“Faces of Learning”--a new book and its significance

Amazon.com ^ | April 5, 2011 | Bruce Deitrick Price

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

Bottom line, if you want to give a gift to a teacher, this book is a good option. It’s also a good choice for anyone with a general interest in improving education.

“Faces of Learning” consists of statements by 50 teachers, thinkers, and community leaders. It is a buffet of opinions and personal anecdotes. The book, published by Wiley, was put together by Sam Chaltain, an education crusader. You can read about Sam and his activities on facesoflearning.net.

“Faces of Learning” indicates an important trend--individual citizens trying to reform public education from the outside.

My take on the Education Establishment is that these people are drunk on ideology. They lurch from one bad idea to the next, and we can’t expect them to fix the mess they have created. But when public opinion turns decisively against this or that fad, the Education Establishment does retreat.

So I urge everyone to find a crusade they like and support it, or start your own.

Center for Education Reform, run by Jeanne Allen, sends out intelligent press releases in support of school choice (edreform.com). Michelle Rhee, after leaving the Washington, DC school system, started a site called StudentsFirst.org, which is trying to mobilize public opinion for her ideas on reform. Sam Chaltain’s own crusade is mainstream, and seeking to forge a new consensus. Point is, there are many crusaders out there; and probably one is compatible with your own instincts.

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As much as I applaud all these people for trying to improve the country’s schools, I find myself with one reservation. Most of them are very much concerned with making policy recommendations -- about school size, salaries, accountability, testing, etc. I suspect that in many cases these issues are not central. You could raise salaries, or decrease salaries, and end up with the exact same results. I also suspect that the Education Establishment enjoys seeing everyone wasting their time on complex disputes that don’t go anywhere!

So my own interest is in the ideas behind the policies. For example, why exactly don’t the bad methods work? Why did the Education Establishment push for their use? I feel that if we can understand the underlying forces and flaws, we can more aggressively root out these bad ideas. That’s the sort of crusading I do on Improve-Education.org.

I am, by the way, in Sam Chaltain’s book, much to my surprise. I submitted a short, contrarian statement indirectly rejecting the notion of “learning styles.” This theory is a big fad now in the public schools, so I think it speaks well of Sam Chaltain that he put me in his book.)

Bruce Deitrick Price
Improve-Education.org