Values education is essential for teaching children personal responsibility and ethical decision making. Teachers can be trained on a schoolwide basis to teach core values, along with accompanying skills and behavior. Jefferson Center has identified language and thinking patterns that must be changed to help students learn behavior appropriate to…

Presents results of study of effectiveness of family systems approaches to resolve school behavior problems used at school attendance and review board (SARB), referred to as mini-SARB because team meeting takes place at school level. Includes background and demographic data and description of mini-SARB process (beliefs/assumptions, team roles,…

Summarizes some well-informed suggestions on how to deal with gang problems from variety of sources. Examines what educators and schools can do; how one relates individually to gang members; and what community and parent action can be taken. Provides details on additional useful resources. (Author/NB)

The comprehensive high school was designed to offer complementary specializing and unifying functions. In practice, the specializing function has been exalted and unifying function abandoned, often for political reasons. To fulfil the democratic ideal for high schools, the unifying function must be rehabilitated. (SK)

Discusses seven themes of social justice, and how their application to Catholic education can help schools better align American social systems with Gospel imperatives: (1) the life and dignity of the human; (2) the call of community, and participation; (3) rights and responsibilities; (4) options for the poor; (5) the dignity of work; (6)…

Discusses the increasing need for technology-based learning within the realm of Catholic education. Poses questions to help the planning and implementation process, including: (1) how does the learning environment amplify the sense of community? and (2) how does technology support the experience of community? (CJW)

Discusses research identifying and examining specific "developmental assets": positive building blocks that all children and youth need for success. Discusses the role of these assets in health promotion and risk reduction. Outlines specific actions educators can take to build 12 of these developmental assets. Notes the special place of health…

Teachers attended an inservice presentation on gay and lesbian education in elementary schools. Educators followed focused discussion guidelines established by the National Issues Forums Institute and presented the issue from three perspectives: a biological, religious, and societal and lifestyle approach. Although no consensus was reached,…

In his 2004 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush described drug testing as "an effective part" of an "aggressive, community-based strategy to reduce demand for illegal drugs" (as cited in Lineburg, Alexander, & Sughrue, 2006 [emphasis added]). His statement fueled debate about the role of U.S. public schools…

Long-standing policy controversies have heated up as a result of increasing proposals for using schools to screen for mental health problems (e.g., depression screening). This brief highlights the following issues: (1) How appropriate is large-scale screening for mental health problems? (2) Will the costs of large-scale mental health screening…

Typically, school curriculum has been viewed through the lens of preparation for the workplace or higher education--both worthy objectives. However, this is not the only lens, and perhaps not even the most powerful one to use, if the goal is to optimize the educational system. "Curriculum on the Edge of Survival" attempts to define basic aspects…

This article looks at two modern institutions designed to discipline and control urban bodies--the school and the asylum--and the records they produced and the young people whose moral and cognitive capacities they tended. Both institutions are the sites of past childhood stories, yet the lives experienced in them are essentially anonymous. The…

This article explores the ways in which high school girl popularity is constructed as heterosexual and normatively gendered, leaving lesbian adolescents on the periphery of the high school social scene. Based upon data from a larger critical life history study with adolescent lesbians, this article explores their experiences of school, friendship,…

Stories are how we make sense of experiences, thus providing the historical sense of life. To paraphrase Dewey, extracting at each present time the full meaning of each present experience enables us to do the same for our pasts. The continual reconstruction of the past in the light of the present is integral to full engagement with the present…

Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton declared natural disasters somewhere in the United States on average of about one per week between 1998 and 2005. Despite this frequency, most citizens are unprepared when a natural disaster occurs in their city or neighborhood. In particular, teachers and students can become paralyzed by the overwhelming…