Discusses issues defining the boundaries of the current accountability debate, focusing on the historical struggle between the ideas of philosopher John Dewey and psychologist Edward Thorndike. In the Thorndike camp, corporate America wants educators to continue to sort, select, and label children, aided by standardized testing. The…

Orchestrating simultaneous renewal of schools and teacher education is possible in the presence of appropriate leadership, reformer diversity, program audits, accurate assessments, and a focus on the big picture. Public education is the glue that holds society together, not just a place where job skills are acquired. (MLH)

Examines the university's role in professionalizing rural teachers, contending that lack of a substantive definition of education's public purpose creates teachers who are unprepared to contribute meaningfully to the intellectual life of their communities. Teacher preparation programs should abandon the instrumental focus and confront unique…

Community-oriented pedagogy, or place-based schooling, uses schools as a source of community renewal, not community disintegration; allows students to construct their own understandings through interaction with the community environment; creates creative and critical thinkers who can also meet academic standards; and addresses our society's…

Three books represent the recent work of leading U.S. proponents of critical approaches to pedagogy: "Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education," by Peter McLaren; "Freire for the Classroom: A Sourcebook for Liberatory Teaching," edited by Ira Shor; and "Teachers as…

Examines political, social, cultural, and economic variables that historically have contributed to rural resistance to educational reform. Discusses various roles of schools in the rural community. Demonstrates that the seeds of current debates on issues such as local versus national control of school reform are in the past. Contains 44…

This paper provides a guide for those interested in the educational philosophy of author and ecologist Wendell Berry. It is divided into three sections. The first discusses the foundational dimensions of Berry's thought in terms of his conception of human nature, knowledge, and the good society. Berry sees human beings as creators and moral agents…

This ERIC Digest reviews past and present rural educational philosophy, focusing on the views of Wendell Berry, a Kentucky farmer and novelist who in recent years has emerged as a leading American philosopher. The major difference underlying rural and urban living is the relationship of people with nature. Rural living is much more closely related…

The challenge of "ruralizing" teacher preparation programs is to teach teachers to think with sufficient critical intent to violate professional norms that have been unhealthy for rural schools and communities. Universities are institutions with cosmopolitan rather than local purposes. Over the centuries, the mission of higher education…

This book addresses the role that rural schools can play in promoting community and developing a community-oriented world view. Specifically, this book suggests that rural schools, through concerted pedagogical and curricular attention to the dynamics of their particular place, can rekindle community allegiance and can nurture the fulfillment that…