When Daisy Han first encountered a Montessori classroom, she actually felt free. Free to move, free to create, free to explore, free to try, free to fail, free to be. This freedom is essential to becoming an innovator. Innovators possess an irreverence almost as big as their self-efficacy, both of which have been nurtured in an environment where…

In associating death with education, this paper explores how the death register, and in particular the denial of death, is reflected in the treatment of contemporary education, aiming to construct the future as an object of knowledge for providing certainty and authority. Through a reading of Gert Biesta's theoretical considerations, I discuss how…

Politically neutral pedagogy is often the subject of both praise and condemnation. But treating political neutrality as a principle to be either embraced or rejected confuses the issue, because the permissibility of neutrality actually varies across educational contexts. Educational practice should not be evaluated on the basis of whether or not…

The role of educators includes promoting cultural competence and cultural sensitivity in order to create an inclusive school climate, and for this role, they need multicultural knowledge and skills. This article presents theory-based and evidence-based principles, adopted from social psychology, to reduce intergroup biases and to improve…

How might we know whether our schools or system are set up to optimise learning? How can we find out whether we are getting the most from technology? How can we evaluate our innovation or think through whether our change initiative will bring about its desired results? Teachers and educational leaders who grapple with such questions will find this…

Teachers' pedagogical knowledge is often evident in mantra-like phrases that act as shortcut explanations for professional actions, or as principles of practice. Five key mantras for good practice in infant and toddler settings, accumulated from theory and research, are discussed to unpack pedagogical imperatives in "Te Whariki 2017" and…

Material development is one of the most important links in the chain of course design. However, it has received limited attention in the academic context of applied translation studies. This paper proposes a conceptual framework to encourage material development in interpreter and translator education at undergraduate levels. It first justifies…

Universities across Europe are calling for a more student-centred, inclusive university environment bringing together all actors of the university community, while also implementing measures to achieve such a cultural shift. Members of the EUA [European University Association] Learning & Teaching Thematic Peer Groups are -- each based on their…

If classrooms teachers play the lead role in establishing relationships that help students do their personal best, principals are leaders in creating good school environments for adults. Westerberg, former principal of award-winning Littleton High School in Colorado, shares six principles that help create positive schoolwide relationships. Drawing…

In an era of normative austerity in US higher education, composition is being transformed by budget cuts, retrenchment, and marketization. Nevertheless, the field’s scholarship continues to compartmentalize questions concerning the material terms of practice away from questions of curricular philosophy. Because composition has not developed a…

School psychologists are a critical part of the school team that ensures quality, genuinely accessible education for all students. National Association of School Psychologists' (NASP's) "Ready to Learn, Empowered to Teach: Guiding Principles for Effective Schools and Successful Students" (2015) foundational policy document recommends…

For the past 35 years, the prevailing narrative about America's public education system is that it is "broken." Reform efforts have failed to find a fix because they fundamentally misunderstand this reality: the system is not broken. It is doing exactly what it was designed to do--educate the masses in a standardized fashion that…

Over recent decades, much has been achieved in developing Catholic school religious programmes, chaplaincy and community life but the ordinary curriculum now needs to be the focus of the school's Catholic ethos. The International Baccalaureate shows the structure by which an educational vision can explicitly inform a school's core curriculum.…

This article describes a professional development program that inspired some high school teachers to drastically reshape their teaching of chemistry toward a more learner-centered practice. Through interviews, they identified a freedom to explore and a sense of being trusted and respected as key aspects that supported this new approach. Rather…

Russ Sojourner is the Schools of Character Director for the Character Education Partnership (CEP) in Washington, DC. In this article he begins by saying that Daniel Lapsley and Charles Murray's articles presented in this issue of "Journal of Character Education" are clearly concerned about the compelling (and daunting) challenges facing…