In this issue, I'd like to share some of the many quotes that inspire my continued work in the area of educational reform. I hope they inspire you as well.

"Our Nation's economy and the American workplace have changed dramatically in the past 40 years. The skills needed for successful living have altered radically, primarily as a result of the technological revolution and its impact on most jobs and professions. ... But American schools, by and large, are still geared to produce students for a nation that, in many ways, no longer exists" (Arthur E. Wise, in Phi Delta Kappan, November, 1996.)

"The focus of schooling must shift from teaching to learning" (Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, A Nation prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century, 1986.)

"The most fundamental revision will be a shift from teacher-centered to learner-centered pedagogy. The emphasis will be on the student, not on the delivery system. Students will be seen as "producers of knowledge" and teachers as "managers of learning experiences" (Joseph Murphy, Restructuring Schools: Capturing and Assessing the Phenomena, 1991.)

"Much research in recent decades has informed us about the kinds of classroom circumstances that help students to develop a deep understanding of academic content. Students should engage in complex tasks ... that enable them to participate in the many processes that make up intellectual accomplishments. By and large, tasks should not have one right answer, and problems should not have only one route to a solution. To the greatest extent possible, students should engage in work that has an understandable, even compelling purpose. Authentic and legitimate work, work that has real connection to the world outside school, is likely to be engaging and memorable precisely because it does matter" (Karen Sheingold, in Phi Delta Kappan, September 1991.)

"Knowledge is derived from action.... To know an object is to act upon it and to transform it.... To know is therefore to assimilate reality into structures of transformation and these are the structures that intelligence constructs as a direct extension of our actions" (Jean Piaget, Science of Education and the Psychology of the Child, 1979.)

"There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying" (John Dewey, Experience and Education, 1963.)

"Theme cycles are our way of rethinking curricular integration. The concept grows out of our ongoing commitment to student-centered education, authentic language and literacy, and collaborative learning and teaching" (Bess Altwerger and Barbara Flores, in Primary Voices, January 1994.)

"Tomorrow's classroom will focus on student-centered learning. Teachers will encourage independent experimentation and exploration, as well as cooperative learning in small teams and as a classroom" (Karen Butler, in Curriculum Product News, October 1994.)