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Starting from Scratch: One Classroom Builds Its Own Curriculum

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When I first started writing about how to help people learn better, I wrote about a second-grade teacher who designed all of her curriculum for the year to focus on dinosaurs after she discovered that her students were crazy about the extinct reptiles. More recently, one of my doctoral candidates wrote a dissertation that described how education in Tanzania could be re-designed to help everyone learn how to start a small business. How? Instead of teaching children to count cats, they learn to count inventory. It's the same idea.

A friend who heads a prestigious business school told me that the dissertation reminded him of Steven Levy's book, Starting from Scratch, which was his favorite educational book. I immediately borrowed a copy from the Lexington, Massachusetts library and settled in for some great reading.

The book's center point describes how Mr. Levy and colleagues designed new curricula over the years to enhance learning by exposing students to things they would never learn in their environment. Like the ancient Greeks, Mr. Levy asks questions and encourages students to do the same . . . and then to find the answers. Research may include surveys, measurements, or contacting far-away experts. More than just a subject matter, students learn how to learn.

Mr. Levy's central example involves the concept of having students arrive on the first day of school in an empty classroom and then decide what to fill it with . . . and provide for themselves by raising money, making what they need, and borrowing assistance where appropriate. I loved it!

Mr. Levy is obviously a great teacher. He also displays great humility by not taking too much credit for what goes right . . . when it goes right. He describes stumbles and falls as well as close calls. I think that administrators and teachers will be inspired. Parents will be encouraged to back innovators who want to open the doors to the world for their children.

As a teacher, I learned to rely even more on encouraging students to find their own answers. It's a good reminder!

An excellent and highly entertaining book. The classroom stories are wonderful: creative and humorous. I've had great success with several of Levy's ideas in my own classroom.

Steven Levy paints a vivid picture of his magical classroom in all its glory. Wonderful stories, curriculum ideas, and a refreshing educational philosophy. This book is great reading for anyone, and a must have for teachers.

Starting From Scratch is an essential resource for beginning teachers still in the process of developing their own educational philosophy. This work can also help to reaffirm purpose for experienced educators. Levy lays out his own beliefs clearly in regards to education focusing on character building, community involvement, the power of question making, and the search for genius. He further supports the importance of each areas by explaining their use in his own classroom. Through these real world curriculum ideas and examples, the reader can fully see the importance of each of these areas in education.

The point of this book is how classrooms can, when teachers don't start from where the students are at ("Scratch"), leave kids disengaged, bored and frustrated.

Use what he gives you to take urban kids into their lives. Okay, they are poor, maybe illiterate, possibly angry....but are they not also intelligent, curious and hungry?????

Stop complaining!