Many students lack problem-solving skills. As teenagers, they tend to blame external forces or other people when something goes wrong, instead of trying to understand the root cause to prevent it from happening again. This article discusses the Lean Six Sigma methodology for problem solving, which the Board of Cooperative Educational Services in…

The Indian higher education system today faces a daunting challenge of expansion in the face of globalised competition and all this has in turn made the access to higher education even more difficult. With tertiary education at the disposition of the privileged few, and majority percentage excluded from the educational stream, the prospects of…

The Balika Shivir, a six-month, non-formal, residential, education program for illiterate adolescent girls was an intervention strategy used to reach a traditionally underserved and marginalized population in rural western India. The primary objective of the Balika Shivir was to impart literacy and numeracy skills to attending girls, and to…

Secretary of Education, Anne Duncan, has met with thousands of teachers and heard their fears and concerns. Teachers are asking: Are these reforms the Next Big Thing, here today but gone tomorrow? Will they focus on testing in a way that further narrows the curriculum and denies students the great education that we seek to bring? Could we lose our…

Early psychologist William James [1842-1910] and philosopher John Dewey [1859-1952] described intelligence as a method which can be learned. That view of education is integrated with knowledge about the brain's executive functions to empower pupils to intelligently organize their learning. This article links the pragmatist philosophy of…

In this article, the author focuses on one student, Margie, who sought to write about her experience with workplace sexual harassment but who also struggled as she wrote with competing off-stage voices. Those voices--from the conversations in her classrooms, former workplace, a campus women's group, newspapers, and the televised Anita…

This paper explores the role of narrative in the Stoneleigh Project, an outdoor retreat approach to supporting marginalised young people in becoming agents of personal and social change. The metaphor of a journey, developed by sociological writers, is applied to the transition of young people to adulthood. Undertaken as a narrative enquiry, the…

This article describes a phenomenological study of filial therapy with monolingual, Spanish-speaking mothers living in the United States. Four mothers participated in a 5-week training in filial therapy. Data from the interviews revealed four emergent themes. These include (a) challenges in integrating play therapy skills in everyday life, (b)…

Social justice is a complex and abstract concept that can be difficult to discuss and integrate within group work. To address this concern, this article introduces readers to the Dimensions of Social Justice Model. The model provides group leaders with a conceptual framework for understanding the degree to which social justice is integrated within…

This paper revisits and discusses some of Paulo Freire's theoretical tenets for participatory education suggested as part of a critical approach to the education of adults. Through data collected during a family literacy programme, the author analyses her discursive interactions as an adult education tutor with parents as learners. These discourse…

Global education is concerned with social justice and student empowerment. However, an understanding of the word global as merely international and/or intercultural may fail to challenge existing mechanistic and compartmentalized views of knowledge and curriculum. Such a global education limits students' agency and reproduces the very systems it…

The aim of this dissertation project was to explore and extrapolate the work of the left-libertarian social theorist, Murray Bookchin (1921-2006), paying particular attention to his theory of social ecology and to examine its implications for and use as a comprehensive philosophical/theoretical framework for alternative secondary education that…

There are new pressures and familiar pressures on teacher educators to prepare teachers who will be able to teach successfully in a changing world, and who will be able to change the world. The question of how to prepare well-qualified teachers has become an international question with global responses and consequences. This book describes a…

Superintendent Andres A. Alonso arrived in Baltimore in 2007 with a vision for improving the city's struggling schools. His vision included empowering school leaders and creating accountability for student learning through a series of reforms that center around a new system for giving resources to schools, called Fair Student Funding (FSF). FSF…

This article reflects on the first phase of a research project aimed at the empowerment of Information Technology (IT) teachers in black rural schools in the North-West province of South Africa. In order to empower these IT teachers, the first phase aimed at understanding their unique challenges and needs. Qualitative research methodology was used…