holding them accountable for dramatic improvements in student performance threatens to drive…

Many teachers gaze in wonder at the professional teaching standards to which they are expected to adhere. Such standards too often ask more of teachers than they can possibly deliver. It is especially disconcerting that teaching standards are actually at odds with an educational environment dominated by ill-conceived accountability schemes and…

Anthony, a stocky, muscular, young African American man with a smile that exudes warmth and enthusiasm, chose a path taken by far too many of his peers: he became a high school dropout. He started down this path long before he entered his urban high school in Wisconsin in 1997. Throughout his years in school, he had never been pushed to excel, and…

Although schools are places for learning and growth, they are also places where students engage in alcohol and drug use. This study showed that most teachers were aware of drugs in their schools, but did not regard drug use as an interference in their own classrooms. Many teachers were knowledgeable about their schools' drug policy, but did not…

Reprints of four articles from the journal "Phi Delta Kappan" provide discussions of initial findings from "A Study of Schooling," a study of contextual variables in 38 elementary, junior high/middle, and high schools. The project had two purposes: (1) to formulate hypotheses and provide insights about schooling through indepth…

Creative Arts in Learning, a master's degree program at Lesley College Graduate School, acknowledges the importance of teacher creativity. By feeding teachers' inner lives, the arts can transform the tone of classrooms or entire schools. Courses in storytelling, visual arts, and drama help teachers demystify the arts, learn alternative…

Profiles teachers' everyday experiences at a southeastern Texas middle school that mainstreams most of its special needs students. Classroom observations, accompanied by teacher and student survey data, showed that mainstreaming had deleterious effects. Since teachers spent a disproportionate amount of time serving special education students,…

Presents the negative effects the classroom, as a way of structuring education, has on teachers and students, and suggests reorganizing the schools along the lines of research hospitals. (IRT)

A teacher describes the four-year bureaucratic maze she went through to rectify a problem with the lack of proper toilet paper dispensers in the women teachers' bathroom of a brand new school. (MD)

Discusses the nature of and the reasons for the largely feminine environment in early elementary grades. A rebuttal to two previous PDK articles -- June '73 (EA 503 991) and April '73 (EA 503 657). (Author)

Suggestions for improving the affective climate of the classroom. (Author)

The behaviorist view of man, that he is only another animal with some extraordinary features, places him at odds with the taming socialization process that goes on in the schools. Schools should offer an expansive environment, activity oriented rather than passive. (Author/WD)

This, the third of a four-part series, focuses on student attitudes and personal experiences as they are organized into four domains--personal, instructional, institutional, and societal. (Author/IRT)