The Discipline of Hope: Learning from a Lifetime of Teaching - Softcover

Kohl, Herbert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 156584632X ISBN 13: 9781565846326

Publisher: The New Press, 2000

Synopsis

The Discipline of Hope chronicles veteran educator Herb Kohl’s love affair with teaching since his first encounter forty years ago, chronicled in his now-classic 36 Children. Beginning with his years in New York public schools and continuing throughout his four decades of working with students from kindergarten through college across the country, Kohl has been an ardent advocate of the notion that every student can learn and every teacher must find creative ways to facilitate that learning. In The Discipline of Hope he distills the major lessons of an attentive lifetime in the classroom.

About this title

Review

This is a sort of Man's Search for Meaning for educators. Why teach when America's educational system is in shambles and the students would rather scribble graffiti than learn how to write persuasive essays? Kohl, author of more than 40 books (including the classic chronicle of inner-city schools, 36 Children), offers provocative reasons in this retrospective of his decades as an innovative teacher of all grades, from kindergarten to college-level.

Kohl doesn't sugarcoat his career; he acknowledges his missteps. But he focuses on the core of his teaching style: he triumphantly looks to his students for inspiration. Kohl also forms his curriculums with his students, not for them: he included street theater and poetry writing in an alternative storefront classroom in Berkeley, California, in the 1960s, and convinced an elementary school to serve in its cafeteria the produce grown in a student-cultivated garden. Although his students were disrupted by the Vietnam War, by poverty, and by the civil rights movement, he formed lasting bonds with them--some children whom he taught in kindergarten reappear in his college lecture halls. This is a book for both freshly certified teachers and veterans, as Kohl reassuringly illustrates that through the faith and creativity of teachers, the spirit and love of learning will emerge in students.

About the Author

Herbert Kohl is a celebrated writer, teacher, and advocate. He is the author of more than forty books, including “I Won’t Learn from You”: And Other Thoughts on Creative Maladjustment, Should We Burn Babar?: Essays on Children’s Literature and the Power of Stories, The Discipline of Hope: Learning from a Lifetime of Teaching, Stupidity and Tears: Teaching and Learning in Troubled Times, She Would Not Be Moved: How We Tell the Story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and The Herb Kohl Reader: Awakening the Heart of Teaching (all published by The New Press), as well as the bestselling classic 36 Children. He is a co-author, with Judith Kohl, of The View from the Oak: The Private Worlds of Other Creatures and a co-editor, with Tom Oppenheim, of The Muses Go to School: Inspiring Stories About the Importance of Arts in Education, both published by The New Press. A recipient of a National Book Award and a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, he was the founder and first director of the Teachers and Writers Collaborative in New York City, has served as a senior fellow at the Open Society Institute, and established the PEN West Center. In 2010, Kohl was named a Guggenheim Fellow in education. He lives in Point Arena, California.

Edition details

• Publisher: The New Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 156584632X
• ISBN 13: 9781565846326
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352