'The Power of the Network'
Why School? Reclaiming Education for All of Us
Review By Bonnie Roberts, A+ Leadership Coach
Mike Rose, educator and author, has written much provocative literature which has the been the catalyst for many educators to examine their belief systems and practices. (This writer well remembers how reading Lives on the Boundary: The Struggles and Achievements of America's Underprepared as part of her educational leadership preparation caused her to rethink her mission and vision in this work.)
The latest addition to the Mike Rose canon is Why School? Reclaiming Education for All of Us. In a recent article in The Huffington Post, Rose relates the origins of Why School?, explaining that we hear much about education these days—test scores, reform battles—but little about the heart of why education really matters. He wrote Why School? to get us to think about why we send kids to school, and why we often return to school ourselves. Along the way, he hopes readers reflect on what made a difference in their education.
Rose gives the reader an up-close view of education and provides examples from elementary through college. He allows the reader to sit close by other human beings as they struggle with a problem, get that flash of insight, and push toward articulation. He captures the experience of discovery, of learning to do something you couldn't do before, and may even prompt some to begin to think of themselves in a new way. This vital detail of teaching and learning is sadly missing from current educational policy or the political speech we hear about our schools.
It is Rose's hope that Why School? will contribute a more humane and imaginative discussion of schooling in America.
From the publisher: In the tradition of Jonathan Kozol, this little book is driven by big questions. What does it mean to be educated? What is intelligence? How should we think about intelligence, education, and opportunity in an open society? Why is a commitment to the public sphere central to the way we answer these questions?
Drawing on forty years of teaching and research, from primary school to adult education and workplace training, award-winning author Mike Rose reflects on these and other questions related to public schooling in America. He answers them in beautifully written chapters that are both rich in detail—a first-grader conducting a science experiment, a carpenter solving a problem on the fly, a college student’s encounter with a story by James Joyce—and informed by a deep and powerful understanding of history, the psychology of learning, and the politics of education.
Rose decries the narrow focus of educational policy in our time: the drumbeat of test scores and economic competition. Why School? will be embraced by parents and teachers alike, and readers everywhere will be captivated by Rose’s eloquent call for a bountiful democratic vision of the purpose of schooling.
Mike Rose, a professor in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, is the author of Lives on the Boundary, The Mind at Work, and Possible Lives. Among his many awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Grawemeyer Award in Education, and the Commonwealth Club of California Award for Literary Excellence in Nonfiction. He lives in Santa Monica.
