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The author offers an analysis of the failures and insights she experienced working with adolescents at a progressive school while discussing how the students understood and experienced race and identity -- their own and that of others. While she encountered students who were willing to take her into their worlds, her efforts fell flat when her questions turned out to be about their experiences of race and class. In response to such questions, Bauman received, on the whole, confusion, a few stories that distanced the teller from the events, and queries about whether this was "what she wanted." At that point, Bauman decided to start over again. This time she attempted to enter into the world that the children wanted her to experience. She invited them to spend the next three months creating multi-media self-portraits, and along with this work, to talk with her and with each other about their lives. It was only after building trusting relationships over a long period of time that the students began to feel their way toward telling themselves, Bauman, and one another, the things that they already knew about race and privilege, about their doubts and discomforts, and about the things for which they hoped. Bauman went into her project expecting to affirm what she already believed about progressive and critical pedagogy, the nature of privileged identities, and her own work as a teacher and a researcher. What she found was a need to reeducate herself, finding that to ask children to talk about race, gender, class, and sexuality, is to ask that they unpack the most intimate of their stories in an environment in which they are unable to control either who their audience is or the uses that will be made of their words. Bauman also found that the students in some ways understood more than many adults around them seem to recognize: that omissions, exclusions, slurs, and misrepresentations do not exist only outside the walls of their progressive school but may also be part of the integral structure of a culture that equates community with niceness and comfort and that encourages the students to believe that silence about certain issues indicates a lack of bias. The paper is introduced by Gail Boldt; Bauman then discusses: (1) Political Life in a Progressive School; (2) Early Conversations: A Failed Attempt at Social Reflections; (3) Living in a Bubble; (4) The Last Conversations: Reminders of Expertise and (5) Compassionate Pedagogy: The Teacher Continues to Grow as a Person and as a Professional. References and authors' information are included.

In 1996, North Carolina began a 5-year evaluation of alternative learning programs (ALPs). This report contains in-depth case studies of four ALPs during the 1996-97 school year. The ALPs were selected to represent different types of programs in the state, and include one middle school, two high school, and one elementary school programs. The case studies were designed to look at issues of student attitudes, behavior, and problem solving. Across the programs, it was found that ALP staff combine caring with high expectations and that they determine program effectiveness by the success of individual students. ALP students do not usually maintain their ties with the schools they have left, and many ALPs are regarded by students as dumping grounds or "junior jails." Many staff members do not have adequate training or support, and the programs lack adequate facilities, materials, and budgets. Based on case study findings, recommendations are made for improvement of staffing and resources for ALPs. Small class size, an individualized and experiential teaching format, and a caring faculty are essential if ALPs are to function effectively. (SLD)