In the last 15 years, mindfulness programs have become more popular in schools. However, bringing mindfulness into schools involves more than selecting a curriculum. It entails creating the conditions for mindfulness that requires a particular kind of leadership: the capacity to lead for and with mindfulness. Authors Deborah L. Schussler, Karen…

Developing systems and opportunities for effective dialogue is critical if schools wish to help teachers work collectively. One school used Socratic seminars, structured conversations about selected texts. These seminars helped teachers to build relationships, share practice, and change curriculum and policy. The seminars also were critical to…

Speaking as a mother and a teacher educator, the author offers a framework to help K-12 school personnel support gender and sexually diverse students. It identifies components of safe school climate, and describes how educators to create welcoming, safe, and inclusive schools. It also includes resources widely available to counteract the bullying,…

Until now, the curriculum debate has overlooked the interrelationship of the change process, school culture, classroom context, and curriculum content. Educational restructuring will not succeed without close school/university collaboration and new thinking about the teaching and learning knowledge base. Paternalistic treatment of educators must…

Victoria, Australia's experience with school-based management, curriculum frameworks, and the Victorian Certificate of Education demonstrates the feasibility of fashioning a system of centralized guidance and local initiatives that ensures high standards, supports meaningful assessments, permits curricular and pedagogical variety, and promotes…

Denmark's decentralized public primary and lower secondary "Folkeskole" system offers nine years of compulsory instruction, "class teachers" who coordinate other teachers, and students who remain in the same groups until graduation. A 1994 law issuing curriculum guidelines and committing teachers to team teaching will…

Using teachers' professional development as its central strategy, California's Middle Grades Mathematical Renaissance project aims to transform its mathematics program so that all students become empowered mathematically. This article discusses key questions concerning the program's resources, strategies, leadership roles, and monitoring…

To circumvent typical public schooling restrictions, an upstate New York middle school established a Lab School that functions outside the regular program. Lab School aims to provide practice in intellectual inquiry, delve into complex, demanding topics, create an interdisciplinary, problem-oriented curriculum, and experiment with assessment…

A longitudinal investigation of the ways policymakers and practitioners in California, Michigan, and South Carolina view curricular reform in elementary mathematics and literacy instruction shows the complexities involved in "updating" teachers' professional development. Curriculum standards and frameworks are no substitute for the…