A comprehensive update of the classic study that delivers both a passionate plea and strategies for teachers, parents, and community organizers to give working-class children the same type of empowering education and powerful literacy skills that the children of upper- and middle-class people receive.

This book profiles local and national efforts to transform urban education and reinvent urban teacher preparation. It describes real programs in real urban schools that have developed policy initiatives that promote educational equity, community-based curricula, and teacher education and parent empowerment programs that emphasize democratic collaboration among universities, urban teachers, parents, and community members. By involving all stakeholders, this comprehensive approach provides a model for creating urban schools that not only excite and inspire, but also serve as engines for social change. Contending that urban education reform will fail without public engagement and a commitment to social justice, the contributors challenge urban educators to become accountable to their students and the communities they serve.

Using a social justice approach to teacher education, the contributing teacher educators address the need to prepare teachers to understand the way social class, race, and culture impact their efforts to educate working-class students. By helping prepare teachers to strengthen democracy through education, the contributors offer ways to help them develop "critical consciousness"—the will to address society's injustices and inequities. Teachers who collaborate actively with their students, their families, and others, such as community and labor organizers, to challenge the economic and educational policies that keep the hierarchical structure in place, develop their own educational and political power alongside their students. These educators see schools as sites of struggle for democracy, and their students learn to direct their attitude toward outcomes that are in their collective self-interest.

Veteran educator and best-selling author Baruti Kafele offers strategies for motivating students from diverse backgrounds to become passionate about learning.

Teachers’ attitudes have been a subject of study and interest for many years. Originally published in 1986, this bibliography attempts to review the large field of research between the years 1965 and 1984. To identify all the sources of information, and to list documents that discuss research on teachers’ attitudes. It does not include an assessment of the quality of the research reported in the listed documents, however, the value is in its comprehensiveness. Users of the bibliography can locate the listed studies and then evaluate the studies using criteria relevant to their individual purposes.

An international handbook of inspirational wisdom for teaching music universally to enhance the learning potential in children of all ages, backgrounds, and capabilities, An Attitude and Approachfor Teaching Music to Special Learners is a most accessible relevant reference to facilitate lifelong student learning. Its usefulness is equally versatile for music educators and classroom teachers, administrators and curriculum designers, instructional leaders in higher education as well as for parents and caregivers. Backed by research and driven by author’s passionate commitment to affect a better global future for our children, text revisions include updates in educational law, criteria for designating disability categories, accommodations, standards, definitions, trends, and notice of the significant societal strides made in the visibility and educational expectations of our students with developmental disabilities including those with autism spectrum disorders. Classroom tested inclusive music teaching and critical thinking strategies impact student success across the curriculum to help students meet grade level expectations for English Language Arts, science, social studies, and mathematics.

An Introduction to Effective Music Teaching: Artistry and Attitude provides the prospective teacher with front-line tested strategies and approaches that are based on current research and the author's three decades of service as a public school music educator, department chairman, and public school district music administrator. Starting with a brief overview of the history of music education in public schools, Alfred Townsend gives the reader a deeper understanding of the importance of music education to all students, gifted or not. Readers then examine artistry (command of content and mastery of methods) and the ABCs of teacher attitude, the critical component that unlocks learning for many students. With an open and accessible writing style, Dr. Townsend reviews the six components of effective teaching, showing that artistry and attitude can be combined to fuel student learning and teacher leadership. Using all of this information, the reader constructs a personal, practical philosophy of music teaching and learning that will form the basis for his or her instruction. Readers will also experience artistry and attitude in action through well written case studies of effective teachers. With increasingly diverse student populations teachers now face,this book provides music teachers with ways to interact effectively with students of all backgrounds, attitudes, and talent.