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My Freshman Yearby Rebekah Nathan
Penguin Group Inc. 2006; US$ 11.99A revealing look at the college freshman experience, from an insider's point of view After fifteen years of teaching anthropology at a large university, Rebekah Nathan had become baffled by her own students. Their strange behavior-eating meals at their desks, not completing reading assignments, remaining silent through class discussions-made her feel as if she were dealing with a completely foreign culture. So Nathan decided to do what anthropologists do when confused by a different culture: Go live with them. She enrolled as a freshman, moved into the dorm, ate in the dining hall, and took a full load of courses. And she came to understand that being a student is a pretty difficult job, too. Her discoveries about contemporary undergraduate... more...
Inner Principalby David Loader
RoutledgeFalmer 1997; US$ 57.95This is a fascinating account of how a principal combines the rational and emotional components of leadership to lead the transformation of a school. Most attempts at reform come from the outside, with people wishing to impose a curriculum and benchmarks; this book assumes that schools can transform themselves, but only when those involved in schools especially principals develop self-respect and achieve self-actualization. The author believes, and has demonstrated in his colleges, that a sensitive, thoughtful, proactive leadership might yet deliver the quality outcomes that the community desires from schooling. more...
How To Generate Values in Young Childrenby Sue Spayth Riley
Boson Books 2005; US$ 9.95This book is directed to the parents, teachers, and counselors of preschool children. Integrity, Honesty, Individuality, Self-Confidence, and Wisdom: the ingredients for a successful life begin at a very early age. Sue Spayth Riley acknowledges the factors and complexities of modern life that inhibit the development of values in children while stating that we need not surrender to them. Decision-making is the key. Riley demonstrates how the child?s ability to make up his or her own mind plays a major role in ethical and moral education. Through examples, anecdote, and clinical observation, as well as theory, Sue Spayth Riley shows how problems such as blanket-weaning, staying dry, hostile behavior, and too much television can be resolved by... more...
Democracy and Educationby John Dewey
The Floating Press 1916; US$ 7.95John Dewey's Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education seeks to both critique and further the educational philosophies espoused by both Rousseau and Plato. Dewey found that Rousseau's ideas overemphasized the individual, whereas Plato's did the same with the society that the individual lived in. Dewey felt this distinction to be a false one, seeing the formation of our minds as a communal process, like Vygotsky did... more...
Still Failing at Fairnessby David Sadker; Karen Zittleman
Simon & Schuster 2009; US$ 12.99Despite decades of effort to create fair classrooms and schools, gender bias is alive and well, and in some ways growing. School practices continue to send boys and girls down different life paths, too often treating them not as different genders but as different species. Teachers and parents often miss the subtle signs of sexism in classrooms. Through firsthand observations and up-to-the-minute research, Still Failing at Fairness brings the gender issue into focus. The authors provide an in-depth account of how girls' and boys' educations are compromised from elementary school through college, and offer practical advice for teachers and parents who want to make a positive difference. The authors examine today's pressing issues -- the... more...
Young Children and the Environmentby Julie M. Davis
Cambridge University Press 2010; US$ 43.00Young Children and the Environment demonstrates how early education can contribute to sustainable living. more...
Waiting for "SUPERMAN"by Participant Media; Karl Weber
PublicAffairs 2010; US$ 15.95The American public education system is in crisis. Millions of students attend failure factories that produce more drop-outs than graduates; millions more attend nice schools that mask mediocre achievement. The U.S.s reading and math scores stagnate and even fall behind, while other countries continue to advance. But many are working to reinvent this system. The film Waiting for "Superman," directed by An Inconvenient Truths Davis Guggenheim, chronicles these efforts through the interlocking stories of a handful of students and families searching for alternatives, and of reformers proving that all kids can learn.Expanding on the films arguments, the book Waiting for "Superman" explores... more...
A Short Course in Intellectual Self Defenseby Andrea Schmidt; Normand Baillargeon; Charb
Seven Stories Press 2011; US$ 17.95What is the relationship between democracy and critical thinking? What must a citizen in a democracy know to make the word democracy meaningful? In A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense, historian and educator Normand Baillargeon provides readers with the tools to see through the spin and jargon of everyday politics and news reporting in order to decide for themselves what is at stake and how to ask the necessary questions to protect themselves from the manipulations of the government and the media. Whether the issue be the call to what we’re told will be a bloodless war, the "debate" around Intelligent Design, or the meaning of a military expenditure, Baillargeon teaches readers to evaluate information and sort fact from official... more...
Growing Up Absurdby Paul Goodman; Susan Sontag
New York Review Books 2011; US$ 17.95Includes the essay "On Paul Goodman" by Susan Sontag. Paul Goodman’s Growing Up Absurd was a runaway bestseller when it was first published in 1960 and it became one of the defining texts of the nascent New Left. Goodman, at the time well into middle age, was a maverick anarchist who broke every mold, and did it brilliantly—he was a novelist, poet, and a social theorist, among a host of other things—and the book’s success established him as one of America’s most unusual and trenchant critics, combining vast learning, an astute mind, utopian sympathies, and a wonderfully hand-on way with words. Growing Up Absurd takes the crisis of disaffected youth as indicative of the crisis within the culture at large,... more...