Three borehole tensor strainmeters (BTSM) installed near Parkfield and separated by more than 5km have established a good baseline of data spanning the past eight years. A significant change in the accumulation rate of shear strain (0.5 and 1.0 microstrain per year at two of the sites) commencing approximately in mid-1993 and continuing to 1995 is evident in these data. Some supporting evidence for a change in the strain rate at that time is seen in dilatometer data, geodetic measurements, fault zone properties and microearthquake locations. There was also an increase in medium level seismic activity (M=4.7 on 10/20/92; M=3.9 on 10/26/92; m=3.5 on 3/13/93; M=4.4 on 4/3/93; M--4.8 on 11/14/93) in the Middle Mountain area. While a rainfall induced strain may have caused the observed strain anomaly, we propose a more likely explanation is that aseismic slip at depth on a section of the fault south of Middle Mountain produced the observed strain anomaly. This anomaly is unique in the current data set.

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Recent news on school safety and efforts to improve school climate underscores the importance of building positive student relationships and resolving conflict in our nation’s classrooms. Restorative practices are currently gaining credibility and popularity as a means to build classroom and peer relationships. Through a descriptive study, we explored how to model the restorative practice of community circles with teacher candidates to prepare them to use the approach with their future middle school students. We describe how a teacher educator engaged middle-level teacher candidates with community circles in an internship seminar for this purpose. This article illustrates the powerful effects restorative practices had on the teacher candidates’ peer relationships and the connections they made about teaching young adolescent students. We also provide a step-by-step guide for implementing this practice in middle level teacher education programs.

During a heated discussion in my master-level Curriculum Theory and Development class on whetheror not a given curriculum borrows more from the experientialist or the constructivist perspective, Suzy, a45-year old veteran math teacher interrupts the discussion and in an agitated tone asks, "Professor willyou please just tell us the answer?"This is typical of the responses I receive when my students read about curriculum perspectives tointerpret them in light of their own teaching. Anticipating frustrations like Suzy’s I open my first classsession with a lesson on Posner’s notion of reflective eclecticism which is an overarching and recurringtheme of the course. "Reflective eclecticism is based on the assumption that…there is no panacea ineducation. People who are looking for ‘the answer’ to our education problems are looking in vain."The key to deconstructing a curriculum is to understand that an effective curriculum is one that reflectsa myriad of alternatives rather than prescribing to just one.