The Schoolhome: Rethinking Schools for Changing Families [Hardcover]

Jane Martin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674792653 | ISBN-13: 978-0674792654 | Publication Date: May 1, 1992 | Edition: 1ST

Drawing selectively from reform movements of the past and relating them to the unique needs of today's parents and children, Jane Martin presents a philosophy of education that is responsive to America's changed and changing realities. As more and more parents enter the workforce, the historic role of the domestic sphere in the education and development of children is drastically reduced. Consequently, Martin advocates removing the barriers between the school and the home.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Martin (philosophy, Univ. of Massachusetts-Boston) proposes the laudable redirection of the school as a stronger partner of the home, hence "schoolhome." She proposes that schools become a moral equivalent of the home, responsive to the needs and conditions of children and their parent(s). She recommends that schools reflect care, concern, and connection to educate all children in our culture's whole heritage. Children need to learn the traditional values, skills, attitudes, and knowledge values of the home, something our disjointed, frazzled, and dysfunctional families don't always accomplish. This title is different in intent than her earlier works, including Reclaiming a Conversation: The Ideal of the Educated Woman ( LJ 9/15/85). Wanting in operational substance, it is a rosy philosophical treatise divorced from educational reality. This is not recommended.
- Scott Johnson, Meridian Communi ty Coll. Lib., Miss.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

An exciting breath of fresh air to the seemingly endless number of school reform books that cross my desk...In all of the discussions on school reform, which one of them places the child's needs center stage and argues we are morally bound to tend to them, and we must do the best we can to help these children feel loved? The Schoolhome does, and does it with beauty and grace; I recommend it highly! (Barbara Thayer-Bacon Educational Studies )

[Martin] reconnects us with the long view of schooling and opens possibilities that delight. (Sydney Gurewitz Clemens Young Children )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press; 1ST edition (May 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674792653
• ISBN-13: 978-0674792654
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,684,130 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars INSPIRING VISION FOR SCHOOL REFORM, July 26, 2008

By 

Sophia (USA) - See all my reviews

This is THE philosophy of school and society in our time. It is a great book for discussion groups involving parents, teachers, school boards, school administrators. In "School and Society" courses pre-service teachers find it an effective stimulus to their imaginations, so that they can summon the courage to be teachers who can really practice the concern for children that drew them into that profession in the first place, despite the tragic bureaucratic lockdown schooling has become. It doesn't respond to that tragic situation with facile sentimental pleas for caring, nor does it indulge the urbane fashion of sneering at caring; it explicitly acknowledges the complexity of what it might mean to act on our concern for children. As a result, I have seen almost miraculous effects on teaching as a consequence of contact with this book. Parents in my community have gathered to discuss this book, too. I have seen a principal stimulate teacher leadership for reform by reading and discussing this book with teachers. It is only a matter of time before we start to read about this book's practical interpretations in print, as such teachers and principals earn their PhD and theorize about their practical translations of THE SCHOOLHOME's vision. For this book does not offer prescriptions and platitudes, nor does it participate in the blaming game so popular in the NCLB era, nor does it drown its readers in jargon and numbers and ideological preachiness. It is a passionate invitation to think about what we as a culture are doing to and for and with our children. College-educated people will find it easily readable. It explicitly encourages various sorts of ethical sensitivities to cultural diversity, disability, gender, and ecology. It offers a rich discussion of values applied to various accounts of schooling, and shows how important those values are for educators to think about, whether they are parents or schoolpeople. Among those values is the US Constitution's aim "to ensure domestic tranqillity." Some of its critics do not seem actually to have READ it; this is not a book to be comprehended exclusively through its title; this is a book made for reading and rereading, for discussion and for prompts to practical experimentation and journaling. It is not a doctrine or a dogma or a cynical critique. It is a brilliant provocation to constructively critical thought & imagination concerning the education of children and adolescents. Philosophers and historians of education will find this book thought-provoking too, comparable to Jane Addams's concept of the social settlement, the Dutch concept of the folk school, and relevant to contemporary movements for "community" and "full-service" schools or for arts integration across the school curriculum. Amazon won't accept my five-star rating, not sure why, but the four stars it shows above is a lower rating than I gave this book! Even 16 years after its publication, it's the perfect gift for demoralized teachers and parents.

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspirational, July 3, 2011

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Mimiinthecity (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Schoolhome: Rethinking Schools for Changing Families (Paperback)

I read this book in 1995 and in 2001, it had a direct influence on the school that I founded, Codman Academy Charter Public School ([...]) , which is located inside a community health center. Thank you, Dr. Martin!