The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards" [Hardcover]

Alfie Kohn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 1999

In this “lively, provocative and well-researched book” (Theodore Sizer), AlTe Kohn builds a powerful argument against the “back to basics” philosophy of teaching and simplistic demands to “raise the bar.” Drawing on stories from real classrooms and extensive research, Kohn shows parents, educators, and others interested in the debate how schools can help students explore ideas rather than filling them with forgettable facts and preparing them for standardized tests.
Here at last is a book that challenges the two dominant forces in American education: an aggressive nostalgia for traditional teaching (“If it was bad enough for me, it’s bad enough for my kids”) and a heavy-handed push for Tougher Standards.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Teacher-turned-writer Alfie Kohn takes on traditional-education giants like E.D. Hirsch, along with practically every state government "raising the bar" and toughening standards, in this attack on the back-to-basics movement. An established critic of America's fixation on grades and test scores, Kohn has written a detailed, methodical treatise that accuses politicians and educators of replacing John Dewey, the father of public education, with test-tutoring king Stanley Kaplan. The current standards movement that demands students learn a list of dates and facts prepares kids for Jeopardy, Kohn argues, not real life. He joins David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle (The Manufactured Crisis) in questioning whether today's schools are truly floundering, warning that romantic memories of the old school, with its tests, worksheets, and drills, are purely that--memories romanticized by time and perception.

Kohn backs up his argument with research and observations from like-minded reformers such as Deborah Meier, but his position is nothing new. Rather, it is a volley back at traditionalists, a direct counter to Hirsch's 1996 book The Schools We Need, which Kohn critically dissects at length, even accusing Hirsch of incorrectly generalizing footnoted research. Kohn also takes issue with the backlash against the whole-language approach to reading instruction (though this argument wears thin, given that many schools have already moved beyond the debate to use a combination of whole language and phonics). The overall message of The Schools Our Children Deserve is a valid cautionary tale about the future of American education that deserves to be heard out by teachers, policymakers, and parents. --Jodi Mailander Farrell

From Publishers Weekly

A devout critic of the American educational system's dependence on grades and test scores, Kohn (Punished by Rewards, etc.) has long questioned the priority given to basics, rote learning and other "mind-numbing strategies" in the traditional classroom. In his latest assessment, he advocates challenging students to relinquish their passive role in the learning process and to think critically. Tougher standards proposed by politicians and the business community, the author notes, may not be an effective cure-all since they put increased demands on students already overwhelmed by an abundance of facts and homework. "The difference between learning and achievement is hard enough to grasp; the difference between doing well and doing better than others is especially confusing in a society so obsessed with being Number One that the ideas of excellence and winning have been thoroughly conflated," he writes. While some sectors of American schools may be troubled, Kohn concludes, the overall state of the educational system is in better shape than previously thought, in part because negative statistics are blown out of proportion, and partly because standardized tests are flawed indicators of educational quality. Using current research, Kohn advances a series of well-reasoned arguments against traditional education without the usual storm of tree-shaking and excessive rhetoric. This is another balanced effort from an advocate who believes that taking our youth seriously and honoring their abilities and potential may be the first major step toward reform. Agent, Kim Witherspoon; 5-city author tour. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; None edition (September 7, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395940397
• ISBN-13: 978-0395940396
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #593,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alfie Kohn is the author of nine previous books, including Punished by Rewards and The Schools Our Children Deserve, that have helped to shape the thinking of parents and educators across the country and abroad. He lectures widely and lives (actually) with his family in the Boston area.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 95 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for student teachers, teachers, and parents., November 3, 1999

By 

Renée Cole ([e-mail]) (Sherman, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards" (Hardcover)

A very powerfully written book by a former teacher turned author and lecturer, Alfie Kohn. Kohn criticizes the theories of behaviorists and traditionalists accusing politicians, parents, and teachers of continuing to 'drill and kill' students on a `'bunch o' facts'. The Old School manner of rote memorization joined now with standardized testing is missing the mark on the urgency to motivate students from 'how they are doing in school' to 'why are they doing what they are doing in school.' Kohn uses a remarkable genre of resources from comparing John Dewey, Jean Piaget, and John Holt to B. F. Skinner, Edward K. Thorndike, and E. D. Hirsch, Jr. Stating various research articles and quotes, Kohn supports his theory that classrooms are not failing the schools the issue is that reform is not being grasped and integrated into the classrooms. Kohn presents the facts of previous educational theories by explaining in two parts, first, of how the schools are missing the mark on motivation, teaching and learning, evaluation, reform, and improvement. Secondly, providing suggestions for teachers and parents to reform whether through internal efforts in the classroom or in the community. Kohn walks the reader through each category defining exactly how his research has shown the schools are presently poorly handling the previously mentioned categories. He then follows up with a blue print on how to overhaul the schools by understanding from the conception of the school the intent while not overlooking the importance of reading, writing, and arithmetic yet allowing a move beyond grades and standardized tests to true achievement and motivation of students.

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars rigid "us" versus "them" outlook, June 3, 2000

By 

Benjamin Crowell - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards" (Hardcover)

As a community college physics professor, I found Kohn's book interesting in some ways but unhelpful in others. He's right on target with his criticisms of bad textbooks, rote memorization, and "drill and kill." However, he forces every issue into his predetermined framework of "us" (people who agree with Kohn) and "them" (the traditionalists). Many of the real issues that cry out for reform are not being realistically addressed by either camp:

(1) The factory model. Both Kohn and the traditionalists implicitly buy in to the factory model of education, in which everybody has to move at the same pace because that's the speed of the conveyer belt. The traditionalists try to speed up the conveyer belt, but can only achieve that by turning learning into an exercise in memorization. Kohn wants to slow down the conveyer belt, condemning bright students to a day in school spent explaining things to their slower peers. In my opinion, the solution is a return to tracking.

(2) Quality of teachers. The traditionalists don't want to address this because improving teacher quality would cost money, which is anathema to their politically conservative values. Kohn hardly mentions it either, which is amazing in a book of this length. In the sciencies, there's a long history of failed reforms of the type Kohn describes, precisely because so few K-12 teachers are qualified to teach science.

(3) Textbooks. Traditionalists don't want to admit how bad textbooks are. Kohn never wants to have a child read a chapter from a textbook -- apparently even in high school? As a boy in the California public school system, I never even had _access_ to a textbook in any subject outside the three R's. At least the traditionalists recognize that schools need more books.

(4) The disorganization of the curriculum. Although Kohn pooh-poohs the popularly accepted idea that fuzzy-headed reformers took over education, there's more than a grain of truth in it. As a boy, I never saw any hint of a system when it came to subjects outside the three R's like science and history. Kohn is correct when he says standards should be far less detailed, but there is indeed a need for standards.

45 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Kohn Opens the Standards Debate and Issues a Call to Action, February 13, 2000

By 

K. Rocap (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards" (Hardcover)

Alfie Kohn's "The Schools Our Children Deserve" helps to make contentious educational insider debates on learning, standards and testing accessible to a general readership. Notably he does this, while making sure to bolster his ideas with copious references to educational research, encouraging more - and, importantly, more honest - appraisal of what research really tells us about learning, schools and the possibilities for public education. Kohn forcefully analyzes the "Tougher Standards" approach dominant in U.S. education reform, seeing it as fundamentally flawed. He describes faulty historical and research perspectives that have led to the standards fixation and describes five specific ways that "Tougher Standards" are troublesome: (1) they create a preoccupation with achievement, constantly focusing students on improving performance, which, according to Kohn, is "not only different from, but often detrimental to, a focus on learning;" (2) the approach favors "Old School teaching," as opposed to progressive, developmental learning, and creates a misguided focus on so-called "basic skills" and "core knowledge;" (3) the movement is "wedded to standardized testing," with teach-to-the-test activities routinely displacing higher level learning opportunities for children; (4) their implementation has created rationales for top-down control, "imposing specific requirements and trying to coerce improvement by specifying exactly what must be taught and learned;" (5) "Tougher Standards," so-called, create assumptions about "rigor" and "challenge" that can be summarized as "harder is better," with the notion that if teaching goes down like distasteful medicine that that is how it should be, regardless of whether it turns large numbers of students off to learning, and doesn't even succeed in providing the "just the facts" kind of education often touted by "basic skills" or "core curriculum" advocates.

Kohn goes on to describe, in a "back to the future" way (citing John Dewey and Jean Piaget as representative educational thinkers) that good, progressive approaches point the way towards something better, something our children deserve. He hopes that there are three ways to convince skeptics: theory, research and examples from practice. Kohn's prose is written in a popular-style, generally stripped of jargon, in order to be more inclusive of parents and community members outside of the education system who may not be privy to many of the coded debates and conflicts that have taken place within the walls of the formal education system. Kohn takes on standardized testing and grading as central culprits in the education reform drama, even outlining social action strategies to oppose current approaches to standardized testing. Alfie Kohn's voice offers a refreshing counterpoint to the sea of unchallenged standards rhetoric, worth listening to, for its attention to both research and a genuine concern for our children's educational future.