Examines teachers' responses to reform efforts prescribed for them as appropriate for reformed schools, considering emerging difficulties when teaching and reform are conceptualized not as situated, but as universal and generalizable in form and intention. Teacher responses to such static reform often replicate power relations circulating in…

For over a decade, the University of Alberta's Educational Policy Studies Department has been developing and using computer-based simulations of the principalship. The program successfully invites students to suspend disbelief and engage in the simulations (interruptions, investigations, and walking tours) as though they were real work. Recent…

Tacit educational assumptions based on power and control are compared to current professional knowledge on teaching, learning, and school organization. Points out that educational leadership is needed that engages in self-critical analysis of our current instructional practices. Learning environments must be based on an understanding of young…

Describes the application of Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) in classroom instruction. Notes lack of research supporting effectiveness of MI; includes Gardner's responses to criticisms. Notes that the most common misapplication is to present a topic from seven directions to incorporate the intelligences, rather than present…

Describes differences between systems-rationalist and subjectivist-interpretivist inquiry. Maintains that much of the enormous potential of subjectivist-interpretivist research could be lost due to the consequences of choices and compromises that researchers make in conceptualizing, proposing, and conducting subjectivist inquiry in the…

Drawing on 5 years' experience with collaborative activities, examines school leadership's role in creating and supporting an appropriate ambience for collaborative inquiry among teachers. Leaders can become participant-learners who contribute to a collective understanding of this practice. Learning together furnishes a sturdy scaffold for further…

This article explores issues surrounding the integration of students with disabilities into general education classrooms. The movement from mainstreaming and the least restrictive environment to the call for a more integrated system is discussed, along with perceptions and attitudes about inclusion. The dissonance between rhetoric and reality is…

The Special Education Training Program at South Carolina State University offers training for school administrators on both theory and practice in designing, developing, implementing, and supervising programs for students with special needs in least restrictive environments. Each course requires a 10-hour field experience and students must also…

Practical schooling realities defy grand designs for change, including imposing tougher standards. Standards will not work because U.S. schools are complex systems; educators do not understand, accept, or "enforce" state standards; teachers have too many kids and not enough time; student problems predominate; and publicly embarrassing educators is…

Compares the similarities of education and library schools in regard to status. Topics include image problems of education and library schools; and reasons they are held in low esteem in higher education, including gender bias, low pay, social bias, practical versus theoretical orientation, and a lack of research. (LRW)

At a new charter school serving predominantly defiant underachievers and special-needs students, a psychology teacher was challenged to implement founders' brain-based principles. She succeeded by establishing a climate of relaxed alertness, immersing students in meaningful experiences, and guiding them in processing their experiences. (MLH)

Drawing on a study of an experimental teacher education program, the paper recommends changes that prepare new teachers to assume greater leadership responsibility, particularly for collaborative curriculum design and implementation. Teacher educators must model these practices in teacher education coursework. A pedagogy of collective action…

During the 1990s, a new breed of educational-leadership faculty members emerged with the potential to make administrator-preparation programs more relevant and responsive to today's pressing issues. Compared with more senior colleagues, the new breed entered academe at an older age, has more K-12 administrative experience, comprises more women,…

Describes a project in which a small group of teachers of gifted students in primary and secondary schools in England used action research as an holistic way of undertaking professional development, which encouraged them to question their values, beliefs, and assumptions about teaching and learning. (CR)

This commentary on C. Addison Stone's paper on scaffolding for the learning disabilities field suggests that many current applications prevent rather than encourage transfer of responsibility to students for learning and task accomplishment and that current practices in many schools may result in "reverse-scaffolding". (DB)