Most athletes can benefit from practicing and using mental skills within a sport context, but budgets do not always allow the hiring of a Sport Psychologists to implement a mental skills training program. With guidance, however, dedicated coaches can help athletes develop the mental side of their game by providing basic psychological skills. A…

This article explores the nexus between digital literacies and identity in the online graphical chat environment of the "palace". With a focus on the adolescent cybergirl, it examines how girls use words and images to create a digital presence, and in so doing, "write" their bodies and their selves. I discuss how the cybergirl is discursively…

In April 2002, there were three hundred and eighty-six children living in prison with their mothers in South Africa, four of which were inmates of the Pretoria Female Prison. The interaction patterns between these four mothers and their children was investigated by means of individual interviews, observation, field notes and the Marschak…

How can literature teachers foster an ethic of care in the classroom? How can literature and imaginative pedagogical strategies facilitate education of the moral imagination and overall training of the ethical thinker? This essay explores some theoretical reflections on moral education through literature and, in particular, suggests practical…

The author of this article examines two powerful metaphors that have shaped the way people have thought about young children over the past 75 years or so, and argues that these two models are off base. These metaphors are "The Wild Child" and "The Little Scientist." The earlier of these two metaphors is that of the Wild Child, which hearkens back…

This ethnographic study used multiple approaches to try to determine the emotional experience of young children (ages 5 to 8) with chronic illnesses. Forty-six children with severe asthma and diabetes were interviewed on two separate occasions using child-centered in-depth interviews that included play-based interviewing. The study also employed…

Conceived as a twentieth anniversary tribute to the Reading Is Fundamental Program, this book contains a varied collection of stories, poems, and drawings by some of America's most famous authors and artists of books for children, relating real and imaginary childhood memories that celebrate the joys of reading and the magic of children's…

Activities for home and school designed to help children become aware of their own inner authority and ability to choose are offered in this book. Techniques and activities are based on the principles of psychosynthesis, a comprehensive educational approach to human growth and development pioneered in 1911 by Italian psychiatrist Robert Assagioli.…

A study, as yet unfinished, sought to replicate, expand, and provide preliminary answers to questions raised in previous research on the development of fantasy play by black children as functions of age, sex, income level, and other environmental factors. Fantasy play involves the attribution to persons, objects, materials, or situations of…

All learning takes place through the unification of body and mind. Within the realm of motor skill learning, the term mental practice has been used to explain this phenomenon. It has been found that individuals can use their imaginations to learn and to improve upon their performance. Mental practice can be used by teachers who have too little…

An advanced learning center for gifted students from the third through the eighth grade is described. The goal of this program is to provide children who have leadership potential with a curricular environment that allows opportunities to probe, experiment, hypothesize, synthesize, and analyze in order to act and interact with others. This same…

Some children lack the framework of prior experience necessary for the comprehension and enjoyment of fanciful literature. Fanciful literature, though grounded in reality, deals not only with what is, but also with what could be or might have been. Since readers actively construct meaning by relating what they read to their conceptual systems,…

This pamphlet is the eighth in a series of ten stemming from the view that language is central to learning, that teachers can gain insights into their work and into learning by examining the language of the classroom, and that current language theory can be the means to such insights. The pamphlet contains a discussion of the uses of language in…

Designed to stimulate reluctant writers in grades five through eight, these 40 uncompleted stories were written by a teacher who has used them with success in the classroom. The stories are arranged by length and complexity, and topics range from tales of childhood experiences to accounts of history, nature, and science fiction. A section…

The purposes of this study were to describe the use of creative dramatics within an average ninth grade arts class and to document the behavior changes in verbal and nonverbal communications, creative thinking and behavior, feeling of group closeness, self-confidence, and attitude toward the course. A teacher inexperienced in drama conducted the…