Series in Aims
Books in Aims
Bad Teacher! How Blaming Teachers Distorts the Bigger Picture
In his latest book, leading educator and author Kevin Kumashiro takes aim at the current debate on educational reform, paying particular attention to the ways that scapegoating public school teachers, teacher unions, and teacher educators masks the real, systemic problems. He convincingly demonstrates how current trends, like market-based reforms and fast-track teacher certification programs are creating overwhelming obstacles to achieving an equitable education for all children. Bad Teacher! highlights the common ways that both the public and influential leaders think about the problems and solutions for public education, and suggests ways to help us see the bigger picture and reframe the debate. Compelling, accessible, and grounded in current initiatives and debates, this book is important reading for a diverse audience of policymakers, school leaders, parents, and everyone who cares about education. Kevin K. Kumashiro is director of the Center for Anti-Oppressive Education and president-elect (2010–2012) of the National Association for Multicultural Education. He is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the author of The Seduction of Common Sense: How the Right Has Framed the Debate on America's Schools. Praise for Bad Teacher! “This book could be a springboard for teachers . . . to become more actively involved in advocating for a paradigm shift in our concept of education.” — Grace Lee Boggs , The Boggs Center “Kumashiro is a remarkable sleuth who … shows us how the deck is stacked, how the game is played, who gains, and who loses. Join him in a clarion call to build a Movement to reclaim public education.” — Robert P. Moses , The Algebra Project “Courageous, blunt, and hopeful , Bad Teacher! offers a democratic vision for true educational change.” — Sonia Nieto , University of Massachusetts at Amherst “Anyone seeking to understand why so many of the reforms we have pursued have failed will benefit from reading this book.” — Pedro A. Noguera , New York University “Kumashiro explains why we should think differently about the prescriptions that are now taken for granted—and wrong.” — Diane Ravitch , New York University, author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education “Kumashiro expertly examines the many forces working against public education, and how and why these forces are at play.” — Dennis Van Roekel , President, National Education Association “ Bad Teacher! is oh-so-smart and timely. . . . This book attacks head-on the ragged patchwork of ‘school reform’ that has left us without even the vocabulary to frame what’s gone wrong.” — Patricia J. Williams , Columbia Law School 2012 Must-read book about K–12 education in the U.S., Christian Science Monitor
Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities
A passionate defense of the humanities from one of today's foremost public intellectuals In this short and powerful book, celebrated philosopher Martha Nussbaum makes a passionate case for the importance of the liberal arts at all levels of education. Historically, the humanities have been central to education because they have been seen as essential for creating competent democratic citizens. But recently, Nussbaum argues, thinking about the aims of education has gone disturbingly awry in the United States and abroad. We increasingly treat education as though its primary goal were to teach students to be economically productive rather than to think critically and become knowledgeable, productive, and empathetic individuals. This shortsighted focus on profitable skills has eroded our ability to criticize authority, reduced our sympathy with the marginalized and different, and damaged our competence to deal with complex global problems. And the loss of these basic capacities jeopardizes the health of democracies and the hope of a decent world. In response to this dire situation, Nussbaum argues that we must resist efforts to reduce education to a tool of the gross national product. Rather, we must work to reconnect education to the humanities in order to give students the capacity to be true democratic citizens of their countries and the world. In a new preface, Nussbaum explores the current state of humanistic education globally and shows why the crisis of the humanities has far from abated. Translated into over twenty languages, Not for Profit draws on the stories of troubling—and hopeful—global educational developments. Nussbaum offers a manifesto that should be a rallying cry for anyone who cares about the deepest purposes of education.
See You When We Get There
Gregory Michie’s first bestseller, Holler If You Hear Me, put him on the map as a compelling and passionate voice in urban education. In his new book, Michie turns his attention to young teachers of color, and once again provides readers with a unique and penetrating look inside public school classrooms. Featuring portraits of five young teachers (two African Americans, two Latinas, and one Asian American) who are “working for change,” Michie weaves the teachers’ powerful voices with classroom vignettes and his own experiences. Along the way, he examines what motivates and sustains these teachers, as well as what they see as the challenges and possibilities of public education “An antidote to the mindless tactics of punish, test, and punish again that hold our schools hostage.” —From the Foreword by Gloria Ladson-Billings “A refreshing look at how five inner-city teachers challenge the factory-model approach that characterizes the schooling experiences of so many youth today.” — Angela Valenzuela , author of Subtractive Schooling “Provides us with important insights into the motivations of dedicated young teachers.” — Pedro Noguera , author of City Schools and the American Dream “This is a hopeful book—a reminder that we still have a chance to get this right for the kids.” — Penny Lundquist , Golden Apple Foundation for Excellence in Teaching
Teaching with Conscience in an Imperfect World
How do we see our schools and the project of education? Is this the best we can do? What would we like our schools to become? How might we get there? In this provocative book, Bill Ayers invites us to dream of schools in which each child “is of infinite and incalculable value.” Blending personal anecdotes with critique of the state of education, this beautifully written little book is filled with big ideas that explore the challenges and opportunities for an education system that desperately needs repair. Teaching with Conscience in an Imperfect World is an urgent call to action and a plan to help educators, policymakers, and parents to stretch toward something new and dramatically better—schools that are more joyful and more just, more balanced and more guided by the power of love. Book Features: Designed to promote meaningful discussions in teacher education courses. Addresses the problems with our current education system and how they came to be. Advocates, with illustrations, for schooling that promotes critical thinking and engaged learning. Critiques school reform efforts, such as high-stakes testing, curriculum standardization, and dated performance metrics. Urges teachers to see students as full and equal human beings with agency and capacity. “Bill Ayers invites you to imagine teaching in ways that make a difference; ways that brings smiles and successful learning to students and joyous fulfillment to teachers.” — Carl Grant , University of Wisconsin–Madison “Bill Ayers reveals the questions educators of conscience ask themselves in their quiet time.” — David Stovall , University of Illinois at Chicago “This book is for every classroom teacher who is challenged by what they fear is a dark time for public schools in America.” — Fred Klonsky , education blogger
Too Much Too Soon?
Too Much, Too Soon? tackles the burning question of how to reverse the erosion of childhood by nurturing young children’s wellbeing and learning capacity. Children’s lives have been speeded up by commercialization, adultification, and government programs such as No Child Left Behind and the “nappy curriculum”― a controversial program in the Britain that requires children to hit a series of sixty-nine targets by age five―aspects of which “schoolify” early learners and push quasi-formal learning too soon. Twenty-two hard-hitting chapters by leading educators, researchers, policy-makers, and parents advocate for alternative ways for slowing childhood, better policy-making, and, most important, the right learning at the right time in children’s growth, when they are developmentally ready. CHAPTERS PART I: Policy Making and the Erosion of Childhood: The Case of the Early Years Foundation Stage 1. The EYFS and the Real Foundations of Children’s Early Years – Penelope Leach 2. Challenging Government Policy-making for the Early Years: Early Open EYE Contributions – Margaret Edgington, Richard House, Lynne Oldfield, and Sue Palmer 3. Against the Government’s Grain: The Experience of Forging a Path to EYFS Exemption – JOHN DOUGHERTY 4. The Impact of the EYES on Childminders – Arthur and Pat Adams 5. A Parent’s Challenge to New Labour’s Early Years Foundation Stage – Frances Laing 6. The Tickell Review of the Early Years Foundation Stage: An “Open EYE” dialogue – The Open EYE Campaign PART II: The Foundations of Child Development and Early Learning: Perspectives, Principles and Practices 7. The Myth of Early Stimulation for Babies – Sylvie Hétu 8. Current Perspectives on the Early Childhood Curriculum – Lilian Katz 9. Physical Foundations for Learning – Sally Goddard Blythe 10. The Unfolding Self –The Essence of Personality – Kim Simpson 11. The Democratization of Learning – Wendy Ellyatt 12. The Steiner Waldorf Foundation Stage – 13. Can We Play? – David Elkind 14. Play – Transforming Thinking – Tricia David 15. Challenging the Reggio Emilia Approach with Relational Materialist Thinking and an Ethics of Potentialities – Hillevi Lenz Taguchi Part III: Advocacy, Research and Policy Making for Children’s Early Years’ Learning 16. “If I Wanted My Child to Learn to Read and Write, I Wouldn’t Start from Here” – Sue Palmer 17. Viewing the Long-Term Effects of Early Reading with an Open Eye – Sebastian Suggate 18. Early Childhood Research and its Political Usage: Some Cautionary Remarks – Richard House 19. Does Not Compute, Revisited: Screen Technology in Early Years Education – Aric Sigman 20. An Inveterate Early Childhood Campaigner – Margaret Edgington interviewed by Richard House Part IV: Ways Ahead to Achievable Futures 21. Education and Paradigm Shift – Grethe Hooper Hansen 22. Early Childhood: A Policy-Making Perspective – Barry Sheerman Towards the Future: Implications and Recommendations for Educationalists and Policy-makers – Wendy Scott and Richard House AFTERWORD – Richard Brinton and Gabriel Millar