To what extent can we expect students to teach themselves? Is the elimination of homework the first step or are certain parameters, guidelines and even major systemic change needed first?

Beyond Measure is a strong source on this.

Rick Walker, MA Trinity College, BA Fordham College

These are some nonfiction books from my shelf.  Some I often recommend to students who are doing research. 

100 Books that Changed the Worlds, by Scott Christianson and Colin Salter

The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr

Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole, by Benjamin Barber

The Coming Global Superstorm, by Art Bell, Whitley Streiber

Leisure the Basis of Culture, by Josef Pieper

Common Sense, by Thomas Paine

The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization, by Peter M. Senge

How to Read and Why, by Harold Bloom

The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World, by Jeremy Rifkin

The Elements of Style, by William Strunk and E.B. White

The Uses of Enchantment, by Bruno Bettelheim

On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction, by William Zinsser

Writing to Learn: How to Write – And Think – Clearly About Any Subject At All, by William Zinsser

The Spirit of Zen: A way of life, work, and art in the far east, by Alan Watts

The Phenomenon of Man, by Teilhard de Chardin

The Divine Milieu, by Teilhard de Chardin

Teilhard de Chardin: The Man and His Meaning, by Henri De Lubac

The New SuperLeadership: Leading Others to Lead Themselves, by Charles Manz, Henry Sims

Tough Choices OR Tough Times: The Report of the new Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce.  National Center on Education and the Economy

Making Professional Development Schools Work: Politics, Practice and Policy, by Marsha Levine, Roberta Trachtman (Editors)

An American Imperative: Higher Expectations for Higher Education: An Open Letter to Those Concerned about the American Future. The Wingspread Group on Higher Education

Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters, by Michael S. Roth

Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell

David and Goliath, by Malcolm Gladwell

Mindset: The New Psychology Of Success, by Carol Dweck

Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea and The Deep Origins of Consciousness, by Peter Godfrey-Smith

The Story of Ethics: Fulfilling Our Human Nature, by Kelly Clark, Anne Poortenga

The Social Conquest of Earth, by Edward O. Wilson

The Universe and Dr. Einstein: The Clearest, Most Readable Book on Einstein’s Theories Ever Published, by Lincoln Barnett (Foreword by Albert Einstein)

The Great Work: Our Way into the Future, by Thomas Berry

The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos: Humanity and the New Story, by Brian Swimme

The Dancing Universe: From Creation Myths to the Big Bang, by Marcelo Gleiser

Global Paradox, John Naisbitt

The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation into the Prison of Modern Schooling, by John Taylor Gatto (signed copy)

A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling, by John Taylor Gatto

Childhood Lost: How American Culture is Failing Our Kids, Edited by Sharna Olfman

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv

Horace’s Hope: What Works for the American High School, by Theodore Sizer

Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform, by Diane Ravitch

The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need – And What we Can Do About It, by Tony Wagner

Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools, by Jonathan Kozol

The Age of American Unreason in a Culture of Lies, by Susan Jacoby

The Knowledge Deficit: Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American Children, by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.

The Closing of the American Mind, by Allan Bloom

Ask The Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love, by Elizabeth A. Johnson

Evolutionary Faith: Rediscovering God in Our Great Story, by Diarmuid O’Murchu

Brave New World Revisited, by Aldous Huxley

The Doors Of Perception Includes Heaven and Hell, by Aldous Huxley

George Orwell Into the Twenty-First Century, Edited by Thomas Cushman and John Rodden

A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, by Yuval Noah Harari