SuperHeroBooks - Teaching To Change The World
|
List Price:
Our Price: $24.65
Your Save: $ ( % )
Availability: Usually ships in 7 to 13 days
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
|
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 371.010973
EAN: 9780072407389
ISBN: 0072407387
Label: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 496
Publication Date: 2002-08-14
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
Studio: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: Teaching to Change the World
Comment: I bought this book for a class ... because I had to. Boy am I glad that I "had to". It is a wonderful book and one that every future teacher should read. It's an easy read, with tons of information that anyone going in to teaching should know to teach in America's culturally diverse society. I highly reccommend it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Naive and oversimplified
Comment: The sad thing is, this facile relativism is being perpetrated on a new generation of teachers who, I fear, will think it is the last word intellectually. Throughout this book there is the smug certainty that the postmodernists have advanced beyond silly mistakes, like believing in truth, that afflicted the poor benighted thinkers of the past. The writers set up false dichotomies and straw men, such as the naive view that if one thinks that a text has a meaning to be discovered in it, then one must think that that meaning must be precisely what the author intended (1999 ed., p. 130). Throughout all of this there are some good insights, such as that "the tension of 'not knowing'" is "a productive and necessary element of learning" (p. 71). But many of these ideas owe to Piaget or the constructivism of Jerome Bruner, and there is no need to lump such ideas together with the authors' "postmodernist" doctrine. While the authors pursue their agenda of "social justice," and their readers hop on the bandwagon, are our children in fact getting a well-rounded, intellectually rich education?
Customer Rating:
Summary: A fascinating introduction to constructivism
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: interesting
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Depending on your political persuasion
Comment: "It is neither honest nor objective to describe popular teaching practices in a neutral manner if they do not stand up to the standards of social justice or education research. We do not believe that the world is a neutral place or that teaching is a neutral profession." Introduction to Teaching, etc.Be forwarned that this is not a textbook that even tries to be objective about the history of teaching and learning. It is vehemently anti-traditionalist, and glowingly pro-constructivist.
For traditionalists or people looking for a balanced view of the history of American schooling, this work rates 1 star.
For constructivists or marxists this would be a 5 star.
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
