I Won't Learn from You: And Other Thoughts on Creative Maladjustment - Hardcover

Kohl, Herbert R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 156584095X ISBN 13: 9781565840959

Publisher: New Pr, 1994

Synopsis

"I Won't Learn from You," Herb Kohl's classic essay on "not learning," or refusing to learn, is now available in book form, together with four new essays. Drawing on an idea of Martin Luther King Jr.'s, Kohl talks about the need for "creative maladjustment" in the classroom and indeed anywhere else that students' intelligence, dignity, or integrity are compromised by a teacher, an institution, or a larger social mindset. This volume also includes 'The Tattooed Man," Kohl's autobiographical essay about "hopemongering," which Kohl finds essential for all effective teaching in these difficult times.

About this title

About the Author:

Herb Kohl is one of the country's leading educators and the author of a range of koos, including 36 Children; Reading: How To; The Open Classroom; and Growing Minds. He is currently director of the Coastal Ridge Research and Education Center in Point Arena, California.

From Kirkus Reviews:

The five essays in this book are powerful reminders that currently popular ideas of school choice may be only another trendy veneer disguising the deeply rooted problems of public education. Teacher Kohl (From Archetype to Zeitgeist, 1992, etc.) is an ardent spokesman on behalf of students, the people most neglected in debates about failures in the classrooms. The title essay explores the provocative idea that ``not-learning'' is a conscious choice made by children who observe, sometimes very early, that the school system is trying to impose on them values and behavior that are foreign and sometimes repugnant to them. Diagnosed as learning- disabled, stupid, or disciplinary problems, children who appear not to be able to learn to read or do math may simply have opted out of the system, choosing instead to put their intelligence and creativity to work outside school. In ``The Tattooed Man,'' he asserts that, before anything else can be accomplished, teachers must challenge the hopelessness felt by students. The ``norming of excellence'' and political correctness are the subjects of two other essays, accompanied by a devastating critique of E.D. Hirsch, Jr.'s Cultural Literacy and Core Knowledge series. Kohl attacks Hirsch's material as not only racist and sexist, but ``pernicious, stupid, and dangerous.'' Martin Luther King, Jr.'s call to be ``maladjusted'' to injustice and inequity is the theme of the last essay. ``Creative maladjustment'' consists of ``learning to survive with minimal moral and personal compromise in a thoroughly compromised world,'' says Kohl. In such a world, he argues, the failure of schools and teachers is often pinned on children--by diagnosing them with Attention Deficit Disorder, for example. He challenges teachers to take action by, for instance, refusing to turn such children over to special education classes. Some anecdotes and examples are repeated from earlier works, but this is must reading for Kohl fanciers and anyone looking for the humanity buried in the long debate about why Johnny can't read. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: New Pr
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 156584095X
• ISBN 13: 9781565840959
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 153