Educational Leadership articles from May 1997

Educational Leadership archives from May 1997

Perspectives. (social and emotional learning)
May 1, 1997... My summer job while in college - and my first experience teaching - was as a Head Start aide in the inner city of St. Louis - in the notorious Pruitt-Igoe Project that has since been torn down. Every morning I waited for the van that would take...

Building schools as communities: a conversation with James Comer. (child psychiatrist)(Interview)
May 1, 1997... What children need as much as computers or books, says James Comer, is relationships with caring adults. After a quarter-century, the School Development Program is continuing to model how educators can work with families to create caring...

Up with emotional health. (emotional intelligence as a predictor of personal success)
May 1, 1997... Emotional well-being is a predictor of success in academic achievement, employment, marriage, and physical health. Daniel Goleman, author of the bestseller Emotional Intelligence, spoke at ASCD's Annual Conference about the emotional...

How to launch a social & emotional learning program.
May 1, 1997... Naysayers may throw up all sorts of roadblocks to starting social and emotional learning programs, but advice from those who have already gone down that road can make the going easier. Introducing a new program to a school or district often...

Education for intimacy. (sex education)
May 1, 1997... Sex education - a necessary and appropriate undertaking for public schools - should be presented in a context that emphasizes values as well as personal and community responsibility. How should we approach the discussion of sex in public...

The moral dimensions of schools.
May 1, 1997... Small schools, caring adults, community service, and parent involvement can foster the virtues of empathy and self-discipline in our students - from preschool through high school. Trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, justice, fairness,...

Raising Healthy Children. (social and emotional learning project)
May 1, 1997... Social skills instruction can have a long-term positive effect on students' interactions with others, on their attitudes toward school, and on their academic achievement. * Mr. Novak's 4th grade class. Students combine their knowledge of...

What is violence prevention, anyway?
May 1, 1997... Sixth-grade students in an urban school system learn how to resolve, avoid, or ignore conflicts - or diffuse the energy of potentially violent conflicts in a positive way. Through role-play, 6th graders consider this conflict: Leroy and...

Lifting a school's spirit. (Poquonock School in Windsor, CT)
May 1, 1997... Giving children real responsibilities and decisions may promote sound values and a sense of community better than any rewards or consequences can. At Poquonock School in Windsor, Connecticut, children enjoy racial harmony and a sense of...

Creating a districtwide social development project.
May 1, 1997... In New Haven, Connecticut, educators take the social and emotional development of their students seriously through comprehensive curriculums that have built-in community support. To prevent social and health problems among our young people,...

Success in High School - and beyond. (La Salle Academy, Providence, RI)
May 1, 1997... At a private high school, students benefit from Big Brothers and Sisters, peer mediation, and lessons in emotional intelligence across the curriculum. The good news about emotional intelligence is that it is virtually all learned, according...

The conflict wall. (conflict resolution)
May 1, 1997... A Connecticut school offers an innovative approach for supporting discipline using a series of conflict-resolution steps posted on the office wall. Two boys are brought to the office after almost coming to blows in the hall. The teacher who...

Using the Learning Environment Inventory. (rating the learning atmosphere of classes)
May 1, 1997... How do your students rate their classroom on its cohesion, absence of friction and favoritism, and other social and academic factors? The Learning Environment Inventory lets you find out. Students' emotional development is tied to the social...

Celebrating life experiences. (learning American history through the biographies of senior citizens)
May 1, 1997... A school service project offers a unique way for students to learn about 20th century American history - through the storytellers who lived it. When I first took those few very unsure steps, I came face to face with a woman who had gorgeous,...

Play fair - and not just at recess. (noncompetitive educational games)
May 1, 1997... Adults provide the structures that allow students to welcome new students, succeed on spelling tests, and make the playground user-friendly. Murals entitled "We Are a Community" and "What We Have in Common," as well as photographs of all...

The Socratic approach to character education.
May 1, 1997... This classical technique leads students to recognize contradictions between values they avow and the choices they make - and shows them that they have the power to choose. Is it really possible to teach young people good character? And, if...

In the Netherlands: reclaiming kids' motivation. (elementary school education in the Netherlands)
May 1, 1997... When teachers use responsive instruction and the attunement strategy, they become attuned to students' perceptions and motivations. They can then enhance students' faith in their own competence and control. When a student who is usually...

From England: inquiring and collaborating at an exemplary school. (primary school education in England)
May 1, 1997... The social system of an entire school community - including parents as assistants - encourages students to excel academically, socially, and emotionally. In a "Comment Book," the parents and teacher of 5-year-old Jessica share their...

Refusing to play the blame game. (classroom management)
May 1, 1997... Encouraging students to confront their own behavior and contribute to classroom solutions is far more effective than imposing solutions or lecturing. I had gone to a one-day conference and had a substitute teacher cover my English class - a...

Write for your life. (writing life narratives)
May 1, 1997... The life narratives of students from an inner-city middle school enrich the curriculum, incorporate research skills, and enhance students' understanding of self and community. As the video camera comes into focus, James introduces himself as...

Changing the way kids settle conflicts.
May 1, 1997... By using the Students Against Violence program, teachers can help children deal with their own - and others' - disagreements in positive ways. Someone takes your parking space - what do you do? Someone cuts ahead of you in line at the...

Supervising schooling, not teachers.
May 1, 1997... Traditional supervision assumes that if only enough teachers improve, the district will also improve, Knowledge Work Supervision turns that approach on its head by suggesting that the way to improve schooling is to focus on the performance of...

High schooler in adult prison? (high school education provided to juvenile inmates of prison facilities)
May 1, 1997... I can walk into almost any school in the country and find out what the students are studying. But my latest request for the most general information about the schooling of a teenage girl in Indiana Women's Prison got me five or six recitations...

Learning through feedback.
May 1, 1997... Each month the Division of Teaching and Learning at the Educational Testing Service provides readers of Educational Leadership a short research summary on a topic related to the magazine's theme. This column is the result of a collaboration...

Latino High School Graduation: Defying the Odds.
May 1, 1997... Quantitative data such as standardized test scores and dropout rates highlight Hispanic students' low level of educational attainment but do little to elucidate the nature and scope of the problem. This book does both. In addition, rather than...

Rebel Without a Car: Surviving and Appreciating Your Child's Teen Years.(Brief Article)
May 1, 1997... For the practicing educator at the middle or high school level, Rebel Without a Car is, at first glance, a simplistic and self-evident how-to book. As a tool for frantic parents, however, the book is a gem. Drawing on memories of his own...

Hidden Literacies: Children Learning at Home and at School.(Brief Article)
May 1, 1997... Hidden Literacies is a reflective work by a reflective teacher about how to unveil the hidden literacies that every learner possesses - and nurture them in cultures such as ours where written literacy is the prize. Margaret Voss accomplishes...

Listen, Discuss and Act: Parents' and Teachers' Views on Education Reform.
May 1, 1997... According to the study summarized in this report, parents and teachers overwhelmingly approve the principles and practices espoused by New American Schools, a coalition of organizations, states, school districts, and individual schools pushing...