No student should have to earn his or her way into the general education classroom, writes the author. The inclusive education model recognizes every student's right to be educated in the least restrictive environment, as provided under special education law. Yet many school districts still place students with special learning needs in separate…

All students should learn the language of art to add meaning to their lives. (Author)

A fuller development of imagination can bring the curriculum into a coherent, cohesive whole. (Author/MLF)

Proposes a model high school curriculum featuring five clusters of knowledge, including cultural studies, citizenship and societal studies, science and technology, health and recreation, and skills in learning, communicating, and thinking. Presents a "stratified needs assessment instrument" to assess the instructional time to be devoted to each…

Discusses what type of education is most needed or useful. Favors a general education curriculum, not because it provides knowledge that can be directly applied, but because it helps students to think, feel, and imagine. (Author/RW)

The focus of a common curriculum in general education should be on six shared human experiences, the use of symbols, membership in groups and institutions, production and consumption, relationship with nature, sense of time, and values and beliefs. (Author/RW)

Choice of curriculum content should follow four research-based principles: learning is a domain-specific skill; general learning ability is highly correlated with general knowledge; learning a subject requires comprehension of general principles illustrated by specific examples; and broad general knowledge is the best entree to deep knowledge.…

Assuming that writing and reading must serve the goals of a liberal education (preparing young Americans for responsible citizenship), the Institute on Writing, Reading, and Civic Education promotes student writing to personalize civic relationships, to obtain or provide information or services, to evaluate public services, or to evaluate a…

To prepare today's students for tomorrow's world, schools must expand the curriculum to include development of values, attitudes, and interpersonal skills. Being liberally educated means becoming more reflectively aware, other-centered, cooperative, stable, and self-confident. Greater psychological maturity is the goal. (MLH)

Responds to Andrew S. Hughes' preceding article in this issue of "Educational Leadership." Notes past American debates over basic and general education and warns that trends toward educational retrenchment in the U.S. and Great Britain may lead schools to limit the mass of students to basic literacy education. (RW)

Describes debates over general education and the common curriculum in Great Britain and Canada. In Great Britain, the central government's Department of Education and Science supports a core curriculum. In Canada, the National Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, may recommend a common curriculum to the provincial ministries of education.…

The problem of student ignorance is really about adult ignorance of how to achieve thoughtful and long-lasting understanding. We will not escape our predominantly medieval view of curriculum, premised on knowledge as static and finite, until education learns the lessons of modern intellectual inquiry. Curricula should be organized around essential…

Since the arts humanize the curriculum while affirming the interconnectedness of all things, they are a powerful means to improve general education. Schools that overlook the arts are creating a less civilized generation. The arts provide a more comprehensive, insightful education because they invite students to explore the emotional, intuitive,…

The nation's oldest college is reforming its general education program to meet the challenge of the 1980s. What it does and how well it works may have profound consequences, not only for higher education, but for the high school curriculum as well. (Author)

All adolescents need to learn the skills, attitudes, and knowledge that relate to the needs of youth and the problems of living in a democratic society. (Author/MLF)