THE eight teachers walked into a hot and stuffy classroom on the fourth floor of University Heights High School in the Bronx and, as always, they were in for a pressure-cooker afternoon. They took their seats at a round brown table, arranged their favorite books, videos and photocopied packets in a stack in front of them and began to wrestle with the question: What should the students know?

''This is our chance to grab them, entice them and seduce them,'' said Evelyn Birnbaum, one of the teachers. ''If we lose this one, it's going to be hard to get it back.''

Time was running out for the humanities team, in charge of devising a plan to teach English and social studies to 300 students. They had two hours to decide what to cover during the first six weeks of the school year, but it was already the second day of classes. They knew they would spend the year teaching a course called ''Is Power Good or Bad?'' But the plan was vague, the nitty-gritty still to come.

There was tension at the table. It started with the reading list -- one teacher had written out her selections, calling it a bibliography of revolutionary writers. The list contained some urban high school staples -- Richard Wright's ''Black Boy,'' ''The Autobiography of Malcolm X.'' But another teacher wanted more classics, less ideology. Machiavelli made it -- something from ''The Prince,'' but what about Locke? Hobbes? A new teacher was a little jarred by some of the violence in the readings; one began with a rape, another with a gang rape.

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Then there was Theodore Daniel, a social studies teacher by training, who was quiet during the meeting but said later that he thought it was ridiculous to study power without looking at the American Revolution. As a matter of fact, so far the team's curriculum included no history at all.

''I'm struggling,'' said Mr. Daniel, who just began his second year at University Heights. ''I don't want to shortchange anybody's kid.''

Mr. Daniel and his colleagues teach at an alternative high school because they share a belief that the old way of doing things is not working. They teach at University Heights, one of the growing number of alternative schools in the city, because they believe that the thousands of students who flounder at traditional high schools struggle because the schools fail them. They joined the ranks of the reformers because they wanted to be free of a rigid educational bureaucracy that would force them to cover Pearl Harbor, the periodic table, Shakespeare and other staples of the traditional American high school curriculum.

But, as a month with the humanities team at University Heights revealed, the frontier of reform is frazzled. It is a high-stakes journey of clashing agendas, compromise, exhilaration and frustration. What was perhaps most striking about the discussions in Room 425, was that the teachers at one of the city's most radical alternative schools, in the University Heights section of the Bronx, are as divided over what to teach as the warring factions in the raging national debate over academic standards.

Sometimes the teachers struggle within themselves. Mr. Daniel, for one, lives with a constant internal conflict about how to engage the teen-agers while making sure they know certain things, like spelling and American history.

''We've turned the bucket over,'' said Mr. Daniel, who is 34 and lives a kind of double life: he also teaches night courses in economics -- traditional style -- at Park West High School in Manhattan. ''We're talking about a radical departure. We went really far. At one point, I wondered if we had gone too far, and I argued that we should come back.''

One day Mr. Daniel and a colleague, who teach a course together, handed back essays their students had been asked to write on the power of guns. Mr. Daniel had circled grammatical errors in red ink on the papers he graded, but his partner had simply written ''revise'' on his. Mr. Daniel is adamant that mistakes should be corrected, but his partner was practicing a theory shared by other teachers that focusing on grammar would stifle the students' creativity.

''Some teachers don't like to hear the word 'grammar,' '' he said. ''Some teachers have completely swallowed whatever this new vision is. But we can correct grammar, we can put a little more emphasis on content and we can still call ourselves alternative. I don't think that sits well with everyone.''

Over the last month, as the humanities team planned and improvised, struggled and debated, each member took on a specific role in the group. Some pushed ideology; others wanted to talk logistics. Mr. Daniel, who is from St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean, was never confrontational during the meetings, but he would consistently mumble a mantra: ''What about economic, social and political power?''

No one questioned that the school's theme this year, ''Power: What it is good for,'' was a good one -- meaty, controversial, political. It seemed an ideal way to weave together the different subjects. The math and science team could develop a unit on solar power, the services and health team would look at the question ''can the power of one make a difference?'' and planned to link the high school students with elementary school children they could tutor and mentor. For the humanities team, there were Presidential elections to study and a widely publicized police brutality case to investigate, and the students had shown a strong interest in the plight of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a black radio journalist on death row for the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia police officer.

For all the teachers, there was also the obvious hook of a curriculum on power, which some teachers refer to as the ''objective reality'' of the school: the students, black and Hispanic youths from some of the city's poorest neighborhoods, are often powerless in the system.

A Freedom in Approach; What the Critics Say

At the core of the school's philosophy is the belief that the way to engage students who were turned off by traditional schools -- many had a history of poor attendance and low grades -- is to make the curriculum relevant to their lives. They might look at the history of the Bronx and skip much of American history, or teach the novels of Sandra Cisneros and Toni Morrison and ignore the literary canon. They teach one subject, or theme, in depth, rather than covering many, and often choose controversial topics.

''We want our kids to be able to pose questions, as well as solve problems,'' said Kiran Chaudhuri, who has taught at the school for five years, ''so we frame things as provocatively as possible. You need to start where the kids are. One of our primary purposes is to help them make sense of their own lives.''

But critics of that approach say that it deprives students of the opportunities provided at traditional schools. Teaching current events at the expense of history, for example, is shortsighted, they say.

''I know that people say history is one damn fact after another, but the world didn't begin yesterday,'' said Diane Ravitch, a senior research scholar at New York University. ''It sounds to me like this is something that's good enough for the ghetto kids, but not for the middle class kids. Some of these schools are experimenting with the children of the poor. The real challenge to the alternative school is to take the traditional content and make it exciting.''

Some alternative schools continue to teach a traditional high school curriculum, but University Heights, which opened 10 years ago on the campus of Bronx Community College, took a decidedly radical route. At University Heights, there are no individual subjects. The teachers are generalists: a math teacher can give a class on history, an English teacher might instruct a lesson on physics. There are no bells, no clocks, no tests and no grading, although sometimes students request grades. Students in the high school, ages 16 to 21, are not separated into grade levels. The school also has a middle school that enrolls about 60 students.

Students graduate when they have demonstrated mastery of five ''domains,'' or measurements of achievement that students and staff have agreed on. The domains are communicating, crafting and reflecting; working together and resolving conflicts; recognizing patterns and making connections; taking responsibility for myself and my community, and critical thinking and ethical decision making.

Often, it seems that teaching at University Heights is a constant experiment, educational improvisation in which the response of the audience -- the students -- is crucial to how the curriculum writers proceed. That, too, is part of the philosophy.

''Curriculum, at its best in our school, gets made in the classroom, through teachers and students collaborating,'' said Ms. Chaudhuri.

HB>From Scribbled Notes To the Classroom

The humanities curriculum, a plan that will guide the teaching of English and social studies for the year, began to take shape in late August. The team got together and scrawled some notes on a white sheet of paper that included these potential lessons: ''How powerful am I?'', ''Oct. 22 police brutality protest'' and ''news story -- analyze power.'' They met several more times before school started to brainstorm and, in keeping with the commitment to ''start with the student,'' agreed to begin with a unit on personal power.

But by Sept. 5, the second day of school, the students were back and, several teachers were still unsure exactly what they were supposed to be teaching. ''I feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants,'' Miguel A. Garcia, a humanities teacher, said that day as he walked down the fourth-floor corridor between classes.

Later that day, at the curriculum planning session in room 425, the team met to plan the unit on personal power, which they had decided would focus on the role of the individual in the family and in society but would also include a look at violence. Not everyone was happy with the violence section. While some felt it had plenty of relevance to students living in tough neighborhoods, others thought that was exactly why they should not study it. Give the students a break from all that, they thought.

Hazel Joseph-Roseboro, a soft-spoken 24-year-old English teacher who grew up a few blocks from the school and graduated from University Heights, had decided Toni Morrison's ''The Bluest Eye,'' was ideal for the unit because it touched on the family power structure. Ron White, the new teacher in the group who used to be a stockbroker, said he saw the literary merits of the Morrison book but was troubled by the rape scene at the beginning of the story. ''It concerns me that we're grabbing attention in this way,'' he said. ''Is this the only way we get students involved?''

Ms. Chaudhuri, the English teacher who had written up the reading list, was interested in getting the students to write personal memoirs. ''Let's get the kids to find the politicizing moments of their childhood,'' she said.

Mr. Garcia, who wears his long gray hair tied back in a ponytail, was slightly uncomfortable with the reading list because there were no classical works on power, and he was frustrated because his eyeglasses were broken. He had to leave the session early, and rushing out of the classroom, he turned to the group, squinted and said half jokingly, ''Put Homer on there.''

They laughed, and he did not say then that the absence of classics on the reading list was bothering him. When Ms. Chaudhuri learned later that he was concerned about it, she sounded annoyed and said, ''He used the word 'classics'?''

Mr. Garcia was not the only one who sometimes found himself yearning to teach something that might make more dogmatic colleagues bristle. Mr. White, a former stockbroker who later went to work in a homeless shelter before going into teaching, had never taught in an alternative school before. Mr. White, 54, said that when he discovered his students did not know what a contraction was, he had the urge to teach a basic grammar lesson.

''You know -- nouns, verbs, adjectives -- I was reluctant to say it,'' he said. ''And I'm almost apologetic for saying this, but I feel that I'm a product of a really great traditional education. When you say that, though, you better be pretty thick-skinned.''

He continued: ''I think these kids will graduate from high school without really knowing about the Civil War or World War II or the Berlin Wall or the Vietnam War, about how government works -- the Senate, the House of Representatives, who becomes Speaker of the House.

''When I graduated high school, I had this general information so I could play 'Jeopardy.' But after all is said and done, what is the purpose of an education? To help us cope in an increasingly sophisticated world. It's about relationships, and we'll talk about that and maybe they'll be able to relate better in their families. Maybe they'll be more responsible citizens. Maybe they will see the importance of voting,'' he said.

Mr. Garcia, who has a background in business and acting and a master's degree in Spanish from N.Y.U., described his brief stint at a traditional high school as ''horrendous'' because it was so large.

In his five years at University Heights, he said he has been ''satisfied, even through the ups and downs,'' but lately, he said he has begun to worry that the curriculum has veered too far from the mainstream. ''I would like to see some things that do not subordinate everything to an ideology. I'd like them to read classics, I'd like them to have classes,'' he said, emphasizing the word as if it were a foreign concept.

''We are certainly taking a different road,'' he said. ''And we'll see where we go with it. I hope that we can iron a lot of these things out and come up with something good. It's exhausting and frustrating to be constantly racing toward something new.''

Doubts, Confusion And Working It Out

Mr. Garcia could often be heard during the curriculum planning sessions over the past month asking the group, ''What is our purpose?'' And often, that question was never answered clearly. What was called collaboration among teachers often seemed more like group therapy and, like counseling, sometimes the sessions did more to open wounds than to heal. Often, teachers left the meetings confused and frustrated about a lack of direction, or over having to give up subjects they wanted to cover.

''I'm feeling a little down,'' Mr. Daniel said on Sept. 3, after the team had met. ''I don't know exactly where this is going.''

On Sept. 11, Alan Hilliard, the teacher who was leading the planning meetings, began the session by saying: ''I've been hearing some concerns that people are feeling out there, by themselves. We don't seem to have a firm thing going on. And I think Ron needs some support.''

A few minutes later, Mr. Garcia, still struggling with the broken eyeglasses said, ''Can I ask the purpose? Is it that we gather here to come up with a unified curriculum for all of us to share?''

Paul Allison, the school's director of curriculum and assessment who was sitting in on the meeting, said, ''You can do your own thing, but if you do, it's got to be better than what we've come up with.''

Mr. Hilliard said, ''Of course, individuals can put a twist on this.''

Mr. White said, ''I was doing my own thing.''

Mr. Daniel said, ''I really want us to look at economic, political and social power.''

Ms. Birnbaum said, ''I'm not sure what social power is.''

Ms. Joseph-Roseboro said, ''I thought we were talking about social justice.''

Mr. Farnham said, ''Don't forget our essential question, 'Is power good or bad?' ''

Mr. Daniel said: ''I feel I'm being robbed. This is overwhelmingly an English curriculum.''

Over the first several weeks of school, the teachers generally followed the topic of personal power, hammering out the details in the teams of three that teach two-hour seminars. Mr. White did teach his grammar lesson and reported that it was well received -- by students and colleagues. Ms. Joseph-Roseboro did not get a chance to teach ''The Bluest Eye'' but felt satisfied with her lessons on essay writing.

As for Mr. Daniel, he twice approached the humanities team with a complete social studies lesson, one he had worked up on the United States Constitution and another that would have the students investigate ''powerful people,'' like Nelson Mandela, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or George Washington. The team wanted to postpone those topics and stick to the focus on personal power and writing, but they promised to add more social studies later, he said.

''I decided to play nice boy and go along with them,'' Mr. Daniel said. ''But if I need to, I'll rock the boat.''

When the trial of a police officer accused of murdering a Bronx man began -- a seemingly perfect opportunity to teach the students about the judicial system and the city -- Mr. Daniel reluctantly organized a trip to the court. He feared that without a lesson on the law, the activity would seem out of context.

''It didn't go very well,'' he said. ''They just didn't have a grounding in the legality of the courtroom. They kept saying the judge was being rude and I kept trying to get them to identify the symbols of power in the courtroom. It was a dilemma because I was mindful that this was a case they were interested in, but they weren't ready.''

Did Mr. Daniel give up on the American Revolution? ''Not one bit,'' he said. ''I'll get to it, and this is where I may have to depart from the team.''

The other week, the team members met to decide what to teach for the rest of the semester. First, they debated whether the next unit would focus on the Presidential elections (some argued over whether voting makes enough of a difference to use it in the curriculum), more police brutality or, as Mr. Daniel suggested, the power struggles of other nations. But right up until the final moments of the one-and-a-half-hour meeting, they still did not know.

Then, with 10 minutes to go, Ms. Birnbaum said, ''I don't know if this will work, but what about New York City?''

There was a silence. Then teachers started to nod. New York City seemed to be able to satisfy all the agendas at the table. They could teach history, immigration, economics, religion, cultural institutions and New York writers. The students, the teachers hoped, would be interested in their own city. Then there are the sweatshops, the workfare debate and, as one teacher pointed out, October is the ''month of resistance,'' and there were nonviolent protests coming up.

''I'll go for it,'' Mr. Daniel said. ''New York is the mecca of history.''

He paused and added: ''So I guess there's some method to the madness. New York gave us everything we wanted.''

Ms. Birnbaum said: ''I love New York. Let's end this meeting.''

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