The following readings represent the sources for the ideas underlying this course. Amazon.com or Half.com are two good ways to order your own copies of any of these books.

A Teacher's Journey

  1. To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher by William Ayers (Teachers College Press, 2001) -- Sage and freeing advice
  2. The Teacher's Journey: Making Dynamic Learning Possible by Williamson and Smith (The Learning Initiative) -- A Guidebook version of workshop series
  3. Keeping the Light in Your Eyes by Hurst and Reding (Holcomb Hathaway, 1999) -- Helping teachers discover, remember, relive and rediscover the joy of teaching
  4. The Hero's Journey: How Educators Can Transform Schools and Improve Learning by Brown and Moffett (ASCD 1999) -- Available online HERE
  5. Improving Schools from Within by Roland S. Barth (Jossey-Bass, 1990)
  6. Learning By Heart by Roland S. Barth (Jossey-Bass, 2001)
  7. The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker (Free Press, 1997) -- Pulitzer Prize winning, extremely stimulating and comprehensive survey of man(un)kind's struggle with mortality; makes sense of denial woven in both our work and our personal lives
  8. Escape from Evil by Ernest Becker (Free Press, 1998) How man's impossible hopes and desires have heaped evil in the world--a profound post-Freudian theory of history, easier to read than The Denial of Death
  9. Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History by Norman O. Brown (Vintage, 1959) -- Excellent post-Freudian exploration of meaning and the role that Money plays in our lives
  10. The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels (Random House, 1995) -- Groundbreaking work showing the origins of dualistic thinking in the defense of early Christians against internal and external threat
  11. The Art of Living Consciously: The Power of Awareness to Transform Everyday Life by Nathaniel Branden (Simon & Schuster, 1997) -- Remarkable insights and techniques from a giant in the field of self-esteem
  12. Feel the Fear And Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers (Fawcett, 1993) -- "the only thing to fear..." and this book talks you into facing the fear that blocks you.
  13. Light on the Web: Essentials to Make the 'Net Work for You by Wendy G. Lehnert (Addison Wesley Longman, 2002) -- All you need to develop web pages and courses for students!
  14. White Teacher by Vivian Gussin Paley (Harvard University Press, 1979) -- A moving personal account of a teacher's learning from working with diverse kindergarteners
  15. Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom by Lisa Delpit (The New Press, 1995) -- Most teachers are white, while a growing number of students are not; this book explores the implications with powerful effect.

    Best Practices/Schools of Hope

    1. Best Practice: New Standards for Teaching and Learning in America's Schools by Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde (Heinemann, 1998) -- Summary of reforms and research in six content areas
    2. Schools of Hope: Developing Mind and Character in Today's Youth by Douglas H. Heath (Jossey-Bass, 1994)
    3. Morale, Culture, and Character: Assessing Schools of Hope by Douglas H. Heath (Conrow, 1999) -- Groundbreaking assessment work in human, not just academic, greatness
    4. Redesigning Education: A Guide for Developing Human Greatness by Lynn Stoddard (Zephyr Press, 1992) -- Brief awesome guidebook
    5. Horace's School: Redesigning the American High School by Ted Sizer (Houghton Mifflin, 1992) -- Pioneer of small schools and essential schools movement
    6. The Power of Their Ideas:Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem by Deborah Meier (Beacon, 1995)
    7. Schools That Learn: A Fifth Discipline Fieldbook for Educators, Parents, and Everyone Who Cares About Education by Peter Senge, et al. (Doubleday, 2000)
    8. The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations by Peter Senge, et al. (Doubleday, 1999) -- The MIT Fifth Discipline team weighs in with two big and resource rich books for educators
    9. What's Worth Teaching? Selecting, Organizing, and Integrating Knowledge by Marion Brady (Books for Educators, 1989) -- Stimulating, outside-the-box thinking
    10. Designing & Implementing an Integrated Curriculum by Edward T. Clark, Jr. (Holistic Education Press, 1997) -- Not interdisciplinary, but integrated, under the organization of naturalistic essential questions.
    11. Moral Questions in the Classroom: How to Get Kids to Think Deeply About Real Life and Their Schoolwork by Katherine G. Simon (Yale, 2001) -- Socrates knows no honor in either public or parochial school, judged by the lack of ethical or existential questioning
    12. Exceeding Expectations: A User's Guide to Implementing Brain Research in the Classroomby Kovalik and Olsen (Books for Educators, 2002) -- Guidebook for BodyBrain-Compatible Learning
    13. Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not All in Your Head by Carla Hannaford (Great Ocean, 1995) -- How body movement, emotional expression, nutrition, and the social and physical environment influence learning
    14. Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius by Michael Michalko (Ten Speed Press, 1998) -- Creativity is not the same as Intelligence, and is related to productive thinking vs. the reproductive asked for in schooling. A wide range of tools, related to great minds!
    15. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Harper, 1991)
    16. The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millenium by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Harper, 1994) -- A radical theory of happiness, showinh it is greatest whenwe are actively engaged in a difficult enterprise, when our abilities are stretched. The second book applies this to our need to re-create ourselves for the next stage of evolution in which optimal experience will be more widespread and beneficial to society.
    17. Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential by Barbara Marx Hubbard (New World Library, 1998) -- A positive and prophetic statement of the meaning and potentials for conscious evolution: awakening the capacity to bring about transformational growth in individuals and societies.
    18. Socrates Cafe: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy by Christopher Phillips (Norton, 2001) -- Fascinating story of a journalist's use of Socratic questioning and open discussion to do philosophy. Very useful method to sort reality from illusion in reexamining schooling and curricular practices.
    19. The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher's Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling by John Taylor Gatto (Oxford Village Press, 2001) -- A free-wheeling, whistle-blowing book by a former Teacher of the Year in NYC and New York State
    20. Schooled To Order: A Social History of Public Schooling in the United States by David Nasrow (Oxford University Press, 19790 -- Concludes that current schooling plays out a tension between the promise of democracy and the reality of class division and corporate control
    21. Ideology and Curriculum by Michael W. Apple (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979) -- An important, provocative book showing how our curriculum derives from ethnic and racist fears of turn of the century educators reflecting the agrarian to industrial shift during a period of high immigration. By the 1920's this fear was translated to scientific language with the theory that intelligence (I.Q.) was the big difference between those destined for leadership (middle class, mainly Anglo-Saxon) and those for followership (Southern and Eastern European, Black, Latino). The curriculum we have was developed to preserve this illusion!
    22. Literacies of Power: What Americans Are Not Allowed To Know by Donald Macedo (Westview Press, 1994) details ways schooling undercuts democracy
    23. Can Teachers Own Their Own Schools? New Strategies for Educational Excellence by Richard K. Vedder (The Independent Institute, 2000) -- Yes, and Charter Schools are just one route
    24. Taking Back Our Lives in the Age of Corporate Dominance by Schwartz and Stoddard (Berrett-Koehler, 2000) -- A wonderfully subversive and idea-filled book
    25. The Other Parent: The Inside Story of the Media's Impact On Our Children by James P. Steyer, Chelsea Clinton (Atria, 2000) -- "The consequences of our inaction will be even greater educational neglect, more craven and deceptive consumerism, and inappropriate levels of sex and violence -- a wasteland vaster than anyone can imagine or would care to."