Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed-Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students - Softcover

Pope, Denise Clark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300098332 ISBN 13: 9780300098334

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2003

Synopsis

A revealing look at where high schoolers’ pursuit of excellence can lead
 
This book offers a revealing—and troubling—view of today’s high school students and the ways they pursue high grades and success. Veteran teacher Denise Pope follows five highly regarded students through a school year and discovers that these young people believe getting ahead requires manipulating the system, scheming, lying, and cheating. On the one hand, they work hard in school, participate in extracurricular activities, serve their communities, earn awards and honors, and appear to uphold school values. But on the other hand, they feel that in order to get ahead they must compromise their values. In short, they “do school”—that is, they are not really engaged with learning nor can they commit to such values as integrity and community.
 
The words and actions of these five students—two boys and three girls from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds—underscore the frustrations of being caught in a “grade trap” that pins future success to high grades and test scores. Their stories raise critical questions that are too important for parents, educators, and community leaders to ignore. Are schools cultivating an environment that promotes intellectual curiosity, cooperation, and integrity? Or are they fostering anxiety, deception, and hostility? Do today’s schools inadvertently impede the very values they claim to embrace? Is the “success” that current assessment practices measure the kind of success we want for our children?

About this title

About the Author

Denise Pope is a lecturer at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education.

From the Inside Flap

"A troubling portrait of the deeply embedded and corrosive attitudes and expectations that students encounter even in America s most favored elite secondary schools." Theodore R. Sizer, Brown University; "The book raises disturbing questions about the kind of high standards we are pushing for in our schools. It should inform any discussion of what it means to be an educated person in the 21st century." Edward B. Fiske, former Education Editor of the New York Times

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300098332
• ISBN 13: 9780300098334
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240