Christine Sleeter wrote this essay in response to the topic "Even Laureates Were Beginners Once: Lessons Learned Along the Way," which was the title of the Laureate Panel at the Kappa Delta Pi Convocation in October 2017.

Ernesto Macaro is Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford, UK. He was the founding director of the EMI Oxford Research Group (formerly the Centre for Research and Development in English Medium Instruction) in the Department of Education. His research focuses on second language learning…

In a time of hyperpolarization and hyper partisanship, preparing students to deliberate about their differences becomes even more important. In this interview, Diana Hess, dean of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-author of The Political Classroom, describes the challenge of ensuring that students have access to…

An important debate in the literature on controversial issues concerns how to identify them. This matters for teachers because settled issues should be taught directively and controversial issues should be taught nondirectively. Teachers are professionally accountable for this decision. This article examines the contribution of Michael Hand to the…

The experience of 9/11 prompted a transformation in one secondary teacher's approach to teaching controversial subjects based on the relevance to today's students. Soon after that fateful day, this teacher found a purpose and rationale for developing a very demanding curriculum on 9/11, and relates how his teaching unit has evolved by expanding…

This autobiographical piece of collaborative discensus (Gershon, 2008; Gershon, Peel & Bilinovich, 2009) presents the authors' interwoven perspectives about the challenges they faced as they talked about race in a pre-service social studies class. Their work here serves two main purposes. First it is an opportunity for a teacher and two former…

When a gay male student began distributing letters at his high school alerting students and teachers to the antigay language in the school and teachers' lack of intervention, the letter was quickly confiscated. McGarry, an administrator in the central office, learned of the incident and of other incidents in which LGBT students and teachers were…

The question, "what role--if any--should religion play in public schools?," continues to be asked. There is no single answer that satisfies all participants in the debate. The parameters of possibility are too broad, too infused with differing worldviews. Too often both sides see the issue in stark, black and white, either-or terms; and…

What should be the role of our institutions of higher education? To promote good moral character? To bring an end to racism, sexism, economic oppression, and other social ills? To foster diversity and democracy and produce responsible citizens? In "Save the World On Your Own Time", Stanley Fish argues that, however laudable these goals might be,…

In this essay, the author draws on her experience as a minority teacher conducting a course called "Neighborhood, Community, and Identity" to outline some important lessons for minority teachers attempting to teach diversity: (1) When teaching dissident material, it is especially important to create a classroom climate that encourages all students…

The authors describe their attempt to learn the extent to which those most closely associated with vocational education perceived oral communication skills to be important and to determine the extent to which those skills are actually being taught to vocational students. They found a discrepancy between the need for these skills and the teaching…

Offers suggestions for keeping the journalism class exciting and the teacher and students enthusiastic. Suggestions include inviting people in the profession to work with students, providing opportunities for publication of journalism students' works, and having students write a news account of a historical news event. (HTH)

Recent reform initiatives, especially the No Child Left Behind Act, tend to rely on a variety of highly debatable assumptions that fail to reflect the diversity of today's classrooms and also place pressure on educators in a manner we characterize as accountability by assumption. Such reform initiatives have become so political, complex, and…

Two educators debate the pros and cons of discussing the sexual preferences of authors as part of the literary contexts of their works. (RL)

Discusses the changing role of the cataloger and the lack of comprehensiveness in cataloging and classification courses offered in graduate library programs. The information that should be covered in introductory courses is outlined and the value of such courses to catalogers and noncatalogers is explored. (36 references) (CLB)