Historically, it has been tough to get teachers for urban districts, but this is not the case in Baltimore, Maryland, anymore. Since 2002, the New Teacher Project has been finding at least 10 applicants for each teaching job it fills for the once hard-to-staff Baltimore district. Armed with unorthodox recruitment strategies, the group targets…

Literacy educators are troubled by the isolated nature of many contemporary reading programs. Too often in middle school classrooms, students read alone, take computerized tests, and do not engage in authentic dialogue with peers. In this article, the authors argue that reading texts individually, while necessary, is not sufficient, and through…

Children face many important changes in the first eight years of life, including different learning centres, social groups, roles and expectations. Their ability to adapt to such a dynamic and evolving environment directly affects their sense of identity and status within their community over the short and long term. In particular, the key turning…

Learning how to teach depends on the dynamic inter-relationships among many parts and people; however, research on learning how to teach has typically focused on confined aspects of teacher education (e.g., a specific methods course) over short periods of time (such as one semester). In response, Wideen, Mayer-Smith, and Moon (1998), in their…

This case study explores the reality shock experienced by a White novice teacher, committed to socially just teaching, in her first year in an urban context. The apparently successful novice held three beliefs about her practice and herself: that socially just teaching was a holistic practice; that it could and should be done "right"; and that,…

This paper discusses 10 reasons why outdoor education research needs more and better methods and measures. These reasons encompass the following areas of discussion: (1) the researcher's theories and values influence the research methods and measures chosen; (2) measurement must be relevant to the phenomenon measured, and multilevel phenomena may…

Recent insights on how the brain functions suggest that people learn in holistic contexts, and that the brain does not work well when presented with isolated pieces of knowledge. A lesson for teaching third graders about letter writing illustrates how such insights can be useful in the language arts classroom. The goal of this letter-writing…

Within the context of school improvement and school reform, it is important to examine Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences (MI theory). His work has far-reaching implications for curriculum development and classroom implementation. Gardner believes that the culture defines intelligence too narrowly. He sought to broaden the scope of…

This paper describes coaching golf as an art and a science that requires the effective integration of the golfer's mind and body. In typical coaching situations it is presumed that the coach's task is to provide the student with a knowledge of the rules, swing mechanics, and course management skills. A coach's task includes much more, however. The…

For education to make a lasting difference in people's lives, it must touch all dimensions of being human in ways that are integrated or holistic. Content and instructional methods, such as those of Kurt Hahn and Charity James, that are based on images of the intact human being see things whole from the beginning. But our school experience and the…

This paper attempts to reconcile the notion of a planetary future with shamanism, presenting the theme that any planetary future will be severely diminished unless shamanic experiences and outcomes are considered in the understanding of education. Methodology was based on participant observation conducted at a medicine lodge at Bengal Mountain,…

As Lewis Thomas has maintained, much of today's public anxiety about science is the apprehension that the whole is being overlooked by an endless, obsessive preoccupation with the parts, and this is a suitable analogy for composition teaching. Students and teachers alike tend to fret endlessly over minute details of writing, like grammar,…

Findings of a study that examined effective approaches to the professional development of teachers are presented in this paper. Methodology involved a survey of principals in New South Wales, Australia, and the United States; an evaluation of 379 inschool staff development programs in New South Wales; case study analysis of 8 New South Wales…

The act of reading is holistic and involves acquisition of facts, concepts, and generalizations. With Instructional Management Systems (IMS) and state mandated testing, however, reading too frequently becomes a means of appraising the achievement of students in acquiring word recognition skills as well as diverse comprehension abilities. School…

This digest issues a call to make good on the rhetoric of "integrated attention to the whole child" and provides some suggestions about how that might be done, beginning with combined interventions aimed at improving the nutritional status and the psychosocial development of the young child. After an introductory chapter that provides a…