In "Diving in Where Angels Fear to Tread: Pre-Requisites to Evidence-Based Interventions," John Raven poses a crucial question if the current education system guarantees a high quality of future citizens. He proposes an analytical diagnosis of this complex phenomenon of wasting individual talents and social energy due to shortcomings and…

Although there is no end of ethics courses offered at colleges and universities, many believe that neither the professoriate nor their institutional leaders has ever been collectively and authentically committed to shaping the moral formation of students. A considerable literature has emerged over the last decade alleging a widespread…

In the summer of 1950, teenagers Elvira Businelli and Delfina Tomassini embarked upon a teacher training course at the Italian university for foreigners, in Perugia, Italy--taught by Maria Montessori. Kn 2020, Elvira and Delfina, now in their 80s, spoke with Montessori Life in the interview presented in this article about their recollections of…

Many of the papers in this special issue draw on the fundamental model of numeracy developed by Goos et al. (Transforming mathematics instruction: multiple approaches and practices. 81-102, 2014). Four elements in that model--contexts, tools, dispositions, and mathematical knowledge--are embedded within a critical orientation, and being, or…

As Dane Peters witnesses the struggles of Middle Eastern countries dealing with violence inflicted by radical groups like the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and ISIS, he asks himself, How can this be happening? How can anyone justify this heartless, inhumane treatment? Is this behavior learned in certain cultures? Perhaps, he considers, for some people it is…

When Alexis Wiggins returned to full-time teaching after having a baby, she took with her an idea from the book "A Path With Heart" by Buddhist Jack Kornfield. The idea was that each day might go better if she viewed everyone she encountered during that day, including any student or parent who seemed to make her teaching life harder, as…

Social psychologists are persuaded that researchers as well as laymen tend to overestimate the influence of personal traits and underestimate the influence of situations on observed behavior. The author of this article suggests that education researchers and policy makers may be overestimating the role of personal qualities in their quest to…

In this essay, Susan Engel argues that curiosity is both intrinsic to children's development and unfolds through social interactions. Thus, it should be cultivated in schools, even though it is often almost completely absent from classrooms. Calling on well-established research and more recent studies, Engel argues that interactions between…

Many teachers are interested in fostering creativity, and there are good reasons for doing so. However, the question of how to do it is made difficult by the paradoxes of creativity: mutually contradictory findings that are, nonetheless, simultaneously true (e.g. convergent thinking hampers creativity but is also necessary for it). These paradoxes…

Developments within education, psychology and the neurosciences have shed a great deal of light on how we learn while, at the same time, confirming for us all that learning is a profoundly complex process and far from understood. Against this background, and in this position article, we consider the recent rise in interest in the concept of…

The author cites personality correlation studies which indicate a marked affinity between aesthetically inclined personality configurations and those which would characterize the morally mature (in Kohlberg's sense). He therefore suggests that learning activities in aesthetic sensitivity may prove fruitful in moral education, in complement to…

Caught in the fear that "I was headed for an inconsequential life of mediocrity," Baines began to study the writing of philosophers, thinkers, and prophets who seemed to have found a sense of purpose and peace. Through that reading, Baines identified characteristics common to all of them: focus, resilience, the desire to make a positive…

In this article, the author presents the story of a teacher struggling to help one of her students who is constantly clinging to her. The author provides several tips for teachers on how they can deal with anxious children. If the teacher has an aid, she could consider sending the assistant out to the playground with the group for a while, the…

Describes cooperative learning in three high school classrooms showing that the cooperative learning strategy may be a potent instrument in work-mate preference stability and change. The examples also demonstrate the value of this strategy for maximizing intergroup interaction for the promotion of learning experiences. (JD)

Reviews research on two approaches to learning-style-based education and cautions readers to closely examine the various assertions made by researchers in this field. (WD)