Recent years have witnessed significant growth of interest in science-art integration in schools as an approach to creative teaching and learning. This conceptual turn in education implies profound institutional and philosophical changes. Central to this turn has been the development of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math (STEAM)…

The economic purpose of getting a job, or getting into college in order to get a better job, has evolved into the de facto primary purpose of K-12 (and higher) education. Business model solutions are seen by businessmen as the answer to education problems. But the business models they advocate and help fund are not a good fit for education…

The agenda of "A Crucible Moment: College Learning & Democracy's Future," "commissioned," "funded," and "nurtured" by the U.S. Department of Education, is nothing less than an attempt to implement a "transformation" of America by "transform[ing] current academic norms about what counts as…

Due to the eroding family composition of American families today and other important variables contributing to children's lack of social skills and inappropriate behaviors, the implementation of a Character Education curriculum is a greater need in schools today. This need is much more pressing than during the middle of the last century. Some…

Presented at AERA 2010 as the Social Justice Award Lecture, this article calls attention to the purposes of education in the 21st century and the need for a robust, social justice vision of education. Here, it is argued that education is about the cultivation of a flourishing life and not only the narrow preparation for employment. To realize…

The ideal of community engagement suggests that both a student's career and his college's mission are (or ought to be) inextricable from the community in which they are embedded. That students, faculty, and academic institutions should serve community purposes, actively engage in community affairs, and network themselves in real and virtual…

A "civic recession" is as worrisome as an economic recession. "A Crucible Moment: College Learning & Democracy's Future" (The National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement, 2012) should be praised for acknowledging the peril and seeking to rebuild the "depleted civic capital." Welcome, too, is the report's conviction that…

This "crucible moment" in which democratic capitalism finds itself does not call for more government mandates to dictate progressive activism in higher education. Rather, this crucible moment calls higher education on its own initiative to focus on the moral foundation that both democracy and capitalism require. The foundation of democratic…

In this article, the author talks about the report "A Crucible Moment: College Learning & Democracy's Future," which provides a blueprint of what higher education ought "not" to do. The document was produced by the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U), an organization with a long history not only of demanding the advancement of…

This paper presents the research design, rationale, and the results of a historical document-based research project to answer the following two-part question: How do popular and dominant political, social, and economic forces affect the creation and delivery of American history curriculum in public schools between 1890 and 1920 and how is this…

The basic question of why schools exist can be addressed by two prevailing answers: to create workers and to develop citizens. The sorting and segregating and elimination of students who do not meet standardized expectations are a result of the belief that education should just produce workers. When creating workers is the focus of schools, the…

This article is an edited version of a speech delivered at the 2009 Mediterranean Association of International Schools (MAIS) Annual Conference in Florence, Italy. In the author's past speeches--in Seville and Rome--he had urged his listeners to use their distinctive power and influence as independent, international educators to advance…

This chapter attempts to survey contemporary debates and research on outcomes of schooling that have been grouped together under the convenient label "nonacademic". This is not an affirmative labeling. As the nomenclature indicates, it is not a label that groups together things that share like properties. Rather, this is a label of…

A model educational system should provide instruction for the future and reflect national as well as international educational traditions. (Author/KM)

Critiquing Wilson's and Cowell's article, "The Democratic Myth" (v17 p111-17), the author argues that there is a substantial body of knowledge on the idea of democracy outside educational philosophy, and that from that body of knowledge one can derive conclusions about attainment and performances appropriate for a democratic populace. (RM)