Abstract
M any schools for grades 4-8 are departmentalized; that is, students receive
daily instruction from several different teachers because each teacher special-
izes in a single subject. The instructional content of each academic subject requires
teachers who are experts in the area; instruction may be of higher quality when
teachers can take special pride in their subject-matter discipline and can concentrate on preparing a limited number of outstanding lessons that are then offered to
several different classes each day.