In the introduction to this book, a classroom situation is described in which the story of Hansel and Gretel was challenged. He uses it to describe an educational reform effort undertaken by the Lakeview School in British Columbia, Canada, and shows how the school changed from within. The book documents the struggle of the teachers and the principal to change the teaching of language arts. It considers the ideology supporting educational change, what change means to those who undertake it, and how the experience relates to the larger social and political context. Chapter 2 describes the context of educational change, which is based on five areas--curriculum reform, school improvement, school effectiveness, teacher research, and teacher development. Chapter 3 describes how old habits had to be broken and new ground forged before change could become institutionalized. The fourth chapter examines how subject matter, namely language arts, became an important factor in the change process itself. The final four chapters describe the roles of different people, the unit of change, and the factors at work in the change process at the school. Findings illustrate that change will always produce anxiety, needs careful and sensitive implementation, and occurs in isolation or as a result of activity within a larger context. The teacher remains central to the process of school reform. Seven figures and several samples of students' written and artistic work are included. Appendices contain one student's story, a timeline of changes that occurred at Lakeview, an outside evaluator's report, and notes on the methodology. (LMI)