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Tag: children’s education

The Feel Good Curriculum

The Feel-Good Curriculum: The Dumbing-Down of America’s Kids in the Name of Self-Esteem

Written by AbleChild on . Posted in Essential Books.

In this book, author and education professor Maureen Stout gives a much-needed examination of some very significant changes that have taken place in the education system. These changes are the result of the self-esteem movement that seems to be taking over the school curriculums and other areas of culture as well. So many new trends and theories have been popping up that are all related to this movement, from emotional intelligence to Ebonics to Howard Gardner’s theories of multiple intelligences, which Stout examines in this book.

In The Feel-Good Curriculum: The Dumbing Down of America’s Kids in the Name of Self-Esteem, Stout delves into the history of how this self-esteem movement came to be, and why it’s ultimately detrimental to our children’s learning curve. She explains how schools have become more of a grounds for therapy than quality education nowadays, and condemns the styles in which the teachers have been trained to systematically push self-esteem in every area of their instruction to our children, from the school curriculum to the class environment. Stout explains how as a result of the self-esteem obsession, our children are underachieving and lacking true confidence that comes from actually putting in the work and earning the rewards.

Stout also offers practical solutions in The Feel Good Curriculum. She identifies four effects that stem from self-esteem’s infiltration of our school system: narcissism, emotivism, separatism, and cynicism. Then, Stout prescribes four concepts that should be used to replace these effects and restore our children’s education back to what it should be: a system that produces effective and strong adults that know the value of hard work, are aware of their strengths and weaknesses, and are prepared to contribute to the world in a meaningful way.

About the Author

Maureen Stout is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the California State University, Northridge. She resides in Los Angeles, and also wrote Teaching and Learning Outside the Box: Inspiring Imagination Across the Curriculum.

Reviews

Library Journal:

“A passionately argued and fluidly written attack on contemporary education philosophy.”

Dumbing Down Our Kids

Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves but Can’t Read, Write, Or Add

Written by AbleChild on . Posted in Essential Books.

In this book, author Charles J. Sykes addresses what he considers to be the problem with the high pedestal on which self-esteem has been placed in the education system, which sacrifices children’s ability to read, write, add, subtract and compute. He attributes this issue to the way teachers have been trained, and educational policies that have been developed. Sykes says that while today’s children feel good about their abilities, they are in reality much less capable than children from previous generations.

In Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can’t Read, Write, or Add, Sykes explains that the education system has a growing budget and taxpayers are paying more out of pocket for education. Yet, the quality of education is going down the tubes. Children are having to meet lower requirements for standardized testing, and the system is designed to make everyone pass, but it’s not designed to allow students to master any skills or abilities.

As time goes by, America’s children may have better self-esteem, but they are scoring lower and lower in international math and science tests. How are we to solve this problem, get our children back to focusing on their basic abilities, and restore quality education? Sykes lays out solutions and steps that parents and teachers and students can use to fix all of this.

About the Author

Charles J. Sykes is an accomplished author, editor and talk show host. Hailing from Wisconsin, he had a very highly rated talk show there. After stepping down in 2016 from his talk show, he became a contributor for NBC/MSNBC as well as contributing editor for The Weekly Standard. He has also hosted other podcasts and radio shows. Sykes has written for publications including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Politico, New York Review of Books, Newsweek and Time.com, and has made appearances on networks including ABC, PBS, CNN, Fox News, the BBC, and NPR.

Sykes also serves as a sitting member to organizations like Advisory Committee for the Democracy Fund and Knight Commission on Trust, Media, and Democracy. Other books Sykes has published include “A Nation of Victims,” “Profscam,” “The Hollow Men,” “The End of Privacy,” “50 Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School, “A Nation of Moochers,” “Fail U” and “How the Right Lost Its Mind,” which is an eye-opening analysis of Trump-era conservatism.

Reviews

The Boston Globe:

“This intelligent and devastating book…brings together every aspect of the current disaster…all in clear, well-researched detail.”

Cleveland Plain Dealer:

“A spirited call-to-arms…Sykes asks brave questions.”

Kirkus Review:

“A scathing critique that grabs America’s educational establishment by the scruff and shakes it…Parents and visionary educators, if not educrats, should sit up and take notice.”

Washington Post Book World:

“A very important book.”

conspiracy of ignorance

The Conspiracy of Ignorance: The Failure of American Public Schools

Written by AbleChild on . Posted in Essential Books.

Driven by data, statistics and thorough research, this powerful exposé of the American education system shows how teachers are purposely trained to be academically inferior, so their teaching will follow suit. Most of these teachers are even outscored on SAT tests by their own students that are about to go to college. This is an eye-opening and comprehensive testament to how poorly educated American students are becoming.

In The Conspiracy of Ignorance: The Failure of American Public Schools, author Martin Gross exposes how weakened school curriculums have become, with only one in five students taking trigonometry, physics or geography while in high school. He points out noticeable things like how when you drive around town, it seems every parent has a “My Child Made Honor Roll” sticker on their car, alluding to the lowering standards of education that awards every child a trophy. These lower standards of teaching have infiltrated our system thanks to establishment powers-that-be that have slowly nurtured a system designed to promote ignorance. So-called “remedies” the government offers to fix education, such as federal funding and smaller class sizes, are rendered useless because they do not even address the issue of government control and establishment ideals that are the crux of the problem.

Not only does The Conspiracy of Ignorance reveal how teaching has been designed to produce low performing, poorly educated students, author Martin Gross also gives detailed instructions on how to fix the problem. He outlines what can be done to increase public awareness of this issue and see to it our children receive a level of education that will allow them to contribute to society and give them a fighting chance for the successful, happy and healthy life that they deserve.

About the Author

Martin L. Gross has written dozens of books around topics like psychiatry, psychotherapy, the medical care system, government spending and taxation. Several of his books became New York Times bestsellers, including The Government Racket: Washington Waste from A to Z, A Call for Revolution, The End of Sanity, The Medical Racket and The Conspiracy of Ignorance. Before all of this, Gross, who has also written novels, was a newspaper reporter and magazine editor. Gross has testified before Congress five times, and though he was an active Democrat in the 1950s and 1960s, he has most frequently been a guest on conservative television and radio shows. Gross’s books were very popular in the 1990s and enjoyed a revival after the Tea Party was born. He has also been a member of the faculty of The New School for Social Research and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Social Science at New York University. He passed away August 21, 2013, and is survived by his two daughters and two grandchildren.

Reviews

Booklist:

“Longtime institutional critic Martin Gross is always fluent, persuasive and uncranky. Now, in one of his best books, he takes aim at the public schools.”

Underground History of American Education

The Underground History of American Education

Written by AbleChild on . Posted in Essential Books.

John Taylor Gatto shines once again in this exposé of the true history of American education, i.e., not the version of history that the government and media have led you to believe. He reveals where the concepts and ideas that rule contemporary education truly originated. In the book, Gatto explains how most teachers and school staff may believe they are contributing to the good of their students and do not intend on making their students dumber. However, these teachers are caught in a faulty system that is designed to make individuals easily controlled by the government and corporate entities. Basically, the education system is designed to create mindless, obedient consumers who won’t question government authority or fight corporate power.

In The Underground History of American Education, Gatto pleads for less restraint of the individuality and critical thinking of students in the school system. He shows how deeply embedded these toxic ideas are that have infiltrated the school system we know today. By going back through history and connecting the dots and giving examples and revealing ideas from leaders that have been strategically hidden, Gatto helps the reader to truly understand what is wrong with our schools.

About the Author

John Taylor Gatto was born in on December 15, 1935, in Monongahela, Pennsylvania. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as Cornell and Columbia in New York. Gatto then served in the U.S. Army medical corps at Fort Knox, Kentucky and Fort Houston, Texas. After his military service, Gatto completed graduate work at the City University of New York, Hunter College, Yeshiva, the University of California, and Cornell.

Before and during Gatto’s teaching career, he served in various other occupations, many of which involved writing. He wrote scripts for the film business, wrote for advertising, was an ASCAP songwriter, and eventually founded Lava Mt. Records, which is an award-winning documentary record producer. Gatto’s record company has completed a variety of big-name projects, including presentations of speeches from Richard M. Nixon and Spiro Agnew.

Gatto’s teaching career garnered him quite a few awards. He was named New York City Teacher of the Year three times, and then held the title of New York State Teacher of the Year. After leaving his teaching career after 30 years, telling the Wall Street Journal that he was “no longer willing to hurt children,” he moved on to become a much-sought-after public speaker on the topic of school reform. His speaking engagements took him across all 50 states in the U.S., and to seven foreign countries.

Gatto had also recieved other awards, such as the Alexis de Tocqueville Award for his contributions to the cause of liberty. From 1996 on, he has been included in the Who’s Who in America. He has authored a handful of other books, including A Different Kind of Teacher and Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling.

Gatto passed away on October 25, 2018. His obituary on the website for the Foundation for Economic Education stated that after three decades in the classroom, “Gatto dedicated the rest of his life to repairing the damage done by the public education system.”

Reviews

Archive.org:

“The book is absolutely riveting, and the country would be better off if more citizens read it and demanded real change to the system. Gatto’s book deserves five stars because it dares to speak the truth.”

 

A Different Kind of Teacher

A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling

Written by AbleChild on . Posted in Essential Books.

This collection of essays from educational liberty advocate John Taylor Gatto examines how the  education system that we know today was created to advance government and corporate interests. In the book, Gatto explains how the contemporary education system is designed to train individuals against critical thinking, leading them to accept whatever is told to them by the government or media without taking further steps to investigate if it’s true or logical. Gatto says this is the result of conditioning of the mind that comes from compulsory schooling.

Gatto points out in the book how education used to be very different, and how before compulsory schooling was used, children were much more literate. In A Different Kind of Teacher, Gatto examines the difference between private and public (aka government-operated) education. Not only does Gatto examine the problems with contemporary public education in the book, however, he also lays out a plan of action for individuals and communities to change the system to one that doesn’t cater to government and economic interests. He encourages critical thinking on the individual level, and calls for changes made in the school system at the local level.

About the Author

John Taylor Gatto was born in on December 15, 1935, in Monongahela, Pennsylvania. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as Cornell and Columbia in New York. Gatto then served in the U.S. Army medical corps at Fort Knox, Kentucky and Fort Houston, Texas. After his military service, Gatto completed graduate work at the City University of New York, Hunter College, Yeshiva, the University of California, and Cornell.

Before and during Gatto’s teaching career, he served in various other occupations, many of which involved writing. He wrote scripts for the film business, wrote for advertising, was an ASCAP songwriter, and eventually founded Lava Mt. Records, which is an award-winning documentary record producer. Gatto’s record company has completed a variety of big-name projects, including presentations of speeches from Richard M. Nixon and Spiro Agnew.

Gatto’s teaching career garnered him quite a few awards. He was named New York City Teacher of the Year three times, and then held the title of New York State Teacher of the Year. After leaving his teaching career after 30 years, telling the Wall Street Journal that he was “no longer willing to hurt children,” he moved on to become a much-sought-after public speaker on the topic of school reform. His speaking engagements took him across all 50 states in the U.S., and to seven foreign countries.

Gatto had also recieved other awards, such as the Alexis de Tocqueville Award for his contributions to the cause of liberty. From 1996 on, he has been included in the Who’s Who in America. He has authored a handful of other books, including Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling and The Underground History of American Education.

Gatto passed away on October 25, 2018. His obituary on the website for the Foundation for Economic Education stated that after three decades in the classroom, “Gatto dedicated the rest of his life to repairing the damage done by the public education system.”

Reviews

The New Agora Magazine:

“Each of one of us is inherently responsible for our own continuing education. When we pass that responsibility to the state, such as John Taylor Gatto has showed, we come to terms with the desolate fact of the public schooling system’s cataclysmic decline.”

exhausted school

The Exhausted School: Bending the Bars of Traditional Education

Written by AbleChild on . Posted in Essential Books.

Another genius work from John Taylor Gatto, making a strong case for educational liberty. The book is a collection of thirteen essays written by award-winning teachers and their students, which were presented at the 1993 National Grassroots Speakout on the Right to School Choice. The essays outline how the reforms being made to the educational system actually work, and what kind of impact they are likely to have. Also included in the essays are successful teaching methods which can be used in both traditional and non-traditional classroom settings.

In the book, Gatto, who is a huge proponent for strengthening the role of family in a child’s life, warns against potentially harmful school reforms such as creating longer school days to relieve parents of the “burden” of their child. Another possible reform that Gatto warns against in the book is getting rid of summer holidays and keeping schools open year-round. In The Exhausted School, Gatto stands up against the conformity and systematization that the contemporary school system is trying to force upon students which removes individuality and damages the family.

About the Author

John Taylor Gatto was born in on December 15, 1935, in Monongahela, Pennsylvania. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as Cornell and Columbia in New York. Gatto then served in the U.S. Army medical corps at Fort Knox, Kentucky and Fort Houston, Texas. After his military service, Gatto completed graduate work at the City University of New York, Hunter College, Yeshiva, the University of California, and Cornell.

Before and during Gatto’s teaching career, he served in various other occupations, many of which involved writing. He wrote scripts for the film business, wrote for advertising, was an ASCAP songwriter, and eventually founded Lava Mt. Records, which is an award-winning documentary record producer. Gatto’s record company has completed a variety of big-name projects, including presentations of speeches from Richard M. Nixon and Spiro Agnew.

Gatto’s teaching career garnered him quite a few awards. He was named New York City Teacher of the Year three times, and then held the title of New York State Teacher of the Year. After leaving his teaching career after 30 years, telling the Wall Street Journal that he was “no longer willing to hurt children,” he moved on to become a much-sought-after public speaker on the topic of school reform. His speaking engagements took him across all 50 states in the U.S., and to seven foreign countries.

Gatto had also recieved other awards, such as the Alexis de Tocqueville Award for his contributions to the cause of liberty. From 1996 on, he has been included in the Who’s Who in America. He has authored a handful of other books, including A Different Kind of Teacher and The Underground History of American Education.

Gatto passed away on October 25, 2018. His obituary on the website for the Foundation for Economic Education stated that after three decades in the classroom, “Gatto dedicated the rest of his life to repairing the damage done by the public education system.”

Reviews

Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul:

“Gatto’s voice is strong and unique.”

waldorf education

Understanding Waldorf Education: Teaching from the Inside Out

Written by AbleChild on . Posted in Essential Books.

This book by Jack Petrash, who has over 25 years of teaching experience, provides an in-depth yet easy-t0-comprehend guide to Waldorf education. The concept for Waldorf education was created by Rudolf Steiner, and Waldorf schools have been around since 1919. But mainstream education appears to be moving away from the three-dimensional approach that Waldorf encourages (artistic, physical and academic) and putting more focus instead on things like standardized testing and other external symbols of achievement.

Waldorf education encourages the development of the whole child, not just for their career or next level of education, but so they can give their own life direction and be economically and socially responsible. Some other important concepts taught through the Waldorf method include learning to separate emotion from action, learning to combine feelings with thinking (which results in idealism), self-discipline, and not specializing too early. Waldorf education also advises against introducing children to technology too early, without first allowing them to become accustomed to the world without it.  Waldorf education encourages children to “try some of everything” in the early years of their education and become well-rounded. Learning through imitation and leading by example is highly encouraged with Waldorf education, instead of simply instructing children what to do and hoping they follow suit.

One of the main principles of Waldorf education is to follow the rhythm of the learning of the child, and to try to align education based on where the child’s interests lie at any given stage of their life. Also, in Waldorf schools a particular class has the same teacher as their main instructor from first through eighth grade. This process is called “looping.” Also, with Waldorf education, grade school students make their own readers in bound books starting in first grade, and create their own textbooks and workbooks as well throughout grade school and high school. These concepts and more are covered in Understanding Waldorf Education: Teaching from the Inside Out.

About the Author

Reviews

Eric Utne, founder of the Utne Reader:

“Jack Petrash’s eloquent, wise, and deeply moving book gives me a new found appreciation for Waldorf education. Even though I have been a Waldorf parent for nearly twenty-five years and a Waldorf teacher for nearly two years, I found Petrash’s explanation of the curriculum’s three-fold approach fresh and illuminating. Whether you are a parent, an educator, a policy maker, or simply a person interested in human growth and learning, read this book. You will learn how relevant education through the “head, heart, and hands” can be for our children and for the future we hope to create.”

About the Author

Jack Petrash is an educator with over 40 years of experience in the classroom. He has written a considerable amount of insightful information on education and parenting. His other books include Covering Home: Lessons on the Art of Fathering from Baseball and Navigating the Terrain of Childhood: A Guidebook for Meaningful Parenting and Heartfelt Discipline. Petrash is also the founder and director of the Nova Institute, which encourages the convergence of Steiner-Waldorf education and mainstream education. He currently resides in Kensington, Maryland.

children's education

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, 25th Anniversary Edition

Written by AbleChild on . Posted in Essential Books.

With over 100 years of mandatory schooling behind us now, we have seen the progression of issues such as illiteracy and learning disabilities in our children. Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, which is John Taylor Gatto’s radical treatise on how the formal education system is damaging our children and families, is a true eye-opener. This New Society Publisher’s bestseller was originally published in 1992, had a 10th anniversary edition published in 2002, and the most recent 25th anniversary edition was printed in 2017, with a foreword from Zachary Stayback, who is an Ivy League dropout and cofounder of tech startup career foundry Praxis.

Gatto, who spent 30 years teaching in the public school system before writing this book, is an advocate for education being central to the family, instead of being used to separate children from their families. In the book, Gatto makes a strong case that effective education should promote individuality and privacy instead of conformity. Gatto is an advocate for home schooling, and points out how back in the 1800s children’s skill levels were developed much earlier than they are now, and far beyond what our school systems consider acceptable nowadays. The book also introduces the idea that genius is a very common quality that is being suppressed in our society, and we have been made to believe that genius is a rarity.

Dumbing Us Down, which opens with a speech given by Gatto in 1991 when he was named “Teacher of the Year,” is known to be a fairly easy read. In the book, Gatto explains how the modern public school system is driving out the natural curiosity and problem-solving skills children are born with, and replacing it with rule-following, fragmented time, and disillusionment. Gatto encourages children to be their own teachers and in charge of designing their own education. And he makes a strong case for why the mass education system that has developed in America does not support democracy or any of the values the United States was taught as a result of the American Revolution.

While Gatto explains how the school system itself is setting children up for failure, he also believes there are many humane and caring teachers in our schools that are just caught in a faulty system. Another key takeaway from this extremely valuable and timeless text is Gatto’s concept that “the teaching function, in a healthy community, belongs to everyone,” and that we should not just be looking to education professionals to define “good teaching.”

About the Author

John Taylor Gatto was born in on December 15, 1935, in Monongahela, Pennsylvania. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as Cornell and Columbia in New York. Gatto then served in the U.S. Army medical corps at Fort Knox, Kentucky and Fort Houston, Texas. After his military service, Gatto completed graduate work at the City University of New York, Hunter College, Yeshiva, the University of California, and Cornell.

Before and during Gatto’s teaching career, he served in various other occupations, many of which involved writing. He wrote scripts for the film business, wrote for advertising, was an ASCAP songwriter, and eventually founded Lava Mt. Records, which is an award-winning documentary record producer. Gatto’s record company has completed a variety of big-name projects, including presentations of speeches from Richard M. Nixon and Spiro Agnew.

Gatto’s teaching career garnered him quite a few awards. He was named New York City Teacher of the Year three times, and then held the title of New York State Teacher of the Year. After leaving his teaching career after 30 years, telling the Wall Street Journal that he was “no longer willing to hurt children,” he moved on to become a much-sought-after public speaker on the topic of school reform. His speaking engagements took him across all 50 states in the U.S., and to seven foreign countries.

Gatto had also recieved other awards, such as the Alexis de Tocqueville Award for his contributions to the cause of liberty. From 1996 on, he has been included in the Who’s Who in America. He has authored a handful of other books, including A Different Kind of Teacher and The Underground History of American Education.

Gatto passed away on October 25, 2018. His obituary on the website for the Foundation for Economic Education stated that after three decades in the classroom, “Gatto dedicated the rest of his life to repairing the damage done by the public education system.”

 

Reviews

Meryn Callander, author and co-founder of the Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Children:

“Gatto presents a credible case for his belief that school is an essential support system for a model of social engineering that condemns most people to be subordinate stones in a pyramidal social order, even though such a premise is a fundamental betrayal of the American Revolution.”