According to Sam Keen, education's fascination with high technology is taking us into a highly consumptive, urban, competitive, individualistic, and corporate future. Instead, a more organic relationship with the natural world is needed to sustain life. The integrity of rural life and the virtues of self-reliance represent reasonable alternatives…

Education aims to enhance mental and moral growth and to prepare youngsters to improve the environment and quality of life for themselves and future generations. Whereas traditional educational practice separates basic learning functions into independently organized instructional units, tomorrow's school curricula must concentrate on the global…

An experimental high school curriculum for students (with disabilities and others) unlikely to go on to postsecondary education should be characterized by socially valued skill development, use of an integrated activity-based model, evaluation by portfolio measurement, and cooperative learning. Implementation at the Community Apprenticeship…

Explores China's experience in developing higher education alternatives as a means to resolve contradictions between a revolutionary ideology of mass participation and the natural exclusiveness of conventional higher education. Describes six official and several unofficial forms of alternative higher education serving specific populations or…

The rapid advances in telecommunications and educational media offer considerable potential for distance learners and teachers in rural South Australia. (AEF)

Addresses industrialization and distance education and how they relate to the modernist and postmodernist models of work, Fordism, neo-Fordism and post-Fordism. Concludes that not all distance education is industrialized; traditional education is not always a craft; and Fordism does not adequately explain the development of distance education.…

Discusses video teletraining as an alternative to traditional classroom education in terms of cost and program effectiveness; understanding the technology; support required to develop and deliver quality instruction; and the instructional design. (AEF)

Librarians from three regional campuses of Kent State University examine cooperative learning as an alternative to a lecture format for bibliographic instruction. The results of a research project comparing the effectiveness of cooperative learning and traditional methods are presented. Discussion includes problems in the evaluation process; steps…

Describes the Collaborative Career Adjustment Project, a program that allows licensed teachers in rural New Mexico to continue teaching while taking weekend, summer, or distance education courses to obtain a master's degree in speech-language pathology. Includes recommendations for the recruitment and retention of rural students in communication…

Describes the role of oral history in the traditions of Native Americans. Argues that although Western scholars have traditionally dismissed oral history as legend or myth, it is now gaining respect in higher education. Reviews efforts at incorporating oral history into the curriculum and discusses issues related to accuracy. (MAB)

In school systems with a zero-tolerance policy, principals must recommend that students who carry weapons on campus be expelled. Some critics say zero-tolerance policies do not allow enough room for exceptions. Describes the Gun-Free Schools Act. (MLF)

Developed for poor students in England during the 19th century, the Lancaster system was cost effective and was based on the "monitorial" concept giving students responsibility for their learning and emphasizing entrepreneurship. In 1805, the Lancaster system came to the United States, but it quickly ended when it came under state…

Reports results of meta-analysis to quantitatively summarize prior empirical research on alternative schools. Alternative education programs have a small overall effect on school performance, attitudes toward school, and self-esteem, but no effect on delinquency. Programs that target a specific population of at-risk youth produce larger effects…

What is needed in graduate medical education is a curriculum built around learning experiences and valued activities, not performance objectives. The example of a curriculum for an ambulatory care block rotation illustrates the development of such a curriculum and how it can be used to frame the rotation experience. (MSE)

The status of higher education for nontraditional, adult students in a variety of countries is examined, looking at national enrollment patterns and at related public policies and programs. Unique and valuable alternative instructional strategies are found, many based on adult learning theory. (MSE)