Schooling for Humanity: When Big Brother Isn't Watching [Paperback]

David O. Solmitz (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0820452076 | ISBN-13: 978-0820452074 | Publication Date: May 1, 2001

Schooling for Humanity: When Big Brother Isn't Watching documents David O. Solmitz's thirty-year struggle as a controversial, anti-establishment teacher in a small, rural, central Maine high school. Using journal entries, accompanied by administrative reprimands, intertwined with historical documentation of the intensifying conflict between democratic pedagogy and capitalist domination in our public schools, the author gives a narrative account of his efforts to create a democratic classroom in a traditional secondary school setting. By incorporating theories of progressive educators into his practice, Solmitz demonstrates the possibility of achieving the ideals of democratic schooling in spite of an increasingly bureaucratic, rigid, and authoritarian system.

Product Details

• Paperback: 263 pages
• Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing (May 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0820452076
• ISBN-13: 978-0820452074
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,238,289 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:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Courage to be True to your Beliefs, June 14, 2004

By 

Mary Leue "maryskole" (Ashfield, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Schooling for Humanity: When Big Brother Isn't Watching (Paperback)

I've known David Solmitz since he was a small boy whose father was a professor at Bowdoin College - but even if I hadn't, his book would still fill me with awe at the blazing honesty and courage of his will to teach humanness, justice and tolerance in a small mid-Maine town whose history is one of the hard, too often violent lives of farming, lumbering and small business.

David makes no bones about his trepidation in tackling the monumental task of weaning his students away from the worst aspects of the region's prevailing culture of knee-jerk class/race/religious prejudice, authoritarianism and anti-intellectualism! This is a town that still tolerated a branch of the KKK at the time of World War II - not against blacks, but against the "niggers" of Maine - French Canadian Catholics!

As a teacher in the high school, David not only taught Social Studies, but lived it as well, defending students from poor working class families against brutal stereotypy and even occasional violence from the dominant class of students and their hangers-on, encouraging them to defend themselves, creating a forum for discussion of home-grown race/class issues - and thereby getting himself in occasional hot water with his supervisory personnel - and in general, practicing what he preached, thus serving as an adult model to his students not solely based on pleasing the local Rotarians or Elks.

I have only two regrets about this splendid book - the print is too small for comfort, and it is too expensive(...) thereby potentially limiting its exposure to college classes in small, elite colleges like Goddard.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An easy to read Must for Educators, July 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Schooling for Humanity: When Big Brother Isn't Watching (Paperback)

David's book is an important, inspiring read that should be required in all teacher education universities. It is comprehensive and comprehenable in looking at the history of education. David's democratic quidelines offer hope for the future of our schools.