Emphasis on winning and glamour, however, sometimes supercede the healthful benefits that students can gain from participating in sports. Without such rituals, she argues, society as a whole, as well as the individual child, suffers. To begin My Voice, a service-learning project, the facilitators ask students what they care about. By asking students what makes them happy or sad, facilitators help students focus on the social concerns that will become the core of the service-learning project. Students next meet adult role models who are working to alleviate the social problems that concern the students.
Students then participate in related community-service projects.
The ability to easily cut and paste material from the Internet into a new document has opened a whole new way for students to cheat. She lists some of the sites that offer help to plagiarizers, describes ways to recognize cheaters, and explains the importance of teaching students ethical behavior. Every school has a counterculture of students who are extremely bright, yet are nonathletic and do not engage in mainstream school events. These students suffer from alienation because their interests and abilities differ from the norm. By expecting and enforcing tolerance from all teachers and students, placing gifted students in rigorous academic programs, and reaching out to introverted students in a caring and compassionate manner, schools create environments that appreciate the unique gifts that these students possess.