Revolutionizing America's Schools (Jossey-Bass Education Series) [Hardcover]

Carl D. Glickman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 21, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0787909440 | ISBN-13: 978-0787909444 | Edition: 1st

Revolutionizing America's Schools is provocative, personal, and right on the mark. It should be read by anyone who believes our schools can better educate our young and who is committed to making the effort to improve them.


-- Paul Schwarz, Principal of the Jackie Robinson Complex, and Co-director of Central Park East Secondary School, East Harlem, New York City

With this insightful, practical collection of personal essays, Glickman tackles education's most urgent questions. Who should govern schools? Whose values should schools represent? How should teachers teach? How does democratic change occur? Glickman directly addresses issues of race, culture, gAnder, and religion and reveals how understanding these issues can contribute to purposeful change, and he connects democratic rhetoric to action -- covering such practicalities as student grouping, curriculum selection, and school leadership.

Introduction: A Vision of Democracy

Part One: On Democracy

1. Democracy -- What Is It?

2. Democracy and Education

3. Ambiguity and Informed Minds

Part Two: On Pedagogy

4. Powerful Learning

5. School Structures for Teaching

6. Teacher Education and Public Schools

7. Governing for the Future

Part Three: On Getting Beyond

8. Wealth and Welfare

9. Isms and Reasons

10. Religion, Secular Humanism, and Geese

11. Who Owns the Child?

12. Constitutional Hope for Education

Part Four: On Differences

13. Race and Education

14. Suffrage, GAnder, and Listening

15. From Our Ancestors

Part Five: On Change

16. Finding Room for School Change

17. Listening to Students

18. Leadership for Democracy

Conclusion: Democracy as Education

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The author provides a highly personal and carefully reasoned analysis of...complicated and contentious issues that regularly agitate superintAndents. His ruminations are designed to stimulate readers to change classroom practice by listening to students and lessening the effects of hierarchy and control all aspects of education from curriculum to community participation." (The School Administrator)

"Not a mushy, sentimental defense of democracy. . . Revolutionizing America's Schools has a connectedness, a personal tone, and a wealth of examples to which educators will resonate. The book is grounded in everyday happenings in classrooms and schools, and it plainly articulates how universities have to change." (Seymour B. Sarason, author, The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform)

"For all of us dissatisfied with our country's schools and searching for ways to improve them, Glickman gives us reason to pause and consider our core beliefs. Revolutionizing America's Schools is provocative, personal, and right on the mark. It should be read by anyone who believes our schools can better educate our young and who is committed to making the effort to improve them." (Paul Schwarz, principal of the Jackie Robinson Complex, and codirector of Central Park East Secondary School, East Harlem, New York City)

"With great honesty and personal integrity, Carl Glickman challenges us to educate our young for the kind of democracy our nation has never achieved?one in which poor people and people of color are truly equal players, and classrooms are centers of true democratic ideals. This candid work gives me renewed hope for our country's future." (Lisa D. Delpit, director, Center for Urban Educational Excellence, Georgia State University)

"A serious and illuminating account of the importance of the interconnectedness of democracy and education for both individuals and interest groups. Vital reading for educators committed to actualizing American democracy in schools." (Carl Grant, Hoefs-Bascom Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Madison)

From the Inside Flap

With this insightful, practical collection of personal essays, noted educator and school reform leader Carl D. Glickman tackles education's most urgent questions. Who should govern schools? Whose values should schools represent? How should teachers teach? Does educational truth lie in the Western canon or in a multicultural curriculum? How does democratic change occur?Unlike most abstract discussions about the value of democracy in education and in the community, Revolutionizing America's Schools makes practical connections between schools and the American dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The book directly addresses issues of race, culture, gAnder, and religion and reveals how understanding these issues can contribute to purposeful change. Glickman shows how democracy, when applied to the theory and practice of education, can become the most powerful way to teach and learn. He outlines a set of activities designed to increase student activity, choice, participation, connection, and contribution. Most important, Glickman connects democratic rhetoric to action?covering such practicalities as student grouping, class schedules, curriculum selection, and school leadership.Written for faculty, administrators, parents, board members, policymakers, and community leaders, Revolutionizing America's Schools offers the inspiration and guidance needed to create a public education system that develops intellectual skills in students of all ages and helps them to lead satisfying and valuable lives.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1st edition (August 21, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787909440
• ISBN-13: 978-0787909444
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,507,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A revitalizing way to look at democracy as education, May 7, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Revolutionizing America's Schools (Jossey-Bass Education Series) (Hardcover)

Three important points this book makes:

Reclaim a Democratic Vision: Our forefathers founded this country on democratic principles which seemed to have gotten lost in the mist. Yet, in order to regain the vision, education must look back to these principles and revolutionize its pedagogy in the same manner as Jefferson, Hamilton, Franklin, et al. did for their countrymen. Education as democracy results from "decisions guided by justice and equality for all in striving for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." (p. 180).

Democratic Schools Do Better: Practicing democracy in teaching leads to a better foundation for students. This is evidenced in many studies (Aiken's 'eight-year study', Newmann's research on "active learning" developed in schools making democratic efforts, Sharan's work which reveals that democratic-process teaching creates twice the learning as passive lecture, etc.).

Democracy is the overriding, unifying principle; all else is secondary: It is the foundation for change. It is both the means and the end. "It is a means insofar as equality, liberty,and fraternity are used to make decisions; it is an end when changes achieve greater equality, liberty, and fraternity in the learning experiences of all the students in a classroom, school, or community" (p. 167-168). Democracy becomes the overriding purpose behind education and the practice of democracy will be the thrust behind change in our schools and communities.

Revolutionizing America's Schools urges us to revolt yet one more time. Today's heresy is actually yesterdays' revolution. The wheel has come full circle.

Sandie Miller, Pepperdine Educational Technology Doctoral Student