Book excerpt: Based on 20 years of teaching experience and research in schools across the country, Teaching and Learning on the Verge demonstrates how educators in all disciplines can integrate civic engagement, multicultural literacy, and leadership into their classrooms and programs. Featuring voices from literature and philosophy in dialogue with the living stage of classrooms, streets, and community spaces, this book offers an imaginative and practical guide to democratic education. Teaching and Learning on the Verge will help educators to: Apply models for breaking down walls between school and society. Provide students with experiences that deepen their understanding of identity, justice, and relationships. Make learning meaningful to students by bridging communities, generations, and other social divides. Resist a narrow focus on achievement and make space for students as independent thinkers and leaders of social change. Make schools stronger by challenging the processes that people in power use to thwart movements for equality. “Teaching and Learning on the Verge exemplifies the giddiness, unpredictability, and intrinsic messiness of democratic action and civic learning. Elliott offers an engaging whirlwind of examples and ideas in examining civic action among and with youth in a multicultural democracy.” —Meira Levinson, associate professor of education, Harvard Graduate School of Education “One teacher’s efforts to practice democracy in her classroom, becomes a scholarly, yet sparkling, exploration of the thought and practice and real difficulties involved in enacting varieties of democratic learning. Personal testimony goes hand in hand with intellectual depth to produce this vital handbook for adventurous teachers everywhere.” —Jay Featherstone, poet, writer, and educator, former editor of The New Republic