Too many students experience school as a place to put in time . . . and view their lives within school walls as distinctly different from their lives at home and in their community. Too many educators seem to share that point of view and focus more on lists of standards than the students they are supposed to serve. This book is about how we might blur the distinctions between “school life” and “real life,” between learning and teaching, between learning well and living well. It’s for anyone who has ever asked • When did we decide test scores were more important than understanding? • When did we accept the image of teachers as mere implementers of state curricula? • When did we accept the idea that schools are places where no one has to think too hard? This book is a rallying cry to our true educational mission. It’s an assertion that we can have the schools we really want if we’re bold enough to look beyond the myths of what a good school is, and instead, work to facilitate intellectual, ethical, and aesthetic growth in our students and ourselves. Author Jacqueline Grennon Brooks goes inside the classroom to share the experiences of teachers, parents, and students and to present contrasting examples of schooling that honors the complexity of learning and life and schooling that ignores it. It’s a journey that will inspire the reexamination of practices and the revitalization of schools.
