I Won't Learn from You!: The Role of Assent in Learning (Thistle Series) [Paperback]

Herbert Kohl (Author)

Book Description

Series: Thistle Series | Publication Date: January 25, 1993

Herbert Kohl's acclaimed essay maintains that students' sense of dignity and self-worth are directly linked to both their refusal and their willingness to learn. Kohl suggests that teachers, schools, and society must address this issue before learning can take place.

Product Details

• Paperback: 47 pages
• Publisher: Milkweed Editions; 1 edition (January 25, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0915943646
• ISBN-13: 978-0915943647
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.8 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,043,131 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Look at Non-Learning, April 23, 2000

By 

Sarah Graves - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Won't Learn from You!: The Role of Assent in Learning (Thistle Series) (Paperback)

Reviewed by Sarah B. Graves, Claremont Graduate University.

As a first year elementary school teacher in Southern California, my experiences in the classroom have been clouded by the omnipresent attitude inside the school that my students are disadvantaged and therefore require a "back to basics" approach to education. I am appalled by the continual barrage from the academic community that says low income, second language learners cannot process complex information because of their limited background knowledge. And yet, I have encountered students in my classroom who, although capable, refuse to enter into educational discourse.

In I Won't Learn from You!: The Role of Assent in Learning, Herbert Kohl proffers the argument that the refusal to learn, often viewed by teachers as failure, is rather a rational position of self preservation on the part of a student. In this essay, he illustrates, several cases when students chose not to learn from racist, prejudice and exclusionary teachers and curriculum. He suggests that learning not to learn is a difficult, intellectual activity that is a manifestation of resistance to oppression and a sign of a survivor in a hostile environment. He concludes with the argument that educators must turn a critical eye upon themselves and their teaching practices and acknowledge the oppression in our schools and society.

Kohl begins his discussion with a conversation with Wilfredo, the Spanish speaking grandfather of one of his students. Kohl recounts Wilfredo's refusal to learn English as an admitted product of his desire to preserve his language and heritage for his grandchildren. Kohl then moves on to his own refusal to learn Yiddish as a child growing up in partially bilingual house. Kohl's motivation to not learn Yiddish originated in his desire not to exclude his mother, a non-Yiddish speaking Jew, from any conversation. From his personal experience and insights into other non-learners over his thirty years of teaching, Kohl develops a distinction between failure and learning not to learn.

Failure, Kohl argues, is defined by the students desire and attempt but inability to learn, but that learning not to learn is a very different attitude with different causes and outcomes:

Failure results from a mismatch between what the learner wants to do and is able to do. The reasons for failure may be personal, social, or cultural, but whatever they are, the results of failure are most often a loss of self-confidence accompanied by a sense of inferiority and inadequacy. Not-learning produces thoroughly different effects. It tends to strengthen the will, clarify one's definition of self, reinforce self-discipline, and provide inner satisfaction. (p15)

After establishing learning not to learn as a defensive posture Kohl launches into several portraits of junior high and high school students who "spent all of their time and energy in the classroom devising ways of not-learning, short-circuiting the business of failure altogether" (17). Through the portraits of students who have acknowledged the injustice in school and actively resisted its teachings, he develops the argument that student defiance is not a product of inability but a refusal to cooperate with a system of alienation. From this ground he asserts that educators must stop seeing non-learners as failures but instead use their active resistance as an invitation into the discussion against oppression in their classrooms.

Herbert Kohl's discussion of active non-learning opens a new door to the defiant student and challenges teachers to do the same. It views him/her as a member of an activist community who should be given voice at least in the classroom. In the current educational climate, with increasing pressure to perform to standards or be retained, a student's self esteem is as endangered as the Spotted Owl. In the classroom, the students' natural habitats are under attack. Teachers and curriculum cut down the students knowledge by denying their experiences and intelligence and insist they adapt to a white middle class world. It is no wonder the students refuse to comply. Education has become a forum for assimilation not inclusion. Kohl offers a strong argument for changing that world view.

After looking long and hard at Kohl's argument I continue to be plagued by the difference between failure and non-learning. In my experience, in a fourth grade room, I am not seeing the intellectual stance that Kohl has so aptly illustrated in junior high and high school students. Instead, I believe, I am seeing the beginnings of non-learning, when students are starting to realize that they will fail to reach the high standards, instead they chose to protect themselves and not try. From these observations I am beginning to question: Where does non-learning start and how does it play out in the elementary classroom? No matter the answer, Kohl's words are a strong argument for student input into their learning.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Get To Know Your Children, April 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: I Won't Learn from You!: The Role of Assent in Learning (Thistle Series) (Paperback)

Have you ever been in a situation where you have refused to learn something? This book gives some real life illustrations of how the experiences of children reflect their desire, or non-desire, to learn. Take a look into the heart of a teacher as he strives to connect with each child in his classroom. Kohl does a nice job of bringing these students to life and instilling in the reader a caution to look at each child individually and to look at their hearts before you write them off as a failure.