A philosophical, well-structured argument for viable progressive education from one of the movement's most prolific and well-regarded authors.
In the introduction to his 19 succinct essays, Kohn (The Homework Myth, 2006, etc.) lays out 12 points that he thinks should be “Well Duh” moments for educators: essentially what he considers to be irrefutable tenets that somehow get lost in practical application. The points radiate around the same theme—that students are humans, and humans learn through participation, interest and engagement, rather than memorization of facts and recitation of those facts through standardized testing. The material that follows, which is broken up into five major sections (“Progressivism and Beyond,” “The Nuts and Bolts of Learning,” “Climate & Connections: How Does School Feel to the Students?” “The Big Picture: Education Policy” and “Beyond the Schools: Psychological Issues & Parenting”) is not a step-by-step plan, but rather a carefully considered interrogation of the way we teach and how we might inject some of the "Well Duh" concepts back into classroom learning. Despite the comprehensive references that end each chapter, Kohn’s arguments are, in keeping with his classroom philosophy, hardly recitations of his research, but rather ideas, often with his own experience as a teacher as the backing evidence. He is unapologetic for some of his unconventional philosophy, advocating that teachers give less homework, for example, that they seek out students that challenge them in the classroom, that they think outside the rubric in planning lessons and evaluating students, and that test preparation and quantified reading assignments and report writing are killing student motivation. In the title essay, he tackles the fundamental and so often overlooked concept of happiness in education, asking not only when schools became places so devoid of joy, but why getting it back became such a low priority. A vital wake-up call to educators.
Pub Date: April 5, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8070-0140-0
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
American schools at every level, from kindergarten to postgraduate programs, have substituted ideological indoctrination for education, charges conservative think-tanker Sowell (Senior Fellow/Hoover Institution; Preferential Polices, 1990, etc.) in this aggressive attack on the contemporary educational establishment. Sowell's quarrel with "values clarification" programs (like sex education, death-sensitizing, and antiwar "brainwashing") isn't that he disagrees with their positions but, rather, that they divert time and resources from the kind of training in intellectual analysis that makes students capable of reasoning for themselves. Contending that the values clarification programs inspired by his archvillain, psychotherapist Carl Rogers, actually inculcate values confusion, Sowell argues that the universal demand for relevance and sensitivity to the whole student has led public schools to abdicate their responsibility to such educational ideals as experience and maturity. On the subject of higher education, Sowell moves to more familiar ground, ascribing the declining quality of classroom instruction to the insatiable appetite of tangentially related research budgets and bloated athletic programs (to which an entire chapter, largely irrelevant to the book's broader argument, is devoted). The evidence offered for these propositions isn't likely to change many minds, since it's so inveterately anecdotal (for example, a call for more stringent curriculum requirements is bolstered by the news that Brooke Shields graduated from Princeton without taking any courses in economics, math, biology, chemistry, history, sociology, or government) and injudiciously applied (Sowell's dismissal of student evaluations as responsible data in judging a professor's classroom performance immediately follows his use of comments from student evaluations to document the general inadequacy of college teaching). All in all, the details of Sowell's indictment—that not only can't Johnny think, but "Johnny doesn't know what thinking is"—are more entertaining than persuasive or new.
Pub Date: Jan. 4, 1993
ISBN: 0-02-930330-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The sub-title of this book is "Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools." But one finds in it little about education, and less about the teaching of English. Nor is this volume a defense of the Christian faith similar to other books from the pen of C. S. Lewis. The three lectures comprising the book are rather rambling talks about life and literature and philosophy. Those who have come to expect from Lewis penetrating satire and a subtle sense of humor, used to buttress a real Christian faith, will be disappointed.
Pub Date: April 8, 1947
ISBN: 1609421477
Page Count: -
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1947
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