Rethinking school : how to take charge of your child's education

Title:

Author:

Summary:

"A best-selling expert on education shows how to make the school system work for your child. Our K-12 school system is an artificial product of market forces. It isn't a good fit for all--or even most--students. It prioritizes a single way of understanding the world over all others, pushes children into a rigid set of grades with little regard for individual maturity, and slaps "disability" labels over differences in learning style. Caught in this system, far too many young learners end up discouraged, disconnected, and unhappy. And when they struggle, school pressures parents, with overwhelming force, into "fixing" their children rather than questioning the system. With boldness, experience, and humor, Susan Wise Bauer turns conventional wisdom on its head: When a serious problem arises at school, the fault is more likely to lie with the school, or the educational system itself, than with the child. In five illuminating sections, Bauer teaches parents how to flex the K-12 system, rather than the child. She closely analyzes the traditional school structure, gives trenchant criticisms of its weaknesses, and offers a wealth of advice for parents of children whose difficulties may stem from struggling with learning differences, maturity differences, toxic classroom environments, and even from giftedness (not as much of a "gift" as you might think!). Rethinking School is a guide to one aspect of sane, humane parenting: negotiating the twelve-grade school system in a way that nurtures and protects your child's mind, emotions, and spirit"-- Provided by publisher.

Edition:

First edition.

Contents:

Part I. The system -- The way we do school -- The three biggest myths about school -- Part II. Mismatches -- You can't make the Earth go around the sun faster -- Differences, disabilities, and disorders -- The perils of the gifted and the good -- The toxic classroom -- Part III. Taking control -- Basic principles (or, how not to be "that" parent) -- Challenge the homework monster -- Accelerate (but don't necessarily skip) -- Shift the method -- Teach, yourself -- Part IV. Rethinking the system. The end result -- The child's vision -- All the other things school does -- Solving for x -- Part V. Opting out -- Deciding to homeschool -- Getting started in five steps -- Developing independence -- Out-of-the-box teaching strategies -- Radical alternatives -- Postscript: About college -- Appendix A: High school and the transcript -- Appendix B: Skills vs. content -- Appendix C: A brief essential bibliography.

Physical Description:

xiv, 264 pages ; 24 cm

Subject Term:

Education -- Parent participation.

Schools

Academic achievement.

Publisher:

W. W. Norton & Company,

Publication Date:

2018

ISBN:

9780393285963

Publication Information:

New York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2018]

Call Number:

371.19 BAUER

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003312330	Adult Nonfiction	371.19 BAUER	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Our K-12 school system is an artificial product of market forces. It isn't a good fit for all--or even most--students. It prioritizes a single way of understanding the world over all others, pushes children into a rigid set of grades with little regard for individual maturity, and slaps "disability" labels over differences in learning style.

Caught in this system, far too many young learners end up discouraged, disconnected, and unhappy. And when they struggle, school pressures parents, with overwhelming force, into "fixing" their children rather than questioning the system.

With boldness, experience, and humor, Susan Wise Bauer turns conventional wisdom on its head: When a serious problem arises at school, the fault is more likely to lie with the school, or the educational system itself, than with the child.

In five illuminating sections, Bauer teaches parents how to flex the K-12 system, rather than the child. She closely analyzes the traditional school structure, gives trenchant criticisms of its weaknesses, and offers a wealth of advice for parents of children whose difficulties may stem from struggling with learning differences, maturity differences, toxic classroom environments, and even from giftedness (not as much of a "gift" as you might think!).

As the author of the classic book on home-schooling, The Well-Trained Mind , Bauer knows how children learn and how schools work. Her advice here is comprehensive and anecdotal, including material drawn from experience with her own four children and more than twenty years of educational consulting and university teaching.

Rethinking School is a guide to one aspect of sane, humane parenting: negotiating the twelve-grade school system in a way that nurtures and protects your child's mind, emotions, and spirit.

Author Notes

Susan Wise Bauer is an educator and academic who has worked with parents and students for more than twenty years. She taught at the College of William and Mary in Virginia for fifteen years. Her previous best-selling titles for Norton include The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had, Rethinking School, The Story of Western Science: From the Writings of Aristotle to the Big Bang Theory, and the History of the World series

Reviews (3)

School Library Journal Review

Bauer, coauthor of The Well-Trained Mind and an advocate for aclassical education through homeschooling, offers a detailed look at how modern schooling can be a mismatch for student's needs. For those with a disability, a developmental delay, or giftedness, the structure of age-based classes focused on a single way of understanding and behaving may not work. Bauer breaks down ways in which this system is failing these students and offers advice on how to work around it to find better options for students. While Bauer does advocate for ways to help the system accommodate individuals, including having frank discussions with principals and teachers, she also advocates for getting out of it entirely. This bias toward homeschooling influences everything Bauer presents; however, even with this partiality, the balance of firsthand stories of school failure combined with the author's own experiences and practical tips make this book very straightforward and informative. VERDICT For parents seeking support and advice for ways to address their discontent with their children's schooling.-Rachel Wadham, Brigham Young University Libraries, Provo, UT © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publisher's Weekly Review

Homeschooling advocate Bauer (The Well-Educated Mind) aims to help parents whose children fit imperfectly into what she deems the "artificial" one-size-fits-all American school system in this highly opinionated but eminently practical book. Bauer makes a passionate case for why the K-12 system desperately needs to be rethought, and for why our criteria for judging educational success must change. These arguments serve as springboards for Bauer to discuss her suggestions of how parents should make the educational system work for them. Bauer describes guiding families to use the options available to their kids within the educational system, such as pursuing single-subject acceleration, opting out of stressful processes such as state testing, and working with teachers to find alternative arrangements for kids during class time, such as independent study. She also details hybrid home-school approaches such as after-school programs, independent study during class time, and gap years. Finally, Bauer pushes parents toward "having the courage to step out" with a homeschooling quick guide, and with discussions of-though not unqualified support for-even more radical approaches such as apprenticeships and "unschooling." Bauer's guide to the various options available to struggling kids, inside and outside the educational system, will be both comforting and instructive to their parents. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Library Journal Review

Bauer, coauthor of The Well-Trained Mind and an advocate for a classical education through homeschooling, offers a detailed look at how modern schooling can be a mismatch for student's needs. For those with a disability, a developmental delay, or giftedness, the structure of age-based classes focused on a single way of understanding and behaving may not work. Bauer breaks down ways in which the system is failing these students and offers advice on how to work around the system to find better options for students. While Bauer does advocate for ways to help the system accommodate individuals, including having frank discussions with principals and teachers, she also advocates for getting out of the system entirely. This bias toward homeschooling influences everything Bauer presents, however, even with this partiality, the balance of firsthand stories of school failure combined with the author's own experiences and practical tips make this book very straightforward and informative. VERDICT For parents seeking support and advice for ways to address their discontent with their children's schooling. -Rachel Wadham, Brigham Young Univ. Libs., Provo, UT © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

About This Book	p. xiii
Part I The System
Chapter 1 The Way We Do School	p. 3
Chapter 2 The Three Biggest Myths About School	p. 13
Part II Mismatches
Chapter 3 You Can't Make the Earth Go Around the Sun Faster	p. 21
Why Age = Grade (It's Prussia's Fault)	p. 22
Three Questions for Evaluating Maturity	p. 24
Action Plan	p. 28
Chapter 4 Differences, Disabilities, and Disorders	p. 33
The Three Labels	p. 36
Action Plan	p. 53
Chapter 5 The Perils of the Gifted and the Good	p. 63
What Is Giftedness?	p. 64
Four Challenges of Giftedness	p. 66
Action Plan	p. 70
Chapter 6 The Toxic Classroom	p. 78
Uncovering the Problem	p. 79
Action Plan	p. 84
Part III Taking Control
Chapter 7 Basic Principles (Or, How Not to Be "That" Parent)	p. 91
Laying the Foundation	p. 92
The Way Forward	p. 94
Chapter 8 Control the Tests	p. 98
What the Tests Measure	p. 99
The Right to Refuse	p. 101
Types of Tests: What They Are and How to Use Them	p. 104
The Way Forward	p. 113
Chapter 9 Challenge the Homework Monster	p. 117
When Homework Doesn't Work	p. 117
The Way Forward	p. 122
Chapter 10 Accelerate (But Don't Necessarily Skip)	p. 127
Single-Subject Acceleration	p. 128
The Way Forward	p. 130
Chapter 11 Shift the Method	p. 132
Sample Projects Designed for Multiple Intelligences	p. 133
The Way Forward	p. 136
Chapter 12 Teach, Yourself	p. 139
The Way Forward	p. 140
Part IV Rethinking the System
Chapter 13 The End Result	p. 147
Thinking Backward	p. 148
Thought Experiment 1	p. 150
Chapter 14 The Child's Vision	p. 151
The Challenge of Self-Awareness	p. 152
Challenges for Your Child	p. 153
Thought Experiment 2	p. 160
Chapter 15 All the Other Things School Does	p. 162
The Noneducational Tasks	p. 164
Questioning the Agent	p. 166
Thought Experiment 3	p. 170
Chapter 16 Solving for X	p. 171
Why Imagine?	p. 171
Thought Experiment 4	p. 177
Part V Opting Out
Chapter 17 Deciding to Homeschool	p. 181
Homeschooling Styles	p. 184
How to Investigate	p. 186
Chapter 18 Getting Started in Five Steps	p. 188
Chapter 19 Developing Independence	p. 194
The Stages of Independent Work	p. 195
Chapter 20 Out-of-the-Box Teaching Strategies	p. 205
A Caveat	p. 205
The Strategies	p. 206
A Final Caution	p. 211
Chapter 21 Radical Alternatives	p. 213
Different Paths	p. 215
Postscript: About College	p. 223
Appendix A High School and the Transcript	p. 229
Appendix B Skills vs. Content	p. 235
Appendix c A Brief Essential Bibliography	p. 241
Works Cited	p. 249
Index	p. 253

Available:*

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (3)

School Library Journal Review

Publisher's Weekly Review

Library Journal Review

Table of Contents