Presents Life Space Interview (LSI), effective intervention strategy for use during crisis work with troubled students, as it was applied to case of eight-year-old boy attending Option III class for emotionally handicapped students when he accompanied class to mall for holiday shopping trip. Following interview are instructional comments on the…

Describes reclaiming school as one that empowers each student to experience belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity and that challenges any practice that leads to alienation, futility, impotence, or purposelessness among youth. Spotlights innovative programs of empowering education that redefine the standards for excellence in the…

Interviewed 74 students with behavior disorders (BD) to determine their perceptions of what skills regular and BD teachers need. Students requested that teachers learn to be fair and respect students and to be sensitive to students' feelings and develop counseling skills. Other themes dealt with personal qualities, instructional skills, behavior…

Describes Life-Impact Curriculum, designed to teach children how to learn instead of what to learn. Notes that Life-Impact Curriculum stresses that reality of child labeled emotionally disturbed is not right or wrong but different from consensus of society. Explains design of Life-Impact Curriculum teaching child to generate and pattern three…

Notes that special education policymakers have debated whether to exclude conduct-disordered students from special education services. Sees mandate for special educators and mental health professionals to find methods of teaching and counseling antisocial students. Notes that number of gang members who present problems in community would meet…

Describes experimental research agenda that involved incorporation of familiar activities into holistic emerging, student-directed curriculum for students labeled as exceptional, emotionally disturbed, conducted disordered, or generally at risk. Describes attempt to develop curriculum of the mind which could help reconstruct the child's way of…

Describes development and implementation of Life-Impact Curriculum at Children's Home Parkhill School for severely emotionally disturbed students in Tampa, Florida. Describes the home, the 16 students involved in the Life-Impact Curriculum, and the effects of participation in the curriculum. (NB)