The schools our children deserve : moving beyond traditional classrooms and "tougher standards" / Alfie Kohn

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references.

1. Forward ... into the Past
pt. 1. Tougher Standards Versus Better Education. --2. Getting Motivation Wrong: The Costs of Overemphasizing Achievement. --3. Getting Teaching and Learning Wrong: Traditional Education and Its Victims. --4. Getting Evaluation Wrong: The Case Against Standardized Testing. --5. Getting School Reform Wrong: The Arrogance of Top-Down Coercion. --6. Getting Improvement Wrong: Confusing Harder with Better --
pt. 2. For the Love of Learning. --7. Starting from Scratch. --8. Education at Its Best. --9. Getting the 3 R's Right. --10. The Way Out
App. A. The Hard Evidence --
App. B. What to Look For in a Classroom

Are our schools in trouble because they have lowered their standards and strayed too far from the basics? Just the opposite, says Alfie Kohn: if American students are getting less than they deserve, it's due to simplistic demands to "raise the bar" and an aggressive nostalgia for traditional teaching." "Kohn has an ambitious yet practical vision of what our children's classrooms could be like. Drawing on a remarkable body of research, he helps parents and others interested in education understand the need to move beyond a "bunch o' facts" model of teaching. Using stories from real classrooms, he shows how this can be done. Along the way, he offers surprising insights about the Whole Language-versus-phonics controversy, why a straight-A report card may not be good news, and how we can best gauge the progress of schools and students.