Draws on data from schools in Scotland (n=25) to consider how teachers talk about sex education and look at the factors that shape provision at the school and teacher levels. Finds that four interrelated factors are important in understanding the provision of sex education in the classroom. Provides references. (Author/PAL)

The following paper is intended as an exercise in "friendly criticism" of one of Harvey Siegel's and Mike Smith's ("Knowing, Believing and Understanding", this volume). I'm in substantial sympathy with the general thrust of their paper and my remarks merely provide some criticism of their discussion's conceptual coherence and clarity and a…

The development and use of computer mediated communications as a tool for teaching and learning has grown considerably in recent years. It has been developed to extend the conventional face-to-face tutorial environment and for distance-learning purposes, actively engaging students in productive learning situations. Here we document the findings of…

Discussing the ethical issues involved in topics such as cloning and stem cell research in a large introductory biology course is often difficult. Teachers may be wary of presenting material biased by personal beliefs, and students often feel inhibited speaking about moral issues in a large group. Yet, to ignore what is happening "out there"…

This article describes a new curriculum which explores a disturbing side of the Progressive Era. The national education program Facing History and Ourselves is a 25-year-old organization best known for its trenchant examination of the Holocaust and other genocide campaigns. Facing History discovered in the course of that work that many of the…

Since the time of Kinsey, sexuality education courses in colleges across the country have drawn large numbers of co-eds to their rosters. As educators move beyond discussions about the facts of anatomy, physiology, and biology, they increasingly look to technological advances to further the art of teaching. Taking a conversational approach to…

Considering the sizable number of visitors to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument on the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana each year (more than four hundred thousand in fiscal year 2002), careful examination of the prominence of "Custer's Last Stand" in American mythology, and the widespread use of the phrase…

This resource guide contains lessons, suggested activities, and 54 individual student activity sheets for using editorial cartoons in the classroom. Editorial cartoons, at their best, are well-thought out arguments about important issues in the news. They are meant to provoke thought, not merely assert a position and, as such, they engage the…

This paper presents findings from a longitudinal study that examined the extent and types of challenges to curriculum in California school districts. A survey of school districts conducted in 1990 yielded 421 usable responses. The second survey, sent in 1991, elicited 379 responses, a 37.5 percent response rate. Findings indicate that the number…

This paper identifies five difficulties in teaching the analysis of social problems, and proffers "mind maps," a concept that refers to the ways in which students create a visual representation of their thinking patterns, as a possible solution. In constructing mind maps, especially for a Social Problems course, the following four steps…

In the past few years many movies have addressed social issues such as AIDS, parental estrangement, aging, battered women and children, and racism. Teachers of teenagers can capitalize on these kinds of serious films in two ways: by assuming that students have thought about some serious issues and by building on that assumption. Three movies of…

Because it has been overworked, underanalyzed, and undefined, critical thinking has come to mean anything or nothing. The best work on critical thinking imagines it as an act of composing and revising. Definitions of critical thinking have undergone a historical evolution--from general problem-solving "skills" to a complex of…

A study examined curriculum decision-making in the classrooms of accomplished teachers of English in grades 9 through 12, focusing on aspects of structure, content, and ways of knowing and doing that combined to create a sense of a "curriculum" rather than a series of disconnected lessons. Four classrooms were studied each semester for…

Designed for educators of children in kindergarten through grade six, this resource guide provides activities related to the concepts of peace and conflict. The activities are not, for the most part, sequenced and can be used singly to introduce concepts or to supplement other lessons. The activities also can be grouped into a unit of study, and…

This paper discusses the issues that should be addressed in an undergraduate course dealing with the psychosocial implications of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). These issues are: (1) the medical aspects of HIV infection and transmission; (2) death and dying versus life and living; (3) homosexuality; (4) intravenous drug use; (5)…