"I Won't Learn from You": And Other Thoughts on Creative Maladjustment (Paperback)

by Herbert R. Kohl (Author), Jonathan Kozol (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Despite the social and economic despair that pervades many U.S. public schools, meaningful learning and teaching are nevertheless possible, declares famed educator Kohl. To overcome the "massive rejection of schooling by students from poor and oppressed communities," Kohl ( 36 Chil dren ), in these five inspirational, optimistic essays, outlines teaching strategies designed to unlock students' energy, intelligence and drive by encouraging them to envision ways to improve their world. He believes that both teachers and students should cultivate "creative maladjustment," channeling personal discontent into moral or political action. Kohl defends multiculturalist curricula as central to the struggle for fairness. Turning to higher education, he argues that issues of academic freedom and "political correctness" are used by neoconservatives to mask their desire to control ideas in the university and to push out ethnic and women's studies.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews
The five essays in this book are powerful reminders that currently popular ideas of school choice may be only another trendy veneer disguising the deeply rooted problems of public education. Teacher Kohl (From Archetype to Zeitgeist, 1992, etc.) is an ardent spokesman on behalf of students, the people most neglected in debates about failures in the classrooms. The title essay explores the provocative idea that ``not-learning'' is a conscious choice made by children who observe, sometimes very early, that the school system is trying to impose on them values and behavior that are foreign and sometimes repugnant to them. Diagnosed as learning- disabled, stupid, or disciplinary problems, children who appear not to be able to learn to read or do math may simply have opted out of the system, choosing instead to put their intelligence and creativity to work outside school. In ``The Tattooed Man,'' he asserts that, before anything else can be accomplished, teachers must challenge the hopelessness felt by students. The ``norming of excellence'' and political correctness are the subjects of two other essays, accompanied by a devastating critique of E.D. Hirsch, Jr.'s Cultural Literacy and Core Knowledge series. Kohl attacks Hirsch's material as not only racist and sexist, but ``pernicious, stupid, and dangerous.'' Martin Luther King, Jr.'s call to be ``maladjusted'' to injustice and inequity is the theme of the last essay. ``Creative maladjustment'' consists of ``learning to survive with minimal moral and personal compromise in a thoroughly compromised world,'' says Kohl. In such a world, he argues, the failure of schools and teachers is often pinned on children--by diagnosing them with Attention Deficit Disorder, for example. He challenges teachers to take action by, for instance, refusing to turn such children over to special education classes. Some anecdotes and examples are repeated from earlier works, but this is must reading for Kohl fanciers and anyone looking for the humanity buried in the long debate about why Johnny can't read. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: New Press; 2nd edition (July 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565840968
• ISBN-13: 978-1565840966
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #165,134 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creating Hope in Today's Students, November 14, 2002

By	Ria Caldwell (Bowling Green, Ohio) - See all my reviews

Book Review- Ria Caldwell
Kohl, H. (1995). I won't learn from you: and other thoughts on creative maladjustment. New Press.

Kohl is now known as the classic speaker on "not learning" or refusing to learn that results in certain students' inappropriate placement into special education programs and classrooms. Kohl begins by describing certain situations and conditions that he finds himself in, requiring him to re-evaluate what it is that our students need. Hope as he refers to as "hopemongering" is the title of one of his chapters where he cites examples of how he has had to instill or rekindle the flame of hope that students so desperately need at times. Kohl provides some examples of how a student who would be viewed as a discipline or behavior problem might in fact be practicing his "not learning" ability or "right to refuse" as I like to call it.
Kohl addresses issues in education surrounding race, culture, economic, and linguistic differences that result in the diversity of each and every classroom in the U.S. He points out that the reasons for the amount of "dropout" teachers is exceeding the amount of "dropout" students and in order for this to change we need to adopt new ways of embracing these children who are often born into poverty. He emphasizes the importance of finding balance in order to achieve maximum effectiveness with our students. He indicates that the true art of teaching comes from being able to lead students to make discoveries that create their own meaning, purpose, learning and under-standing. Not "lecturing" them on the topic of equality but instead, facilitating their own critical thinking and encouraging them to find their own strengths and weaknesses and to explore their environments with a "new set of eyes." He also talks about fear of students, traditionally the fear that "white" teachers have of "black and latino" students, I would like to call this fear "culturephobia" or "colorphobia".
I think every teacher can find a part of themselves in the numerous examples cited in the book and am glad that I was able to read the words of a man who has so much to offer the educational institutions that exist today.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creatively maladjusted people are the movers and shakers!, March 11, 1999

By	"maverickdd" (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

Interested in maintaining the status quo? Then this book is not for you. Though evidence of Kohl's leftward leaning ideologies pervade much of the book - (while in his writing he commits some of the very biases he criticizes), his insights into purposeful and subconscious biases that our culture subjects us to are second to none. Interestingly, I find myself battling against many of the same issues as a young teacher in the 1990's that Kohl faced in the 1960's. Kohl's writing is the antithesis to the societal norm of, "My mind is made up. Don't confuse me with the facts!" For those unafraid to think critically, I heartily endorse the book. You never know where it may take you. Prepare to become a maladjusted mover and shaker!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It all adds up to a great book, June 14, 2005

By	John Green (Hayward CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: "I Won't Learn from You": And Other Thoughts on Creative Maladjustment (Hardcover)

Why won't some children learn? This is the central question of Herbert Kohl's persuasive book that mixes together history lessons, philosophy and autobiography to produce an important contribution to the discussion of education reform.

As a progressive educator of considerable foresight, Herb Kohl is aghast at the state of public education in America. He doesn't just rail against privatization, monocultural national standards or modern-day McCarthyism, he shares many colorful examples that put debates in education reform within a human context.

Kohl's useful argument is that for many more children than we think, "not learning" is a form of resistance to oppressive or unsuitable teaching. This point is stressed again and again throughout his "I won't learn from you" and Other Thoughts on Creative Maladjustment.

"Since students have no way to legitimately criticize the schooling they are subjected to or the people they are required to learn from, resistance and rebellion is stigmatized. The system's problem becomes the victim's problem. However, not-learning is a healthy, though frequently dysfunctional, response to racism, sexism and other forms of bias. In times of social movements for justice such refusal is often turned to more positive mass protest and demonstration and to the development of alternative learning situations." (29)

As an example, the author points to a Texas class in the late 1980s where he observed a teacher lecture Latino students on the first people to settle the region: New Englanders! Is it any wonder these children hate the books and teachers who systematically deny their heritage by claiming that white Europeans settled Texas first (not Native Americans, not Mexican-Americans)?

Coming of age in the 1960s, Kohl's autobiographical inclusions are great reading. He discusses his upbringing in the Bronx ("a Jewish ghetto"); his introduction to radical trade unions, socialism and communism; anti-Semitism at Harvard; involvement in the deaf power movement (he was sharply criticized for suggesting people use sign language to communicate with the deaf, rather than force the deaf to lip-read and learn to speak!); teaching Black nationalist students and his run-ins with school authorities over his unconventional teaching methods.

Kohl's chapter on political correctness is a must-read. He recalls the debates in the Bronx between socialists and communists, different generations of immigrants and above all, the terrible period of McCarthyism that personally affected the adults he knew. Referencing back and forth between this period and the present, Kohl savages right-wing forces that attempt to stifle progressive ideas at the University level and sabotage public education at the K-12 level.

Above all else his ability to ground his ideas in the reality of the environment most teachers operate within (instead of the fantasy world found in some teacher's education books) make his observations useful for the teachers actually likely to encounter maladjusted students. In fact, Kohl's book ends with the argument for maladjustment. Teachers must misadjust themselves to bad teaching methods, cultural insensitivity and (he hints) even the profit system.

I can take only two exceptions to this wonderful book. First, in recalling the painful period of his life around the Second World War, Kohl romanticizes emigration to Palestine and fails to challenge the racist myth of "a land without a people..." the way he encourages his readers to always do. This is really too bad considering his extraordinary empathy with people different from himself and his grasp of world history.

Second, although Kohl does not explicitly say this, the reader can be left with the impression that the world can be made a better place through widespread, progressive education alone. No doubt an important step, yet this overstates the value of education. Can a good education alone erase class divide? Of course not, we cannot all be CEOs, generals or powerful politicians (nor should we want to!) This is a task that will have to be taken up by the children themselves who refuse to accept manifestations of racism, sexism and class in the world they inherit. Their struggle will be more than just educational.

Parents, students, educators: Read this book, share it and draw inspiration from it in your own contest over the future of public education.