Customer Reviews

Learning By Heart (Jossey-Bass Education)

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I'm a fourth year educator teaching in a high poverty inner city school. My heart and soul drove me to become a teacher. As budget cuts threaten jobs, tests scores undermined the craft of educating, and top-down appraoches oppress new growth--I'm feeling stiffled. I've really needed a reason to keep fighting after a school year like this one. Small blessings have come my way to challenge and empower me again to do what I'm passionate about: children, teaching, and life long learning. Rolands book "Learning by Heart" was a breath of fresh air and hope. Barth gives realistic solutions for bringing the "heart" back into our schools. The book began by focusing on what is happening in our schools using many real life examples. His solution isn't some new formuala, test, or expensive program that we are mandated to follow. He challenges us to become vessels of change and revolution in our own schools. He suggests that when we step up to be "teacher leaders" we will be able to become "architects, engineers, leaders, and designers of our own schools!" He addresses how the culture of a school dictates the way schools operate more than legislators or superintendents . Knowing this, Barth believes that "...the most difficult job of a school based reformer is to change the prevailing culture of a school." Barth gives practical ideas on how to build a positive community of educators and administrators. He emaphasized the importance of reflecting on our practice. A portion of the book presented an excellent and innovative Principleship Program. This book would be excellent for a book club because it addresses critical issues we deal with everyday. I was empowed when I read this book because it brought hope and a voice to many principles I hold valuable. Furthermore, I was inspired to take new risks in my school. All of us are experts in our craft and we need to utiliize that power. This book will inspire your journey of life-long learning by building community, developing leadership, risk-taking and celebrating the heroic small mircles we do everyday.

In this eloquent and simple book, Barth takes on nearly every recent discussion relevant to schools, change, and leadership. He tackles school culture, the learning community, learning, instruction, reflective practice, teacher leadership, barriers to change, risk, and vision. While Barth's subjects are complex, his treatment is simple, and it is for this reason that the book deserves a place on the shelf of every educator and school leader. Barth's achieves simplicity by addressing one key question: How do we make our schools work better? Barth believes first and foremost that schools are capable of improving themselves. Learning and change should come from the heart - the inside - not from government, think tanks, or top-down policies. Learning and change (Barth would probably argue that these two processes are virtually synonymous) require resolve, perseverance, and a willingness to take risks.

Why don't our schools work better? Barth writes that educators themselves have not learned to learn by heart. Educators have become passive recipients of their school cultures instead of active culture-makers. Barth argues that educators must understand their school cultures (to do this, Barth offers plenty of advice) by making discussible the three great nondiscussibles: (1) Principal leadership (2) The way decisions get made, and (3) Race and performance. Having the hard conversations requires the creation and nurturing of a community of learners. How can we create a culture hospitable to learning, if the adults haven't created such a culture for themselves? How do we know if we're still learning? "Once our practice is committed to a folder, once routinization and repetition replace invention, learning curves plummet." (p.22)

Barth questions the traditional "transmission of knowledge model", which he believes remains a pedagogical cornerstone of much instruction. (Here, my sense is that he's mainly critiquing the high school, which, in this book and others about change, seems to be the unacknowledged subject. Why do educational change theorists take on the entire educational process, when it seems that many of the problems they describe are principally endemic to high schools? Why are high school educators so loath to learn from the practices of their colleagues in the elementary and middle schools?) He advocates the experiential model of learning - a constructivist framework. To transform instruction, we need to start having conversations about what we know and how we teach. To have those conversations, we need to put reflection at the center of our practice. Barth's chapter on reflection is the fulcrum on which the other chapters balance. There, Barth urges educators to write, share, and talk. (As a lifelong learner himself, Barth doesn't shy away from self-critique. In this chapter and others, he models reflective practice by sharing with the reader mistakes and misperceptions from his own life as an educator.)

Barth argues forcefully for a more dispersed leadership model than traditional schools have been inclined to embrace. Schools with high achievement rates and low discipline rates typically involve teachers in the most important decisions that affect the school. Teacher leaders are made through reflection and learning. (For those teachers who can't "see" how to do this, Barth offers lots of practical advice on how overcome the impediments and embrace new learning and leadership opportunities.) Teacher leaders likewise will not emerge unless principals cultivate a culture in which people learn and lead. Collaboration and dialogue are certainly two of Barth's most prized values: "The relationship among adults in the schoolhouse has more impact on the quality and the character of the school - and on the accomplishment of youngsters - than any other factor." (p.105) Principals who are territorial, play favorites, and keep their friends closer than their enemies are destined to perpetuate a culture that nurtures repetition instead of learning and maintenance instead of change. Among other things, school leaders must provide opportunity for teachers to get out of the class to pursue their learning, they must provide financial support, and most importantly, encourage risk-taking.

What do school groups need? To improve performance, school groups need group process skills, consensus-building skills, knowledge about how to utilize resources, the capacity to plan and evaluate their work. The primary impediment to school improvement is that too often schools play not to lose instead of playing to win. Schools and educators have become risk-averse. Educators will never overcome this aversion unless we learn to learn together. To do this, there needs to be enough leaders among us, who are willing to learn, share and support. In this book, not only is there plenty to reflect on, but also lots of material for the reader looking for the practical pieces to begin to affect change and improvement.

Learning By Heart is the answer to excellent education. This book is overflowing with powerful insight on making our schools successful. Roland Barth goes through his exploration and discoveries as an educator with much detail and explanation.

This book is one that should be read by first year teachers as well as those who have been in the field for many years and are looking to improve their learning community. "What do you see, hear, and experience in the school? What don't you see and hear?" is an example of how Barth places focus on those important questions we need to ask ourselves when looking at a school's culture. Barth seems to walk you through your classroom and school to help look at the "big picture". This is not a book to read cover to cover in one sitting. You need to take time to reflect on his insight and apply it to your own situation. You need to take the questions he asks to "heart". It is through this exploration and reflection that he will bring you to the last section of his book where you may create, refine and grow a vision.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has their heart set on creating the best learning environment possible for children. I read this book for a graduate course and have been able to discover what I can do to continue to keep my heart in the field that I most love.

The school is not an island, yet Roland Barth would have it be one replete with his ill-advised lighthouse metaphor. Barth correctly focuses on school culture as one critical component of school success, but unwittingly poisons the idea with disparaging and gratuitous remarks about "imperious central office staff" and his "fantasies" of a school with no parents! A school's culture is the sum of the whole and cannot exclude other stakeholders. Barth offers nothing inherently new or visionary in this book, best evidenced by his statement, "I believe that schools are lighthouses." Does he mean they are immovable or beacons of light? Historical relics or valuable real estate ripe for redevelopment? Barth promotes continued learning by the faculty, but especially the principal. This is hardly an earth-shaking new idea. Barth challenges the reader to be a risk taker and for principals to promote risk taking. Again, a valid cliche, but not enlightening. This lighthouse needs more oil.

This is the best book on teacher leadership ever written. A true classic. Barth was talking and writing about teachers as leaders before it became popular. Every once in a while there is someone just a little farther ahead of the rest us who can pave the way. Barth is one of those leaders--because he is committed to learning. He covers all of the important areas of teacher leadership in this book--from risking taking to reflection to craft knowledge. But most of all he hits on the importance of relationships.

One of my favorite quotes in the book that I often share with others is found on page 105 when he writes, "I learned over and over again that the relationships among the adults in the schoolhouse has more impact on the quality and character of the school--and on the accomplishment of youngsters--than any other factor." Throughout this book, Barth builds the case that ALL TEACHERS CAN LEAD, and even more importantly, that all teachers will lead if given the support they need.

This a fabulous book that should be on the shelf and in the hands of every principal who wants to see their school improve. Any teacher who realizes they take on the mantle of leadership every time they walk into a classroom of children will benefit from this book as well.

I received this book quickly from when I placed my order and it was perfect!

This is an excellent book for a teacher looking for inspiration to new heights in the profession. Barth, while at times a bit unrealistic, strikes at the heart of what teachers need to understand about leardership and how to tap this resource within ourselves.

Barth shares the need for experiential learning, craft knowledge and reflection. He encourages the leader to participate in self-renewal by creating a team of followers through a process of decentralization. A connection between learning and leading is established to increase commitment by working towards changing the mindset of others.
The book reemphasized the true need for collaboration and cooperation, as both are instrumental in the change process for campus improvement. Decision making by all parties increased the opportunity for more diverse ideas. Barth discussed the concept of "craft knowledge" or individual expertise that teachers possessed. Professionals brought with them their "massive collection of experiences." Efforts were made to ensure these rich sources were shared and not kept behind classroom doors.As a practicing educator, I found aspects of Barth's book informative and helpful.

Completely inspiring! Barth has a way of connecting to the hearts and minds of both educators and policymakers. The tension that exists between those involved in policy, and those within schools should be discussed openly, as it is here.

He opens with a Robert Frost quote that sums up the role of the educator (or should!): "What is done is done for the love of it--or not really done at all." If we love children and schools enough we'll take time to listen to some of the suggestions in this book, and others like it.

The chapter I liked best was chapter six, "Craft Knowledge". Craft knowledge, as Barth defines it, is the "massive collection of experiences and learnings that those who live and work under the roof of the schoolhouse inevitably accrue during their careers". It's important for Ed researchers, policymakers, and educators to make full use of these insights.

I am in grad school for Sec. Ed./ Ed policy, and this has been perhaps the best book I've read so far. It's a quick read, and helps spark your passion for many issues relating to education.

Roland Barth's book is loaded with idealism, passion, conviction, and hope. He comes with Harvard's panache, having been a member of its faculty. He hopes to build school faculties of leaders who can transform a school from "ordinary" to "super," with close attention to the hearts of the kids and teachers.

This book ignores one of the major findings from Diane Ravitch's Left Behind, however. She says, "What American education most needs is not more nostrums and enthusiasms but more attention to fundamental, time-tested truths" (p. 453). Barth's thinking that teachers can somehow be leaders in a bureaucratized, systemically crippled system qualifies as a nostrum. Barth celebrates "craft knowledge" (as opposed to what he calls "booklernin'") He proposes, without evidence, that teachers who use these methods will have learning go "off the chart" (p. 11). I could not find any reference at all to basic education, mathematical facts, reading good literature, or how to set standards for what he proposes.

Too bad. A fairly well written book, Learning by Heart is loaded with unvalidated ideas, romantic hyperbole, and nostrums. It may work for Harvard types, but not for most of the country.