Jul 6, 2016

BOOK: Schools on Trial



Again, I'm not going to review this book. As a teacher, I read books like this to understand Education outside of my classroom. If it speaks to me, I like to post something about it.

From Knopf Doubleday...
Schools on Trial is an all-in attack on the American way of education and a hopeful blueprint for change by one of the most passionate and certainly youngest writers on this subject.
In faculty meetings and over lunch, teachers don't spend too much time talking about the origins of compulsory school, No Child Left Behind, and Race to the Top. We do talk about our struggles in the classroom and our frustrations with the system. Mr. Goyal shows us the connection. Although he explains it from a recent-graduate's point-of-view, with the frustration of school fresh on his mind, I can't help but look at this through teacher-colored glasses.
If schools were actually places of joy, freedom, engagement, and inquiry, you would think that children would want to go to them even if they weren't compulsory (52).
Good gravy, that's convicting. While Mr. Goyal writes of philosophical and systemic change, I use his book to spur a change in my own classroom. I keep telling people: I don't believe my job is to teach a list of objectives and prepare students for a test--it's to strengthen a love of learning in my students. It's what I can do right now.