Stupidity and tears : teaching and learning in troubled times
(Book)
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Location | Call Number | Status |
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Flossmoor Public Library - Stacks | 371.102 KOH | On Shelf |
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Booklist Review
Kohl, author and longtime education activist, offers a heartfelt look at the inanities that prevent public school teachers and students from reaching the cherished goals of teaching and learning. He provides examples of the kinds of obstacles frequently faced by teachers that prevent them from doing their jobs, including pressure to teach to standardized tests and to adhere to ineffective pedagogical fads. The book is organized into three parts examining the gamut of the teaching experience in public schools. Part 1 details the difficulties of dealing with bureaucracies that stand in the way of effective teaching and the challenges to teaching morals. Part 2 explores the joyous energy and creativity that some teachers bring to the task. Part 3 includesohl's reflections on teaching from the perspective of a 65-year-old and an appeal to use the public schools to practice social justice.ohl offers a practical and philosophical look at the importance of public schools and the political pressures that prevent them from optimizing their potential to effect social change. --Vanessa Bush Copyright 2004 Booklist
Publisher's Weekly Review
National Book Award-winning educator Kohl (36 Children and some 40 other books) offers six essays on "sustaining the joy of teaching while under pressure." How can teachers maintain integrity and creativity when school systems mandate uniform teaching protocols and test-oriented curricula? How do teachers guide the moral development of children after 9/11? How can teachers reconnect alienated students? With 40 years of experience working with the nation's "least-served children," Kohl isn't afraid to speak plainly about the "willful stupidity" of our education system and currently proposed reforms. He says mandating a uniform curriculum won't improve education, since "a terrible teacher will be terrible" with any curriculum and such micromanaging just pushes creative teachers into private schools. Literacy "will not come through testing and an obsession with standards, but through patient, intelligent, and sensitive speaking, reading, and listening." Thus teachers need to be aware of how they are being heard, in much the same way that politicians, lovers and actors are always monitoring how their message is being received. Instead of a simplistic, monocultural model of moral development, Kohl stresses the need to examine a wider range of transformational experiences (social violence, deprivation, altruism, etc.) to understand their impact on children of diverse backgrounds. Brief in words but long on courage, Kohl's latest will be required reading for progressive-minded teaching professionals and recommended to everyone else concerned about the hearts and minds of our next generation of citizens. (Jan. 29) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
Celebrating 40 years of teaching and writing, Kohl (Should We Burn Babar?; Growing Minds) hones in on the heart with this small collection of courageous essays. In the title essay, he criticizes current reform trends that require teachers to mold their curriculum to standardized tests. Defining stupidity as the state of being insensible, numbed, or astonished, he proposes that any system demanding conformity to outside forces at the expense of what a teacher believes is best for his students can be reasonably described as stupifying. An intelligent and enthusiastic teacher who must conform to teaching ineffectively is thus forced to become stupid in order to stay employed within that system. Consequently, good teachers in dysfunctional systems can be driven to tears of frustration right along with their students. Always an advocate for student learning and mindful teaching, Kohl encourages teachers to engage in the struggle to improve the system from within, providing examples and a philosophical blueprint for action. Highly recommended.-Jean Caspers, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, OR (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Citations
Kohl, H. R. (2003). Stupidity and tears: teaching and learning in troubled times . New Press.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)Kohl, Herbert R. 2003. Stupidity and Tears: Teaching and Learning in Troubled Times. New York: New Press.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)Kohl, Herbert R. Stupidity and Tears: Teaching and Learning in Troubled Times New York: New Press, 2003.
Harvard Citation (style guide)Kohl, H. R. (2003). Stupidity and tears: teaching and learning in troubled times. New York: New Press.
MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)Kohl, Herbert R. Stupidity and Tears: Teaching and Learning in Troubled Times New Press, 2003.