Rethinking School: How to Take Charge of Your Child's Education - Softcover

Bauer, Susan Wise

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393356841 ISBN 13: 9780393356847

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019

Synopsis

“If you read only one book on educating children, this should be the book.… With a warm, informative voice, Bauer gives you the knowledge that will help you flex the educational model to meet the needs of your child.” ―San Francisco Book Review

Our K–12 school system isn’t a good fit for all―or even most―students. It prioritizes a single way of understanding the world over all others, pushes children into a rigid set of grades with little regard for individual maturity, and slaps “disability” labels on differences in learning style. Caught in this system, far too many young learners end up discouraged.

This informed, compassionate, and practical guidebook will show you how to take control of your child’s K–12 experience and negotiate the school system in a way that nurtures your child’s mind, emotions, and spirit.

• Understand why we have twelve grades, and why we match them to ages.
• Evaluate your child’s maturity, and determine how to use that knowledge to your advantage.
• Find out what subject areas we study in school, why they exist―and how to tinker with them.
• Discover what learning disabilities and intellectual giftedness are, how they can overlap, how to recognize them, and how those labels can help (or hinder) you.
• Work effectively with your child’s teachers, tutors, and coaches.
• Learn to teach important subjects yourself.
• Challenge accepted ideas about homework and standardized testing.
• Help your child develop a vision for the future.
• Reclaim your families’ priorities (including time for eating together, playing, imagining, traveling, and, yes, sleeping!).
• Plan for college―or apprenticeships.
• Consider out-of-the-box alternatives.

About this title

About the Author

Susan Wise Bauer is a writer, educator, and historian. Her previous books include the Writing With Ease, Writing With Skill, and Story of the World series from Well-Trained Mind Press, as well as The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had, Rethinking School, The Story of Western Science: From the Writings of Aristotle to the Big Bang Theory, and the History of the World series, all from W. W. Norton. She has a Ph.D. in American Studies from the College of William & Mary in Virginia, as well as an M.A. in seventeenth-century literature and a Master of Divinity in Ancient Near Eastern Languages and Literature. For fifteen years, she taught literature and composition at the College of William and Mary.

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393356841
• ISBN 13: 9780393356847
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288