A useful gathering of solid assessments of young children and the educational systems available to them.
How to ensure the best education possible for school-age children.
Educational reform expert Robinson (Emeritus, Arts Education/Univ. of Warwick) and Aronica team up again (Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education, 2016, etc.) to provide common-sense advice and helpful tactics, based on research and interviews with parents and educators, that will guide parents in the process of making the right educational choices for their children. The authors begin by outlining what options currently exist, including public schools, charter schools, home-schooling, and online learning, and they discuss how parents can become more involved via more frequent interactions with teachers, working on the school board, etc. The authors strongly advise parents to know their child’s learning methods and interests prior to assessing any type of school scenario, stressing the importance of this topic in finding the optimum environment for learning. Some things to look for in schools include the type of curriculum taught, whether educators adapt their teaching styles to accommodate differences in learning styles, and the prevalence of practical work as well as desk time. By answering these and many more questions, parents can evaluate the options intelligently and maintain their child’s interest in learning. The book also addresses the many difficulties children face in school—among others, stress, bullying, excessive homework, and being prescribed medications that might not be necessary. The authors delve into alternative learning scenarios such as art and dance programs, which have helped pull children and young adults back from the brink of rage and despair. Well-rounded explorations of the many learning methods currently in use will help parents tone down their own anxiety, exasperation, and worries over schooling, and this will enable them to make the best choices for their child, providing a far more enjoyable and productive learning experience for all.
A useful gathering of solid assessments of young children and the educational systems available to them.Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-670-01672-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A somewhat fictionalized account of Minahan's semester at Brown ``in the early 1980's.'' There, as an adjunct lecturer, he taught a writing course called ``Democracy and Education,'' in which students discussed texts from the Declaration of Independence to the writings of E.D. Hirsch, and subjects from race, class, and gender to the ills of society. The students here are composites—allegorical types: the lazy, the passionate, the idealistic, the methodical, the manipulative, the arrogant, the silent; Ray, Toshiro, Pete, Rahjiv, Helga, and Juanita—the sort of cultural array that admissions officers fantasize about. Meanwhile, Minahan is critical of contemporary ideology; of political correctness, as well as of the DWM (dead white male) curriculum; of the cultural poverty of ``American education'' and ``college students today'' (who don't know Latin or the meaning of ``transcendentalism''); of a system that hires black women without Ph.D.s while he's unemployed (``Shit''); and of the ultimate disease—greed—the ``American illness'' perpetuated on campuses. But he likes his own students, plus Allan Bloom and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, and he advocates compassion (``the only idea that makes any sense'')—which he defines in increasingly general ways until concluding that ``the society we get is the society we deserve.'' But while Minahan criticizes US education- -students, faculty, the MLA—his book offers neither cogent analysis nor solutions but, ironically, is itself symptomatic of a problem. Hired to teach writing, the author presents opinions as truth, ideology as ideas, polemic as rhetoric, cultural diagnoses as ``personal essays,'' stereotypes as style. If he were one of his students, Minahan probably would find that his own writing—replete with generalizations, shifting voice (the implicative ``we'' and accusing ``you''), and lack of discipline—would earn him a recommendation to change his major.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1993
ISBN: 1-883285-01-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Delphinium
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1993
Matchmakers and matchees alike will find help in this good- humored, complete guide, which advises women to leave no stone unturned—and no phone call unreturned—in the determined quest for a mate. Freelance writer Brawarsky (who charges no fee for her matchmaking services) claims to have six successful couplings to her credit (and two more that look promising). For the ever-alert woman looking for men, happy hunting grounds are everywhere to be found: art galleries, flea markets, even the checkout line at the supermarket (if nothing else, you will at least have found out the name and use of those unidentified leafy green things in his cart). And everyone can be enlisted as a spy on your behalf: Realtors know the single men who have just moved to town; interior designers are privy to information about their male clients; and your doorman can tell you about ``the guy who just moved into 11G.'' So why are you still sitting there like a slug? Get out and meet someone, already.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-86496-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
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