Education as Meaning-Making and the Development of Critical Thinking

Abstract

Introduction:  In 1983, we were declared a nation at risk.  Now, over a decade later the declaration seems to ring even more true, but for different reasons.  Our communities have become killing fields, and the assassins that stalk our streets are our children.  We sit frozen in horror as the daily news bombards us with the images of children murdering other children and adults for the thrill of it, as a rite of initiation, as an act of racial hatred, for profit, and in anger and retaliation.