The concise and passionate story of how a teenager formed his own school that is “intellectually demanding of all its...
The story behind one young man’s alternative school within a school.
By the time Levin reached his junior year, like many kids his age, he had resigned himself to having a couple of great classes, a few he hated, and the rest that were boring. He had interests outside of school that helped him get through his days, but what made him angry was how those with nothing beyond the regimented school day were missing out on life. They weren’t being stimulated in school and had no projects or part-time jobs to engage them. So Levin took matters into his own hands and started his own school. With the support of his mother, Engel (Developmental Psychology/Williams Coll.; The Hungry Mind: The Origins of Curiosity in Childhood, 2015, etc.), and other adults in his high school—and after months of planning—Levin created the Independent Project, a student-run school. The school focused on the students’ interests and passions rather than required curriculum. Though the plan incorporated some traditional subjects, Levin and his team switched things up by aligning science with the humanities and English with math. In alternating voices, Levin and Engel tell the story of how the IP evolved, giving readers an inside look at the entire journey, including the first irritated moments that sparked the original idea, getting approval from the school board, recruiting students, and initiating a trial semester. The authors address their triumphs, setbacks, fears, and concerns, analyzing the step-by-step process so that others may follow and create their own independently run schools. For those who have investigated home schooling, Levin’s methods are reminiscent of unschooling, the process by which learning occurs on a more personal, interest-driven level, without the need to use conventional grading systems. The authors clearly show that learning can be an invigorating, exciting experience for almost everyone—if approached in the right manner.
The concise and passionate story of how a teenager formed his own school that is “intellectually demanding of all its students, no matter what their academic history.”Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62097-152-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
Yet another call to retool the American classroom, but this time preceded by a thoughtful review of the historical forces at work in the schools. Philadelphia-based RÇnyi is the director of CHART (Collaboratives for Humanities and Arts Teaching). When public schooling took hold in the US a little more than 150 years ago, the immigrant poor were not expected to finish the six or eight years of education available. It was assumed they would quickly drop out and go to work. According to the author, when education through high school became compulsory—generally after WW II—it ignited confusion and controversies that continue today. RÇnyi explores many of those issues, ranging from the Protestant religious tradition that helped to mold public schools through the dilution of the curriculum and the ``bland pudding'' of present-day textbooks to the attention-getting squabbles over bilingual education and multiculturalism at every level of education. Her careful examination of the radical changes in types of immigrants and patterns of socialization shows that earlier waves of immigrants were not only more closely attuned to the German/British style of education but were not expected to benefit fully from public education until the second or third generation. RÇnyi finds that new immigrants—and African-Americans—bring to schools a determined ethnicity that is unwilling to blend into the mythic melting pot. The argument over multicultural vs. traditional education is, the author says, ``...class warfare disguised as ideology.'' Nevertheless, she holds that a broad umbrella of traditional values—liberty and justice among them—can encompass a multitude of cultural reference points, teaching styles, and resources without relinquishing rigorous standards. A sometimes moving, sometimes illuminating, but often unfocused commentary—one that wants to de-emphasize ideology and that applauds the skilled, imaginative teacher tuned into the potential of curious children, whatever their ethnic backgrounds.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1994
ISBN: 1-56584-083-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1994
Jacoby (The Last Intellectuals, 1987, etc.) joins the culture wars with the aim of striking a middle balance between ``left'' and ``right''—and manages the job with brio. The author is as incisive and convincing in unraveling the Great Books controversy as he is in tackling the speech codes formulated in response to pornography and racism by law theorists like Catherine MacKinnon. Jacoby provides, as context, a history of the concept of relativism from the Sophists onwards; a history of the ill-fated classical curriculum in the American university; reflections on inter-minority racism; and even on attempts by early lexicographers like Witherspoon and Webster to create an American language distinguishable from the British. Jacoby makes the little- heard argument that much of the hysteria concerning our country's cultural dis-uniting fails to acknowledge that an ever-accelerating homogenization may itself create what we call ``multi- culturalism''— as people of their own volition frantically search for identities that are fast being swallowed up and forgotten. The dominant consumer culture, argues Jacoby, tends to call the shots, subsuming everything into it and blending out all significant or important differences. Jacoby's claim, in sum, is that true multiculturalism, properly understood not as superficial cultural consumerism but as an integral part of the Western intellectual tradition since the Enlightenment, need not be diversionary. In fact, used as a means of overcoming misunderstanding (rather than as a weapon of ethnic chauvinism and division), it should be at the heart of the American academic experience. Tolerance and common sense could make it so. Although welcome for its clarity and elegance, Jacoby's account, much more importantly, looks beyond faction toward the common good.
Pub Date: April 7, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-42516-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1994
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