The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards"

Are our schools in trouble because they have lowered their standards and strayed too far from the basics? Just the opposite: if American students are getting less than they deserve, it's due to simplistic demands to "raise the bar" and an aggressive nostalgia for traditional teaching. Alfie Kohn turns the conventional wisdom about education on its head. In this landmark book, he shows how the "back to basics" philosophy of teaching treats children as passive receptacles into which forgettable facts are poured. Likewise, shrill calls for tougher standards are responsible for squeezing the intellectual life our of classrooms. Such politicized slogans reflect a lack of understanding about how and why kids learn, and they force teachers to spend time preparing students for standardized tests instead of helping them to become critical, creative thinkers. Kohn has an ambitious yet practical vision of what our children's classrooms could be like. Drawing on a remarkable body of research, he helps parents and others interested in education understand the need to move beyond a "bunch o' facts" model of teaching. Using stories from real classrooms, he offers surprising insights as he shows how this can be done.