lnluke's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I absolutely loved reading this book. Made me question and think about so many things that have to relate to our education system. I’ve been teaching 15 years and agreed with so many issues that were addressed in this book. Is a must read!
msmurph's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars for a solid EDU book. I only recommend it to people actively in EDU or have a child struggling to read and want more context on literacy training methods.
The book’s premise,argument and solution felt obvious but apparently people more entrenched in the EDU world need a jolt out of tunnel vision.
If you ask a child the main idea of a paragraph on Westward Expansion and they have zero contextual understanding of what that is … their answer is going to
The book’s premise,argument and solution felt obvious but apparently people more entrenched in the EDU world need a jolt out of tunnel vision.
If you ask a child the main idea of a paragraph on Westward Expansion and they have zero contextual understanding of what that is … their answer is going to
chelseela's review against another edition
4.0
A refreshing take on what should be in American schools and how the absence of content driven learning is hurting our education system.
taralorraine's review
5.0
Picture walking down the lighting aisle of your favorite home store - lightbulbs everywhere.
That was my experience with this book. I wish I could get everyone to read it - and get on board - and see what I see.
That was my experience with this book. I wish I could get everyone to read it - and get on board - and see what I see.
kelseywaters's review against another edition
1.0
I agree with the argument in this book: reading should be taught through content and boosting knowledge instead of through teaching reading skills. I also really enjoyed reading this as a book club with my ELA content team at school. Outside of that, I didn’t like this book. It was extremely dense. I found it difficult to read between the lines and get to Wexler’s main points. She had a sample size of two classrooms for her data. She never offers clear solutions for teachers outside of suggesting teaching more specific content to kids (in a 263 page book). For anyone interested in the topic, I recommend skipping to the three page epilogue.
ceeferg's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
tigerlipgloss's review against another edition
1.25
While I agree with many points, this is just an overly critical opinion article based on an extremely small sample.
sde's review against another edition
3.0
This book had be nodding in agreement to many things, changed my mind on some things, and included things I disagree with. Reading it is depressing - so much of what we are doing in k12 education has no basis in research or even runs contrary to respected research. But also hopeful - because there are ways and methods that can be used so children from all backgrounds can learn more readily.
The author highlighted very clearly why teachers are reluctant to take on new programs, even those based on extensive research. Teachers are very tired of every year or two or three being told by people not in the classroom that they need to switch to the next great thing and totally retool what they have been doing. I see this all the time in the district my kids attend, and I don't blame the teachers. I guess the reason why we are not willing to look at longitudinal studies or give programs time to show results is that we are worried that we may lose this year's cohort of students. The stakes are high. But constantly switching from program to program that have very short track records also isn't helping kids.
The author did change my mind about content rich curriculum. I have often thought, like many in the book, that if students are given skills they will be able to analyze and study whatever they want. What content they are taught in school doesn't matter that much. But she showed how so many of the skills are based on a certain critical knowledge of the world, and if we continue with skill-based teaching, we are really hurting those kids who do not come from content rich homes like those students with highly educated parents. She showed that you can have a content outline of curriculum and still allow room for inclusion of marginalized populations, local history and so forth, as connected to the topic. She also helped me understand why parents of color and low income parents often want a more classical, great books type approach to education, something I have noticed and wondered about. The parents can feel that by not including that stuff, the education establishment is trying to keep their kids outsiders.
I was surprised to read her praise of New York State's Common Core curriculum since my experience has not been positive with it. But as I read on, I realized that what the state said and what they actually did or stressed to educators were two very different things. This explains why, the first time I heard a presentation at PTA about Common Core, before it was implemented, it sounded very good to me. The presenter talked about focusing on depth, not breadth, of knowledge. Since I felt like this was what my kids were missing in school, I was all for it. But when it was implemented, it seemed to be just the opposite. Algebra classes began including things like calculus, rather than making sure the kids understood inside and out algebra concepts in that class so they would be more prepared to do advanced math in later grades. The book does a poor job at explaining what went wrong between the conceptualization of Common Core and its implementation, at least in my state. She touches on the increased focus on standardized testing, but, in my mind, this is a huge reason of why the new curriculum went sideways in a really bad way.
So, although I have problems with some of the things the author recommends in the book, she provides lots of food for thought and may get educators questioning their tightly held, but likely incorrect, beliefs. I would like to see more school boards and directors of curriculum reading it if only so they can start asking better questions when they adopt new texts or programs.
The author highlighted very clearly why teachers are reluctant to take on new programs, even those based on extensive research. Teachers are very tired of every year or two or three being told by people not in the classroom that they need to switch to the next great thing and totally retool what they have been doing. I see this all the time in the district my kids attend, and I don't blame the teachers. I guess the reason why we are not willing to look at longitudinal studies or give programs time to show results is that we are worried that we may lose this year's cohort of students. The stakes are high. But constantly switching from program to program that have very short track records also isn't helping kids.
The author did change my mind about content rich curriculum. I have often thought, like many in the book, that if students are given skills they will be able to analyze and study whatever they want. What content they are taught in school doesn't matter that much. But she showed how so many of the skills are based on a certain critical knowledge of the world, and if we continue with skill-based teaching, we are really hurting those kids who do not come from content rich homes like those students with highly educated parents. She showed that you can have a content outline of curriculum and still allow room for inclusion of marginalized populations, local history and so forth, as connected to the topic. She also helped me understand why parents of color and low income parents often want a more classical, great books type approach to education, something I have noticed and wondered about. The parents can feel that by not including that stuff, the education establishment is trying to keep their kids outsiders.
I was surprised to read her praise of New York State's Common Core curriculum since my experience has not been positive with it. But as I read on, I realized that what the state said and what they actually did or stressed to educators were two very different things. This explains why, the first time I heard a presentation at PTA about Common Core, before it was implemented, it sounded very good to me. The presenter talked about focusing on depth, not breadth, of knowledge. Since I felt like this was what my kids were missing in school, I was all for it. But when it was implemented, it seemed to be just the opposite. Algebra classes began including things like calculus, rather than making sure the kids understood inside and out algebra concepts in that class so they would be more prepared to do advanced math in later grades. The book does a poor job at explaining what went wrong between the conceptualization of Common Core and its implementation, at least in my state. She touches on the increased focus on standardized testing, but, in my mind, this is a huge reason of why the new curriculum went sideways in a really bad way.
So, although I have problems with some of the things the author recommends in the book, she provides lots of food for thought and may get educators questioning their tightly held, but likely incorrect, beliefs. I would like to see more school boards and directors of curriculum reading it if only so they can start asking better questions when they adopt new texts or programs.