Teaching To Change The World [Paperback]

Jeannie Oakes (Author), Martin Lipton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 14, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0072407387 | ISBN-13: 978-0072407389 | Edition: 2nd

This is a highly current and engaging, multicultural, introduction to education and teaching -- both its challenges and its joys. Jeannie Oakes is a leading education researcher and director of the UCLA teacher education program. Martin Lipton is an education writer and consultant and has taught in public schools for 31 years. Together, they bring an excellent blend of theory and applications to the text. This ground-breaking text responds to the current national crisis in teaching and teacher education, considers the values and politics that pervade education, and asks critical questions about how conventional thinking and practice came to be and who benefits from them. The text takes the position that a hopeful, democratic future depends on whether all students learn, and pays particular attention to inequalities associated with race, social class, language, gender, and other social categories and looks for alternatives to the inequalities. The text provides a solid research base and practical treatment of essential topics that locates these topics within cognitive, sociocultural, and constructivist perspectives on learning, and within democratic values. The text infuses issues of diversity throughout its discussion of traditional elements of schools and teaching -- learning, curriculum, instruction, etc. It presents educational foundations and history as alive and active in today’s schools, and treats them as useful concepts for students to use as they think about and respond to more transitory, current “headline” issues, such as charter schools, vouchers, standards, and bilingual education. Central to the book is the belief that schools can and must be places of extraordinary educational quality and institutions for social justice. The authors explore the tensions between the democratic aims of schools and competition for always-scarce high quality opportunities. Throughout the chapters are boxed personal observations of a diverse group of first-year teachers who voice their analyses and personal anecdotes about their own struggles to transform theory into practice. “Digging Deeper” sections that end each chapter feature scholars who are working on issues raised in the chapter. An innovative Instructor’s Manual provides ways to teach the course consistent with cognitive and sociocultural learning theory, culturally diverse pedagogy, and authentic assessment.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Teaching to Change the World receives Critics Choice Award.

The American Educational Studies Association (AESA) has awarded Teaching to Change the World its Critics Choice Award. AESA is comprised of college and university professors who teach and research in the field of education. Its role is to provide a cross-disciplinary forum for the discussion of broad policy issues relating to education. ABOUT THE BOOK Teaching to Change the World argues that a hopeful, democratic future depends on whether all students experience academic rigor and social justice in school. This book is used widely as a college text for Introduction to Education, Social foundations of Education, and Multicultural Education courses. However, the authors groundbreaking approach, engaging prose, and devastating directness will guide the general reader to a far deeper understanding of how they can and why they must argue for rigorous WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT THE BOOK: The overall approach, its organization, coverage, and inviting and readable level, is spectacular. It is a work of love and respect for all who selflessly enter the field of education and who will live, learn, and teach in the next millennium. Rudolfo Chavez, Chavez, New Mexico State University I actually felt relieved while reading it because it consolidated contemporary educational history while attending to important past roots and new branches. I think the argument itself-to teach for both academic rigor and social justiceis profoundly important and admirably done here. This book stands alone in my mind. It is more comprehensive than the books Ive read on multiculturalism, on caring, on classroom discipline. . .The fact that these arguments are gathered in one place is wonderful and extremely helpful. Patricia A. Wasley, Dean of the Graduate School, Bank Street College of Education Its treatment of the most recent theories regarding human development and learning, combined with historical-to-present analysis of schooling in this country is unique. [Oakes and Lipton} challenge the reader to make sense of why school/education is the way it is. Eugene Garcia, Dean of the School of Education, University of California, Berkeley --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Jeannie Oakes is Professor and Assistant Dean for Teacher Education in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She also directs Center X-Where Research and Practice Intersect for Urban School Professionals--the home for UCLA's programs for teachers. Formerly a senior social scientist at RAND, Oakes received her Ph.D. in Education from UCLA in 1980 after a 7-year career as a public school English teacher. Professor Oakes has written five books, several research monographs, and scores of academic and professional articles. Her research examines inequalities in U.S. schools, and follows the progress of equity-minded reform. This work is the subject of her widely read book, KEEPING TRACK: How Schools Structure Inequality, (Yale University Press) and numerous articles. Dr. Oakes' National Science Foundation study, MULTIPLYING INEQUALITIES (Rand Corp., 1990) documents the uneven distribution of resources, curriculum, and teachers in mathematics and science nationwide, and how it affects poor and minority students. Dr. Oakes' studies have been widely cited in newspapers and magazines (e.g., The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Parents) and on television (e.g., "American Agenda" on ABC World News Tonight; "American Agenda," PBS "Frontline," and "60 Minutes"), as well as in scholarly journals. In 1986, her writing won a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Educational Press Association of America. In 1990, the American Educational Reserach Association awarded her the highly prestigious Raymond B. Cattell Award for achievement in research, and in 1997 AERA awarded her the Palmer O. Johnson Award for the Outstanding Research Article. In 1996 the Southern Christian Leadership Conference presented her with the Ralph David Abernathy Award for public service. Her current studies follow the progress of educators across the nation attempting to eliminate inequalities in their schools.

Martin Lipton taught high school English for 31 years and has served as a mentor teacher. He has taught disaffected students in special, separate school programs as well as college-bound students in high wealth school districts. He has contributed to numerous articles on educational research, bringing a practitioner's perspective to theory and policy. Lipton is co-author with Jeannie Oakes, of "Making the Best of Schools" (Yale University Press, 1990).

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Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; 2nd edition (August 14, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072407387
• ISBN-13: 978-0072407389
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #269,414 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating introduction to constructivism, November 4, 2003

By 

Alec (San Francisco Bay Area, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Teaching To Change The World (Paperback)

This book does take a pretty biased view of teaching, but it warns you of this upfront. Teaching is inherently political and this book doesn't try to feign some mythical objectivity.

If you want to teach with traditional, back-to-basics methods, then read this book to at least see the other side. Use it to develop your own disagreement. If you want to teach in a way that encourages students to create knowledge and think critically, read this book to understand how this is even possible, but also go find another book which takes the opposite perspective so you can fully develop your own understanding of teaching.

Its true, you have to take much of this book with a grain of salt. But the fact is that there is no "center" to the politics of teaching, and there is no fair and balanced way to present any political agenda. The choice to teach in a traditional manner is a political choice as well.

What this book lacks is a deeper description of traditionalist/conservative motives in the educational arena. Too often it glosses over the desires of traditionalist motivation and insituates consipiracy theory about the true goal of such groups' agendas.

However, if you keep all this in mind as you read it, you'll learn some rather fascinating things.

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars interesting, May 21, 2002

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"oknazevad" (Hillsdale, NJ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Teaching to Change the World (Paperback)

This book is very upfront with its goals. It advocates the examination of every aspect of schooling in an attempt to overhaul the system to maximize the effectiveness of learning.
Such an examination has at its core three questions. As they were expressed by the professor of the course for which I read this book, they are "What knowledge?, Why that knowledge?, And who benefits from passing on that knowledge?" It is obvious, even from the title, that the authors don't believe that the benefits of traditional education practices are widespread. Indeed, they advocate a progressivist philosophy with a particular emphasis on multicultural education.
I'm not sure how this really affects my opinion of the book. While I do tend to believe in a fairly student-centered approach to teaching, and I do appreciate the need for greater cultural awareness in this increasingly globalized world, the tone of the book seems a little too forceful for my tastes, neglecting the fact that many Americans work from a basis of the western culture they grew up in, and insulting that culture, which this book borders on doing at times, is not a good way to convert people to your side.
What I did like about this book is the completeness of its history, as it details events that are both notable and not so notable that have had impact on the development of educational theory and educational politics, even if the impact isn't so obvious. And even if the tone does bother me at times, I must admit that the numerous examples of young teachers trying to implement the favored philosophies are quite convincing, maybe even more so than the rest of the text.
So, in short, I find the book a strange mixed bag of philosophies I largely agree with presented in a way that inconsistently works to advance the adoption of them.

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Deal, August 18, 2011

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Samy - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Teaching To Change The World (Paperback)

I received my book a few days before my class started. It was in good condition and fairly price for being brand new. In my University book store it was priced over $120 so i think I got a pretty good deal. I did hear something about a CD but mine didn't come with one, but it didn't matter because I didn't need it to meet my course requirements.