This paper reports on a seminar designed to help preservice teachers to develop awareness, insights, and vibrant approaches for empowering students socially and academically. The premises of the seminar were that all children can learn and that teachers, parents, and the community are vital links in their learning. The seminar examined some of the environments from which many urban children come and assessed the successes as well as the failures of such environments, with the goal of helping preservice teachers to be able to capitalize on experiences and factors that lead to such successes and to avoid or to restructure experiences and factors that cause failure. Materials used in the seminar are described in detail. An annotated bibliography of 19 publications used in the seminar is grouped into four categories--social barriers, autobiography, a glimpse of the child's world, and the classroom. Descriptions of activities generated from the books and three videotapes, as well as from other adapted materials, are listed. The seminar used nontraditional approaches including modeling/observation, and discovery/heuristic learning, as well as "hands-on", auditory, and visual modalities. The seminar outcomes suggest that critical thinking is best developed in an interactive, participatory environment where the teacher is a coach or a facilitator. The paper concludes that changes in the delivery of information and teaching approaches in public schools, especially urban schools, will only come when universities themselves use nontraditional materials, activities, and nontraditional approaches to prepare teachers. Contains 12 references. (NC)