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
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