Many college and university students are zeroed in on their vocational pursuits. Often very narrowly focused, many college students simplistically equate a college education with a vocational education. In situations of advising, teaching, or life coaching, teachers often encounter students who believe that college is largely preparation for a…

The authors describe five principles they identified from the literature on exemplary practices to help students with emotional disturbances (ED) have positive secondary school experiences and successful trajectories into early adulthood. The five are relationships, rigor, relevance, attention to the whole child, and involving students and…

This article discusses an instructional development system called "holistic" approach, a strategy to improve high school education in Chicago. The initiative includes new curriculum materials, aligned to district standards, as well as assessments and ongoing teacher coaching and training that are designed for the curriculum. The design…

The Doorways training program was designed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Safe Schools Program (Safe Schools) to enable teachers, community members and students to prevent and respond to school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV). Teachers can play a central role in violence prevention, and they can also help…

Next to the family, the school has the most significant impact on children's growth and development. The School Development Program (SDP), a school-reform initiative, was designed by Dr. James Comer to provide students with a nurturing, challenging, and supportive school environment. The process emphasizes mutual respect and collaboration among…

Holistic education attempts to bring education into alignment with the fundamental realities of nature. This book argues for adopting a holistic educational curriculum. Chapter 1 offers a rationale for and description of holistic education. Chapter 2 reviews the philosophic contexts of the transmission and transaction positions--atomism and…

This book is designed to illustrate learning for the whole person, including attending to spiritual, biological, intellectual, and emotional dimensions. It is expected that learners will discover the meaning of learning from the heart and teachers will learn how to develop their own such learning and then to explore ways that they can teach from…

Individual symptoms of psychological disorders are often related to general familial conflicts; a psychologically conspicuous individual cannot become healthy as long as family life is deeply troubled. To explore this belief, parents' concepts about their children's behavior were examined. Forty-four parents, who were either involved with a family…

Many educational reforms that have focused on fragmentary improvement and remedial treatment did not lead to long-term effectiveness. This paper examines a new direction for educational reforms in Hong Kong and other international contexts. The new direction should include the following 10 tendencies: (1) toward multiple school functions from…

One of the main reasons why educational change often fails is the neglect of implementation. This book presents a summary of what has been learned during the past decades about implementing successful school improvement. Chapter 1 provides an overview of this knowledge, identifying factors and processes associated with success, and pointing to…

The history of reform movements in education has culminated in the current work of Theodore Sizer and John Goodlad. This paper discusses and describes the application of Sizer's and Goodlad's research to educational administration programs at the university level. The commonalities between each researcher's perspective, as applied to school…

This issue brief discusses the process of identifying a broadly defined set of desired outcomes for children and youth. It looks at the experiences of four states making progress in this area--Oregon, Texas, Kentucky, and Kansas--in order to illustrate the implications for state education agency policy and practice. It presents principles for…

People generally learn best when information is presented to them in a culturally and socially relevant context or framework. This issue is addressed by the Science of Alcohol Curriculum for American Indians through the use of the Medicine Circle, a model that represents the concepts of wholeness, interconnectedness, and balance in a manner…

The basic understandings that could be used to develop a foundation for holistic literacy are discussed. One way to establish this foundation for primary students is by developing understandings of science process skills using the elements and vocabulary of visual literacy. By providing opportunities to integrate oral and visual skills and…

This book offers guidance to elementary school teachers in Australia on establishing an integrated learning environment in which students are encouraged to confront and consider important ideas and decide the most effective ways of communicating these ideas to others. An approach is presented that seeks to maintain a balance between structured…