Catholic schoolteachers face the pedagogical dilemma between remaining faithful to the doctrinal requirements of Catholic Church teaching while also respecting their professional responsibility to promote autonomous, critical thinking and consider the pastoral needs of their students. Although in practice many Catholic educators achieve a…

Proposes six legal principles of children's intellectual rights that can be derived from the First Amendment. Argues that only the government (including public schools) is constitutionally obligated to act in accord with these principles. Proposes that the principles can serve as ethical guidelines for parents and private schools as well. (NH)

Censorship is the removal, suppression, or restricted circulation of literary, artistic, or educational material--of images, ideas, and information--on the grounds that these are morally or otherwise objectionable in the light of standards applied by the censor. Few in our society advocate the banning of all but a tiny handful of materials from…

It is the author's thesis that children's intellectual rights are denied in U.S. public education because creativity and self-motivated inquiry are discouraged. As a result of standardized testing, learning tends to be defined in terms of the retention of specific facts. Higher cognitive processes such as abstract reasoning, problem solving, and…