An approach to developing leadership potential involves having gifted students write and implement leadership plans which focus on an important area of needed change in the student's school, community, or religious affiliation. Presented are the purposes and benefits of the plans, processes involved in designing plans, and sample topics.…

Examines how clients and therapists create impasses or change. Reviews general concept of a "therapeutic system." Describes model that synthesizes systemic and strategic ideas about therapeutic systems. Proposes questions based on this model for analyzing and resolving impasses. Illustrates application with a case. (Author/ABL)

Nine items of advice are given to assist administration in their "journey" down the path of reform. Referred to as "travelers," administrators are told, for example, that "traveling is as much a process as it is a destination." (KDP)

1980s reform strategies amounted to fine-tuning a model T. Inner-city high schoolers' reading and writing skills cannot be improved if each teacher is responsible for 175 students. The 800 schools participating in Coalition of Essential Schools projects share certain characteristics: small size; collegiality among educators, parents, and community…

The Dimensions of Learning supervision model is based on five premises: positive attitudes and perceptions about learning; ways to acquire and integrate knowledge; knowledge extension and refinement; meaningful knowledge usage; and productive habits of mind. Supervision should involve teaching, reflection, proactive use of linguistic skills,…

Describes a program designed to help people develop continuous personal development as a life-at-work strategy for dealing with a continuously changing world. (JOW)

Governing boards should ask seven questions when a plan fails: where did the plan break down? who was responsible for the plan? were adequate resources available? were goals clear and specific? was the solution appropriate and adequate? were barriers allowed to derail the plan? were key players involved in planning? (MSE)

Schroots reviews historical models of age, aging, and the aged and suggests that differences in the aging process can be explained by a branching theory based on gerodynamics. Charness's comment suggests ways to improve gerodynamics as a form of inquiry about human development and aging. (SK)

An upstate New York elementary school adopted a new math series conforming to National Council of Teachers of Mathematics standards. The books focus on real-world problem solving, deemphasize rote computation and drills, and include sections on probability, statistics, estimation, mental math, and geometry. Inservice training helped teachers adopt…

To improve its reading program, a Pennsylvania district involved its teachers in retaining consultants who would work collaboratively with them. This model has been used in each of four elementary schools for the past seven years. The district allocates $1,800 per school for consultants, instructional materials, and substitutes who release…

A South Carolina high school received a three-year, $90,000 state grant to study a brain-based approach to helping students reach their full potential. Examination of faculty teaching styles and student learning styles revealed that only high achievers' learning styles matched their teachers' fact-based approaches. New programs and technologies…

A poststructuralist approach to teaching social and behavioral sciences in nursing education shifts focus to an examination of subject positions, discourse, conflict, and action. It provides a useful foundation for examining the politics of health care. (SK)

Work behaviors that prevent an individual with disabilities from getting and keeping a job are considered, along with ways to change behaviors. Nine ways to change negative work behaviors are addressed, including teaching/training, goal-setting, motivating, counseling, role-playing, and social reinforcement and behavior modification. (SW)

Two superintendents explain how they use educational research. The Jericho (New York) Union Free School District used research to help reopen a school and change a junior high to a middle school. The Orange County (Virginia) Public Schools superintendent feels that certain areas of practice (staff development, grading, grouping, and evaluation)…

The proposed 1991 reforms to French spelling discussed in a previous issue of "Babel" have been abandoned. This article notes the history of other efforts to rectify French spelling and reviews the French Academy's decision-making process in the current effort. (LB)