What students do after school depends on where they go, their gender and family characteristics, and with whom they spend time. Most students go straight home, play or watch TV, and are unsupervised, but not alone. Schools equalize learning opportunities for poorer students. Time at home affects recreational reading opportunities. (Contains 10…

Built around such themes as nature, cooking, and community involvement, after-school programs help students make powerful connections and ask big questions. Theme-based programming is most successful when staff members listen, observe, and acknowledge experiences that excite and motivate the students. Kids also love clubhouses and pressrooms. (MLH)

Reverend Val J. Peter, director of Girls and Boys Town, USA, states that loneliness is prevalent among today's children, no matter what their economic situation. Asserts that the reasons for loneliness include the growing need of parents to work, children having their own rooms, and overuse of personal technology. Asserts that Girls and Boys Town…

A program that combines sports and literature can improve students' reading, writing, and comprehension skills, promoting links between children's personal development and self-esteem and forging links between sports, literature, and daily life. Describes one such program, Sports PLUS After School, noting: program goals, components, and structure;…

Describes an after-school program designed to increase minority girls' interest in science and engineering. The program targeted seventh and eighth grade urban middle school girls and included such pedagogical practices as hands-on science, cooperative learning, mentoring, and role modeling by women engineers. Student surveys indicated that the…

Illuminates the dynamics of race, gender, and systemic violence in an urban after-school club, noting linkages among relationships that undermined black children's educational achievement. Data from observations, e-mails, and interviews with club members highlighted mechanisms of systemic violence in ways that revealed possibilities for fostering…

Describes the cohort of children who were between 5 and 14 years of age in the 1990s and compares them with their counterparts earlier in the century. Reports their numbers, overall and by racial and ethnic heritage, describes characteristics of their parents, and the time they spend in school. Considers effects of these trends on public…

An after-school computer club was developed in which language-minority children learned to master a series of educational computer games through reading instructions, interacting with peers, and interacting with adult mentors. Results show how an informal educational environment can foster generalizable problem-solving skills that transfer to…

Describes how fifth-graders with home Internet access used an Internet chat application after school, and discusses changes in the patterns of chat room usage over a 1-year period. Considers gender differences in chat room usage, as well as implications for curriculum design, student-teacher interactions, and the role of chat in teaching and…

Through the house system, a New York City high school's 2,500 students benefit from a small school environment while accessing large-school resources. Each house participating in a privately funded after-school program features various activities that supplement daily instruction while building on their students' interests. (MLH)

In this paper, the author discusses the history and mission of the Networked Learning Communities programme of the National College of School Leadership (NCSL). The programme was launched in Autumn 2001. By March the following year 150 Networked Learning Communities made submissions to the NCSL and 41 networks (from Berwick upon Tweed to Penzance)…

The Comic Book Project was launched originally as a way of putting into practice some of the most important educational research of the last decade--that is, the correlation between involvement in the arts and performance in academic subjects (Deasy, 2002; Fiske, 1999). This article is not necessarily about comic books; it is about children…

Three years ago, the San Diego Zoo embarked on a new crusade--to introduce opportunities in the scientific realm to a small, diverse population of girls at a local inner-city, low-income junior high school. Researchers from the National Council for Research on Women found that mentoring programs and the opportunity to perform active science are…

The study reported uses a qualitative design to investigate the benefits of service-learning through the eyes of the preservice teachers who participated in it. The study focuses on how preservice teachers compare and contrast teaching and learning in the formal classroom during student teaching and teaching and learning in service-learning. Based…

As people enter the twenty-first century, there is broad agreement that all young people need to be fully prepared workers, citizens, parents, and partners. Public opinion and developmental research agree: academic competence, although critical, is not enough. Essential outcomes span a range of functional areas, pushing beyond academic knowledge…