As hate crimes and violence continue to hurt the innocent, our society has looked little beyond retribution and punishment for the perpetrators. This book breaks new ground by looking at the ways in which educators and school boards can work to develop transfor-mational agency for those students most at risk. By developing alternative schools that foster strong relationships through supportive communities, disaffected youth can find hope and trust within themselves as they continue their educational and social develop-ment. Undergirded with critical and border pedagogy, alternative schools effectively build transformative agency within their students by genuinely caring about their success.
After years of traveling back and forth from the east coast to the west coast, we have settled in Clarion, Pennsylvania, 60 miles east of the Ohio border on Interstate 80. Clarion is home to Clarion University: one of 18 schools in Pennsylvania that prepare the teachers of tomorrow. In Clarion's Education Department, I am teaching educational psychology and action research methods.
My wife Andy and I enjoy living in Clarion and taking in all of the best parts of wild, Western Pennsylvania living: small town life, deer in the yard at night, and friendly people.
