Education
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Books

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• Place-Based Education: Connecting Classrooms & Communities, by David Sobel -- "The most comprehensive review of place-based education – its pedagogy and its practice – yet to appear, by the author of the highly influential book Beyond Ecophobia. Through academic research, practical examples, and step-by-step strategies drawn from classrooms throughout the United States, Sobel celebrates teachers who emphasize the connection of school, community, and environment. Place-Based Education uses the local community and environment as the starting place for curriculum learning, strengthening community bonds, appreciation for the natural world, and a commitment to citizen engagement."
• In Schools We Trust: Creating Communities of Learning in an Era of Testing and Standardization, by Deborah Meier -- "schools must be smaller, more self-governed and places of choice, so kids and their families feel they are truly part of these communities of learning. Students need to spend more time around adults who are doing adult work, which builds familiarity, trust and respect, as well as exposure to new skills. Families also need to be brought into the mix, so they're comfortable with the school, the teachers and the educational agenda. Teachers need time and space to develop collegial relations with each other, both to improve educational practices and to model responsible critical behavior for students." quoted from Politics of Trust Network.
• Rethinking Schools -- a nationally prominent publisher of educational materials, with subscribers in all 50 states, all 10 Canadian provinces, and many other countries.
• UNBINDING PROMETHEUS: EDUCATION FOR THE COMING AGE by Donald Cowan, 1988. "The current task of education is not fitting people into a technological pattern so much as developing persons with sufficient imagination to devise and control the patterns." Not an easy book to find, but still available and valuable.
• THE CALL OF STORIES:TEACHING AND THE MORAL IMAGINATION by Robert Coles, 1989. How Coles used specific literary stories: "Coles at his wisest and best"--Walker Percy.
• POETIC JUSTICE:THE LITERARY IMAGINATION AND PUBLIC LIFE by Martha C. Nussbaum, 1995. "Nussbaum argues elegantly that the novel, by engaging our sympathy in the contemplation of lives different from ours, expands our imaginative capabilities so we may better make those judgements that public life demands of us." Kirkus. This book should help and inspire teachers.
• WISHES, LIES, AND DREAMS:TEACHING CHILDREN TO WRITE POETRY by Kenneth Koch, 1970. The classic on the subject, "portraying the joy and excitement young people experience when writing in a happy place where people care about their works."--Herbert Kohl

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