Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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78 of 88 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book for student teachers, teachers, and parents., November 3, 1999
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.
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44 of 51 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
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.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
rigid "us" versus "them" outlook, June 3, 2000
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.
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