The Walden Project: Bibliography

This bibliography is a continual work in progress designed to give the reader a philosophical context for the Walden Project. In addition, it serves as a road map for those individuals looking to gain more information about the origins of the project's concepts.

Apple, Michael.(1979) Ideology And Curriculum. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

A critique of schools as institutions which reproduce the power relationships which already exist in society.

Aptekar, Lewis. (1988) Street Children Of Cali. Durham: Duke University Press.

Lewis Aptekar earned his Ph.D. in the U. of M. School Of Education. His dissertation was one of the first I know of to rely on participant-observation methods to collect information. He lived the life of a high school student and described how he and his student colleagues were treated. This book is his first. It reports his experience with abandoned children in Columbia. It always seems to be the children who are hurt most in a society which is having problems. The USA is no exception.

Aries, Phillipe. (1962) Centuries Of Childhood. New York: Vintage.

The 17th century is the time when childhood is painted, written about, and noticed. Prior to this time, children were treated as small adults. People now admit their feelings for children.

Armstrong, Michael.(1980) Closely Observed Children: The Diary of a Primary Classroom. London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative Society.

"This book is about 32 eight to nine year old children in an English primary school; about the intellectual growth and intellectual achievement; about understanding the understanding of children. It is not a study of classroom life as a whole; for example, it contains little about the social life of the class or about the organization of classroom activity. Its aim is to explore some of the ways in which the children learnt, within a classroom environment, as they sought to make sense of the world and to reflect upon their own experience of it. It examines the intellectual experience of children in one particular classroom for the light it may shed on intellectual growth in general."(p.1)

Atwell, Nancy. (1987) In The Middle: Writing, Reading, and Learning With Adolescents. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton Cook/Heinemann.

A hands on account of teaching and learning from a teacher of writing. It is full of the kind of detail which a beginning teacher can use. This resource will be helpful to everyone who wants to engage students with one another in group learning activity.

Atwell, Nancy. (1987) In The Middle: Writing, Reading, and Learning With Adolescents. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton Cook/Heinemann.

Ayers, W. To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher. New York: Teachers College Press.

A journey through the life of a thoughtful teacher. This is a book for those who want to understand what progressive education means for our time. It is a good companion volume to the works of Maxine Greene and Eleanor Duckworth.

Barritt, Loren S. 1996 An Elementary School In Holland: Experiment in Educational Practice. Utrecht, the Netherlands: International Books.

The story of a single school year in a Dutch "Basis" school written by an American who did his best to tell the story of life as the teachers and children were living it

Barritt. Loren; Beekman, Ton; Bleeker, Hans, & Mulderij, Karel (1985)Researching Educational Practice. Grand Forks, North Dakota: Center for Teaching and Learning.

A defense of descriptive, interpretive, phenomenological research and a manual which illustrates in some detail how written descriptions can be analyzed. I like this book a lot. It deserves a wider audience.

Barker, R.G. and Gump, P.V. (l964.) Big School, Small School. Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press.

Careful studies of schools of different sizes reveal differences between large and small schools in matters that would appear to affect satisfaction quite markedly. Students in small schools participate more broadly in the life of the school, are more likely to be known by teachers, and are less likely to be left out of activities. It appears to be more difficult in small schools for the more extreme peer group values to take hold. (Notes taken from Goodlad, l984, p. 369-70) Big School, Small School is concerned with the effects of high school size upon the behavior and experience of high school students. It represents a serious and systematic attempt to view high schools from an ecological standpoint. (Notes from Sarason, p. l24-6)

Bauer, Anne M., and Sapona, Regina H. (1991) Managing Classrooms To Facilitate Learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

With all the recent interest in "managing classrooms"--as though it were the walls and desks which were acting up--you would think someone might get the idea that things aren't going so well in school. We adults find it easier to "manage" than to change.

Bissinger, H.G. (1990) Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Dream, And A Team. Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley.

A story of the grip that high school football has on a small Texas town, the adults as well as the students. It is an illustration of the discrepancy between the rhetoric of concern for academic improvement and the real sources of interest among both students and their parents. In addition to being a useful story for teachers to contemplate it is a fascinating tale also.

Blaise, M. (1995) In These Girls Hope Is A Muscle. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.

The story of a year in the life of the Amherst High School Hurricanes.

Borish, Steven, M. (1991) The Land of the Living: The Danish Folk High Schools and Denmark's Non-violent Path To Modernization. Nevada City, CA. Blue Dolphin Press.

A review of the history of Danish Folk High Schools with chapters discussing their daily life.

Bossert, S. Tasks and Social Relationships in Classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. l979.

This is a 2 year study of upper middle class 3rd and 4th graders. Bossert writes a descriptive ethnography of 4 classrooms. Two groups of children are observed for 2 consecutive years; one group with similar classroom task experiences over both years, the other group with differing. Each week, each classroom was observed for 3-4 hours, scheduled in a rotating sequence to sample all activities in which the children participated. Informal conversations with teachers, pupils, the principal, counselors, and parents occurred frequently, and notes were recorded. Also, several formal interviews were scheduled. Bossert examines how the structure of activities, particularly the nature of common, recurrent instructional tasks, shape both teacher and pupil behavior.

Bowles, Samuel and Gintis, Herbert. (1976) Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and The Contradictions of Economic Life. New York: Basic Books.

A now classic account of the failure of schooling to contribute to social and economic reform in the USA. "Our analysis of the repressiveness, inequality, and contradictory objectives of contemporary education in America is not only a critique of schools and educators, but also of the social order of which they are a part."(p. vii)

Boyer, Ernest L. (1983) High School: A Report On Secondary Education In America. New York: Harper & Row.

It's not a report about education in 'America." Its a report about schools in the USA funded by the Carnegie Foundation and based on visits to high schools all over the country. The schools are then profiled and based on the profiles conclusions are drawn about what needs to happen to improve high school. They recommend many, many wonderful changes. Unfortunately most of them will never be implemented in our life time.

Bringuer, Jean-Claude.(1977) Conversations Libre Avec Jean Piaget. Paris: Editions Robert Laffont.

A transcript of several days of talk between Mr. Bringuer and Prof. Piaget about Piaget's work and his thinking about it. They are pleasant conversations and represent an easy way to come to know more about Piaget and his work. The book has been translated into English. I think the title is "Conversations with Jean Piaget.

Bruner, J.(1996) The Culture Of Education. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

A collection of essays in which current views of education are presented by someone who has spent more than forty years thinking and writing about educational matters. These essays present a picture of education which is more complex and nuanced than views held by most psychologists even ten years ago. He even concedes that there are some issues that are so complex that an accurate view must allow for mutually contradictory answers.

Carini, Patricia F.(l979) The Art Of Seeing And The Visibility Of The Person. North Dakota Study Group on Evaluation , University of North Dakota Press. (Write to : Center for Teaching and Learning, P.O. Box 8158, Univ. of North Dakota, Grand Forks, N.D. 58202)

A very thoughtful reflection on the meaning of experience and what we are doing--without being aware of it--when we observe and think we understand another person. She explicitly attempts to counter the technological view of observation which reduces others lives to a set of categories. "The effort of reflecting on the universal, conducted in counterpoint with the effort of describing the child's particular perspective and relatedness to the things--the mediums and motifs-- which provoke his thought, leads to a compositional integration that maintains the concreteness of the particular details and yet transcends them." (p.9) "The standard which guides reflective observation is imagination." (p.19)

Carini, Patricia F.(l982) The School Lives of Seven Children: A Five Year Study North Dakota Study Group on Evaluation, University of North Dakota Press. (Write to : Center for Teaching and Learning, P.O. Box 8158, Univ. of North Dakota, Grand Forks, N.D. 58202)

Study is based on data from a 5 yr. evaluation of the N.Y. State Experimental Pre-kindergarten. Descriptions are given of 7 school children and their experience of learning from Pre K to 3rd grade. Each child is attending a different school. Portrayals of each child are based on observations and descriptive records of their classroom participation as well as collections of their classroom products: drawings, writings, paintings, etc. Commonalities and contrasts in each child's perspective on learning are explored. Implications and recommendations for educators are discussed.

Cazden, Courtney. (1988) Classroom Discourse: The Language Of Teaching And Learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

"The study of classroom discourse is... a kind of applied linguistics--the study of situated language in use in one social setting. I hope that this study will answer important educational questions." (p.3) This book is based on her own research in primary classrooms but includes discussion of research by others in secondary schools.

Center For Language In Primary Education. (1988) The Primary Language Record: Handbook For Teachers. Portsmouth, NH :Heinemann Educational Books. 70 Court St., Portsmouth, N.H.03801.

This is one of the most sensible works on evaluation that I know of. The ideas were developed by teachers and written by the staff of the Center. It is focused on elementary grade students in London, England but the principles which guide the proposals are applicable at any age in any country.

Chandler, K.(1995) Passages Of Pride: Lesbian And Gay Youth Come Of Age. New York: Times Books.

Chandler, a journalist writes of the lives of five young adults, two men and three women, from Minneapolis who tell about their experiences growing up. It becomes evident from these stories that many schools are not safe places for gay and lesbian students. Chandler writes as well of his own concerns as a researcher writing about this loaded topic.

Chukovsky, Kornei. (1966) From Two To Five. Berkley. University of California Press.

A delightful record of the creativity of the young child's speech. It illustrates that children invent anew as they learn their native tongue.

Churchill, E.H. E. and Petner, J.N. Jr.( l977) Children's Language and Thinking: A Report of Work In Progress. North Dakota Study Group on Evaluation, University of North Dakota Press.

l yr. study of the use of children's language as a basis for staff development. The classroom activity of 12 kindergarten and 8 first graders was observed, recorded and analyzed. Workshops were conducted by staff developers and classroom teachers and were recorded and analyzed. The purpose was to assess the effectiveness of the classroom program.

Cochran-Smith, Marilyn.( l984) The Making of a Reader. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation.

Adults and children are observed for l8 months at a Nursery School, a private, cooperative preschool in a residential section of Philadelphia. The study results in a description of one model for the making of readers in one environment. Cochran-Smith takes an ethnographic perspective in describing both what the children knew about print and how they came to know it. She gives cultural and social explanations for how children become readers. Methodology included observations with careful, systematic note taking on nursery school literacy events, supplemented by audio recording and transcribing of story readings.

Coleman, J. S. ( l96l) The Adolescent Society. New York: The Free Press.

Everhart describes this work as a detailed study of senior high school. Studied are l0 schools. The image of good scholarship as a factor in high school actually diminishes during the first two years of high school, while at the same time, the importance of informal prestige generating mechanisms, such as athletics and clothes increase during those two years. Prestige maintenance for social groups can be increased or decreased by the student groups themselves rather than academic qualities which are judged by adult standards. (Notes from Robert Everhart)

Coles, Robert.(1986) The Moral Life of Children: How Children Struggle With Questions of Moral Choice in the United States and Elsewhere. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Coles believes that you learn important things from talking to people. He has lived out his professional life talking to young people in crisis situations all over the world. This book is just one of his latest. He is a sympathetic listener who finds in the voices of young people extraordinary sense which many other observers who have used "objectivist" methods to extract information have missed.

Coles,Robert. (1986) The Political Life of Children. Boston: The Atlantic Monthly Press.

Conroy, Pat. (1972) The Water Is Wide. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

A year teaching upper elementary students on Yamacraw Island off the coast of South Carolina. He is bothered by Mrs. Brown the "proper" teacher at school, the superintendent and his staff. The children are unaware of almost every development in 20th century USA. He teaches by stimulating. They sing, they laugh, they travel. He brings visitors to class. He realizes there is a limit to what he can accomplish. "Life was good, but it was hard; we would prepare to meet it head on, but we would enjoy the preparation."(p.159)

Cottle, Thomas. (1973) The Voices of School: Educational Issues Through Personal Accounts.Boston: Little Brown.

Stories from close at hand about the lives of students and teachers. This is just one of several of the books that Cottle has written in which the sense of young peoples lives are made visible.

Cusick, P.( l972) Inside High School. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.

This is a case study of l high school in which Cusick spent 6 months with a group of seniors. How a student constructs his/her social self and forms a perspective on student life depends on how he perceives himself in relation to various features of his environment. Schools have two subsystems, 'a production system' concerned with academic achievement and a 'maintenance system' concerned with all other activities in school. Cusick concluded that 'students spend very little actual time involved in actual interaction with the teachers. Rather, their time is spent in social interaction. (Notes taken from Robert Everhart)

Davies, Bronwyn. ( l982) Life in the Classroom and Playground. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

The book is the result of a research question, "How do children perceive or construe their social world? Studied is one class of l0 and 11 year old Australian children in a primary school. The children are mostly of working class families and some are Aboriginal. The material was collected through listening, observing and interacting with children during the year l976. The book includes transcripts of the children's conversations about family, friends, and teachers as well as an intertwining narrative.

Delpit, L. (1995) Other Peoples Children: Cultural Conflicts In The Classroom. New York: The New Press.

This is a set of essays by a former public school teacher about her experiences in the classroom with children who are from cultural backgrounds quite different from that supposed by her teacher-education preparers. She develops a trenchant critique of the ways of teaching that predominate in schools, saying that those approaches are not necessarily appropriate for all children.

Dennison, George. (l969) The Lives of Children: The Story of the First Street School. New York: Random House.

Dewey,J.(1938) Art As Experience. New York: Minton Balch.

"Science states meanings art expresses them." p.84. "Art involves selection. Lack of selection...results in unorganized miscellany. The directive sources of selection is interest; an unconscious but organic bias toward certain aspects and values of the complex... universe in which we live." p.98

Dewey, J.(1938) Experience And Education. London: Collier.

An extended essay on the progressive view of schooling with a defense of its proposals.

Doyle, R.(1993) Paddy Clarke Ho Ho Ho. New York: Viking.

Winner of the Booker Prize in England. The story of a young boy growing up in Dublin during WWII. The portrait of life among the boys is sharp and carries beyond the borders of time and place. See also The Van, The Commitments and Snapper by this teacher turned author.

Driscoll,J.( 1992) Wanting Only To Be Heard. Amherst: University Of Massachusetts Press.

Short stories of a young boy growing up in the UP of Michigan trying to negotiate his youth in the hands of an angry father and no mother. The stories are all riveting and interesting, many are frightening. They present a picture of growing up male in the rural USA which deserves understanding and attention.

Everhart, Robert. (1983) Reading, Writing and Resistance: Adolescence and Labor in a Junior High School. Boston: Routledge and Keagan Paul.

Everhart spent two years in a junior high school getting to know the students and their lives in classrooms. This book describes his experiences and theirs, often in their own words. It is a striking reminder of what our lives were like then too. It serves to demonstrate that all of us can learn a great deal from our pupils if we will only take their lives seriously. It also makes clear that all the efforts of the bureaucrats to "reform" education are likely to come to nothing so long as we ignore the lives of the young people who are locked up in schools.

Fine, Gary,A.(1987) With The Boys: Little League Baseball and Preadolescent Culture.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

I first heard of this book from a British anthropologist of education who said that often you learn more about education of young people in a country by studying something other than life in school. She used this book as an example, asserting that it had taught her more about education in the USA than had the school ethnographies she had read. It does give a striking picture of the education of little boys in our country. It reminds me of a statement I heard during the Gulf War: "If we don't find a way to change the education of males in our society we will be in real trouble in future." This book provides a picture of where we are at the moment.

Fishman, A.(1988) Amish Literacy: What And How It Means

Fishman participates in the lives of Amish children and writes of the ways that literacy in school and in the home plays a role in the lives of children and adults. This is a fine look at the way ideology plays a role in Amish lives. Their choices are made visible because they are different from our own, but we are led to ask how must our own commitments manifest themselves.

Fletcher, Ralph (1991) Walking Trees: Teaching Teachers In The New York City Schools. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Ralph Fletcher is a writer who travels the NY city schools helping teachers become better teachers of writing. He encourages them and demonstrates for them. In the process he comes across many wonderful student-writers who blossom with his help. His efforts with some teachers is less successful. In the end he becomes discouraged at the pace of change which leads to his title. Changing schools is like getting trees to walk.

Freedman, Samuel.(1991) Small Victories: The Real World Of A Teacher, Her Students and Their High School. New York: Harper&Row.

This is a realistic look at the lives of a teacher and some of her students. Because it is New York the picture is intense. The students who are having difficulties are in horrendous trouble and the students who are making it are cause for celebration. As the title suggests there are very few of the latter. The teacher whose story this is works impossibly hard at her job. As many of you are preparing to make a change into teaching guess what she has decided to do?

Frey, Darcy (1994) The Last Shot. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

The story of a group of high school basketball players who live in one of the worst projects in Coney Island, New York. These young men play basketball exceedingly well and are the subject of interest by big time college coaches. The author, a young journalist, is able to enter their lives just as they eventually enter his. The story is written with poetry and passion. It is a parable of our time involving money, sport, and exploitation and the hopes of desperate young men.

Gilligan, Carol. (1977) "In a different voice: Women's conceptions of self and morality." Harvard Educational Review.47:481-516.

She argues that women have a different perspective on morality than do men. She particularly dissents from the views of Lawrence Kohlberg about the stages of moral development being universal. Her work is an example of the difference made by interpretive work. She talks directly with her informants, "voices we have not heard."

Freire, Paulo. (1968) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Seabury.

This book is probably the one which sets out Paulo's ideas about teaching and learning best.

Gilligan, C.;Lyons,N.P.; Hansen,T.J. (1990) Making Connections: The Relational Worlds Of Adolescent Girls At The Emma Willard School. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Glenn, Mel. (1982) Class Dismissed: High School Poems by Mel Glenn.New York: Ticknor & Fields.

A series of poems which give voice to adolescents written by a high school English teacher in Brooklyn, New York. I suppose by literary standards they aren't great but they are another vision of life from the student's point of view. I think they could also be quite useful to read to kids as a way to test the author's voice and provoke discussion.

Glenn, Mel. (1986) Class DismissedII: More High School Poems .New York: Ticknor & Fields.

More of the above.

Goffman, Erving.(1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Anchor.

An explication of the way we play roles to become who we are. This is a brilliant analysis which reveals that the things we take for granted about self and other are quite complicated and interesting when studied up close. "To be a given kind of person...is not merely to possess the required attributes, but also to sustain the standards of conduct and appearance that one's social grouping attaches thereto. The unthinking ease with which performers consistently carry off such standard-maintaining routines does not deny that a performance has occurred, merely that the participants have been aware of it." (p.75)

Goffman, Erving.(1961) Asylums . Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Anchor.

A descriptive analysis of "total institutions" though focused on asylums for round the clock care manages to reveal much about schools which are , if not total in quite the same sense, nevertheless pretty total when you are a student.

Gould, Stephen, Jay.(1981) The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W.W. Norton.

"This books seeks to demonstrate both the scientific weaknesses and political contexts of determinist arguments....I criticize the myth that science itself is an objective enterprise, done properly only when scientists can shuck the constraints of their culture and view the world as it really is."(p.21)

Good,T. and Brophy, J.E. (1991) Looking in Classrooms 5th Ed. New York: Harper Collins.

An encyclopedic review of research in classrooms.

Grant, Gerald. (1988) The World We Created At Hamilton High. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

The story of one high school against the backdrop of reform efforts in the present and recent past.

Greene, Maxine. (1988) The Dialectic of Freedom.New York: Teachers College Press.

"My focal interest is in human freedom, in the capacity to surpass the given and look at things as if they could be otherwise."(p.3) Maxine Greene has been a voice for a meaning-full understanding of experience in opposition to the fragmented and decontextualized approach to understanding which has dominated educational study in the USA up to our day. I urge you to read her. You will find her writings full of insights which are not generally offered in readings by other educators. She is unique. Note for example that she is one of the few who doesn't need semicolons in her titles.

Greene, Maxine.(1978) Landscapes of Learning. New York: Teachers College Press.

A collection of essays written between 1974 and 1977.

Guba, Egon, and Lincoln, Yvonna.(1981) Effective Evaluation: Improving The Usefulness of Evaluation Results Through Responsive and Naturalistic Approaches. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

If the translation of all important educational events into numbers is an impossibility then this book with its discussion of descriptive approaches is important.

Guest, Judith.(1976) Ordinary People. New York: Random House.

Yes, this is a novel and why not? The views we have of ourselves and of one another come to us from imagination. Writers are able and willing to put their "imaginary" worlds on paper. Without these visions captured in story I'm not sure how we would understand one another. This is the story of an adolescent boy who attempts suicide. It is rich in insight and food for good discussion.

Heath, Shirley, Brice.(1983) Ways With Words: Language, Life and Work in Communities and Classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

A careful, comparison study of the ways children are raised in different social and ethnic groups in the piedmont of North Carolina with particular attention to the ways that language functions in home and community. She shows rather convincingly that language isn't used in the same ways in each community and that some habits of language which children grow up with are more like those they will meet in school than are others. The book demonstrates the importance of understanding the child's context for teaching.

Henry, Jules.(1965) Pathways To Madness. New York:Vintage.

An extraordinarily revealing study of five families who have managed to run the sort of household that has contributed to the "mental illness" of one of their children. He says in his introduction that the book is written for children in hopes that it might reduce the misery in their lives.

Hirsch,E.D.(1996) The Schools We Need. N.Y. Doubleday.

He sees our schools failing because they are not sufficiently concerned about the formal teaching of the important curriculum which is the foundation of western civilization.

Hollingshead, A.B.(1949) Elmtown's Youth:The Impact of Social Classes on Adolescents. New York: John Wiley.

"This volume is an analysis of the way the social system of a Middle Western Corn Belt community organizes and controls the social behavior of high-school-aged adolescents." A classic study.

Horton, Myles;with Judith Kohl and Herbert Kohl.(1990) The Long Haul: An Autobiography. New York: Doubleday.

The story of Myles Horton's life. Myles Horton was the founder of Highlander Folk School near Chattanooga, Tennessee a place where nearly all the important civil rights leaders were able to go for educational sustenance in the early days of the movement. His classroom consisted of a large room with a circle of rocking chairs. This is a man you would enjoy getting to know. A real educational hero.

Horton, Myles. & Freire, Paulo. (1990) We Make The Road By Walking. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

The transcription of several conversations between two revolutionary educators, one Brazilian and the other American. It is a bit repititious but a good introduction nonetheless to the ideas of both men.

Hostetler, John,A.and Huntington, Gertrude, Enders.(1971) Children in Amish Society: Socialization and Community Education. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston.

An ethnographic study of the ways that Amish children are educated, in and out of school. Compare this study to the more recent Amish Literacy by Fishman.

Jackson. Phillip W. (1968) Life In Classrooms. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston.

The book which is generally credited with beginning the research move to study life in classrooms. He spent a year watching in elementary classrooms and then wrote this book about his experience integrating with it other studies about schooling and its effects. He takes a close look at classroom life.

Jones,V.F.&Jones,L. (1990) Comprehensive Classroom Management 3rd Edition. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

A compendium of how-to strategies for controlling a classroom.

Kane,P.K.(Ed.) My First Year As A Teacher: Real Stories From America's Teachers Teachers submit accounts of their first year of teaching. From 400 submissions 25 were selected for presentation in this book

Kaplan, Alice.(1993) French Lessons. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

The story of one woman's fascination with things French. She recounts how her life was shaped by people, ideas and events which pointed her to France and the French language. The book is classified as a novel. It illustrates what can be done to uncover the meaning of experience when the author is freed from the constraints of academic rhetoric.

Kidder, Tracy.(1989) Among Schoolchildren. Boston: Houghton Miflin.

A journalist spends a year in an elementary school and describes what he sees.

Kohl, H. (l967) Thirty-six Children. New York: New American Library.

Another teacher reports of the difficulties of teaching children in an inner city school where change seems difficult to envision and the only hopeful sign is the spirit of the children and their hunger to learn when they are given the chance.

Kotlowitz, A. (1991) There Are No Children Here: The Story Of Two Boys Growing Up In The Other America. New York: Anchor Doubleday.

This is the story of two boys,Lafayette and Pharaoh, growing up in the Henry Horner Holmes housing project in Chicago. Kotlowitz spends time with these boys, one ten and the other seven when the work begins, over a two year period. This book follows Lafayette and Pharaoh over a two year period as they struggle with school, attempt to resist the lure of the gangs, and mourn the death of friends, all the while searching for inner peace."

Kozol, J. (l967) Death at an Early Age. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

A teacher's report of life in a 4th grade segregated classroom during the academic year l964-65, in the Boston Public Schools. Kozol was sent into an overcrowded ghetto school as a substitute teacher but given a year long assignment. He describes how the school system was designed to preserve the racial status quo, rob students of self-respect and individuality, and subsequently how he came to be fired as a teacher for deviating from the approved 4th grade course of study.

Kozol, J. (l991) Savage Inequalities. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

The shameful story of the inequalities offerred to school children in the USA where some districts have more than twice as much to spend per pupil than others, sometimes within the same state. Where some countries see that more is spent on the poorest pupils in the USA we spend more on the richest children.

Kozol, J. (1995) Amazing Grace. New York: Harper.

Kozol has a taste for the significant. He studies and writes about topics that matter, this time the lives of children and their parents in the poorest of New York neighborhoods. This is participant observation at its best. He not only learns about the lives of those he studies but is able to relate the small picture to the larger one.

Lefkowitz, B.(1998) Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb. Berkley: UC Press.

A riveting and very, very disturbing story of a group of high school athletes who took sexual advantage of a mentally retarded girl with whom many of them had grown up. As I read I found myself wondering how any group could be so cruel. The aftermath is almost as difficult to fathom as the incident itself. Perhaps athletes in our society truly are above the law.

Lightfoot, S.L. The Good High School

A study of six high schools--private, public, urban and suburban--to discover what makes them good. She spends time in these schools observing and getting to know the climate and the people. She finds that in these six schools students and faculty know and care about one another.

Lopate, Phillip.(1975) Being With Children. New York: Garden City: Doubleday.

A young poet spends a year -1967-teaching poetry in an elementary school. He winds up a member of the school team putting on plays, infusing an artist's perspective into the life of the school. His observations about children and schooling are worth reading. Mr. Lopate has gone on to become a rather well known writer in his mature years. If you like this book you might also enjoy his Against Joie De Vivre.

Lukas, J.A. (1986) Common Ground. N.Y.: Vintage.

The story of desegration in Boston as seen by families on different sides in this bitter controversy.

Matthews, Gareth. (1980) Philosophy And The Young Child. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

A medieval philosopher becomes interested in his children's musings about time and other puzzling matters. He pays attention to what they ask and decides that they are at work on some of philosophy's most difficult puzzles. This book is about his discoveries and the implications which he draws from them. He becomes convinced that schemes which place children on some lower intellectual rung are wrong-headed.

McCabe, P. (1992) Butcher Boy. New York: Fromm International

How are we ever to understand the mind of those who insane if we are not willing to enter their lives imaginatively? McCabe takes us on a scarey journey into the life of a neglected child who becomes a murderer of a child. We see the world view which leads to the dead develop.

Metz, Mary Haywood. (1978) Classrooms And Corridors: The Crisis Of Authority In Desegregated Secondary Schools. Berkley: University of California Press.

"The primary task of this book is...detailed description of life in the classrooms of two desegregated urban junior high schools.The book is based on... field work in the schools... over a period of more than a year" (p.ix)

Mortimore, Peter; Sammons, Pamela; Stoll, Louise; Lewis, David; and Ecob,Russell. (1988) School Matters. Berkely: University of California Press.

"The authors traced the fortunes, over a period of four years, of 2000 pupils in 50 randomly selected London primary schools. They examined precisely what went on in these schools and measured the varying effects on the pupils progress." The identify the factors which they think contribute to school success. (From book cover)

Nel, B.F. (1974) Fundamental Orientation In Psychological Pedagogics. Stellenbosch/Grahamstown,S.A.:University Publishers and Booksellers.

"...In order to understand man in his situation or the child in the pedagogical situation, one must first provide an accountable version of that which one understands by man or the child of man. One must hold a conception of man or an anthropology :in so doing, one is immediately involved in philosophical anthropology, the science which aims at establishing an accountable conception of man. Pedagogics and psychological pedagogy are thus inevitable involved in philosophical anthropology, particularly the philosophical anthropology of the twentieth century. (p.15)

Orenstein, P. (1994) School Girls: Young Women,Self Esteem,And The Confidence Gap. New York: Doubleday.

The story of a journalist getting to know girls in several middle schools in California. She chronicles their views on growing up and going to school.

Paley, Vivian.(1988) Bad Guys Don't Have Birthdays: Fantasy Play at Four. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

"I have come to the classroom of three and five year olds to uncover their secrets...This year three themes dominate the stage: bad guys, birthdays, and babies. What does it all mean? The magical rhythm that bounces back and forth between this odd triad is just beyond my reach.. One must be able to see through the disarray and concentrate on the drama."(p.vii) A teacher who takes her children seriously and writes about them as though they really had something to teach us.

Paley, Vivian.(1981) Wally's Stories. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

A pre-school teacher who gets up at four in the morning to write down the stories of her children. This book illustrates that there is always more for the teacher to learn from her students and that by adopting that attitude the children also learn more from the teacher. She continues to chronicle her classes and was recently recognized with big bucks by the MacArthur Foundation for her work.

Paley, Vivian. (1992) You Can't Say You Can't Play. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

A glimpse into the moral dilemna of a teacher who decides to take a stand for the children and herself. I think this a wonderful book for what it shows about the vaule of reflection and writing in teaching and for what it shows about the imprefection of practice in comparison to ideas about practice.

Paley, Vivian. (1995) Kwanza And Me, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

A return to the issues of her first book, White Teacher. What is the role of a white teacher in the lives of her African American pupils? This is a disturbing book for what it suggests about the difficulties of the issue but at the same time heartening for what it shows of a courageous and insightful teacher facing the difficult issues of her classroom with all her might.

Peshkin, Alan. (1986) God's Choice: The Total World Of A Fundamentalist Christian School. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.

Peshkin spent more than a year in this school watching and talking with everyone. He writes a very kind story of the school but it shows nevertheless that all is not well with these schools.

Polakow( Suransky), Valerie. (1993) Lives On The Edge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

The story of poor women raising their children alone. Individual stories give meaning to the statistics about poverty and children in the United States. The book makes the case that children are being punished for the poverty of their parents. It is a hard hitting presentation.

Polakow( Suransky), Valerie.(1982) The Erosion Of Childhood. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

A study of five different day care settings written by someone who spent two years observing what goes on when parents leave. It is a disturbing picture. It suggests that no one should leave their child in one of these places without dropping in unannounced from time to time. It is an illustration that the pressure to teach at ever younger ages in spite of the evidence that it doesn't help much and may actually be harmful is alive an well in our society.

Powell, Arthur; Farrar, Eleanor; and Cohen, David,K.(1985) The Shopping Mall High School: Winners and Losers In The Educational Marketplace.Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Think of the high school as a shopping mall, a place where the consumer has every possible choice and the seller is merely trying to satisfy her whim. This is what Powell and his colleagues ask you to do in their study of the modern high school. They cite numerous examples from their visits to schools to illustrate that everything is not possible if we want to improve secondary education in the USA.

Price,R. (1974) The Wanderers. NY:Penguin.

The story of a gang of adolescents growing up in the north Bronx during the 60's. This is a very disturbing look at growing up male in the USA.

Rose, Mike. (1989) Lives On The Boundary: A Moving Account Of The Struggles And Achievements Of America's Underclass. New York: Penguin.

Rose grew up in south Los Angeles. He escaped from a life on the margins of our society by entering a college program aimed at rescuing the educational underclass. He went on to spend his adult life working with similarly disadvantaged students. The book reports his experiences and the lessons he has drawn from his work over a 20 year career. anting the broad sweep with a focus primarily on sociology this might be a worthwhile read.

Ryan,K.(Ed.) (1992) The Roller Coaster Years: Essays By And For Beginning Teachers. New York: Harper Collins.

Stories by 12 teachers about their lives in classrooms

Sachar, E. Shut Up And Let The Lady Teach: A Year In A Public School

A reporter takes a year off to teach in the 8th grade of a Brooklyn school and reports on her experience from hiring to the end of the year.

Samuda, Ronald J. (1975) Psychological Testing Of American Minorities: Issues and Consequences. New York: Dodd Mead. A discussion of the effects of testing on "minority" children for someone who thinks that testing isn't all bad. His last chapter is a discussion of alternatives.

Schon, Donald A.(1983) The Reflective Practitioner. New York: Basic Books.

A defense of practical knowledge and of the need for those who practice it to reflect about what they know and how they come to their understandings, not as an additional part of their work but as an integral part of their lives. An argument against the view that researchers should study and teachers should wait to be told what they found out.

Shaw, Clifford.(1966) Jack The Roller: A Delinquent Boy's Own Story. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Originally published in 1930 this study of one delinquent boy is of interest as a comparison with the current situation. The more things change the more they remain the same.

Shuman, Amy.(1986) Storytelling Rights:The Uses Of Oral And Written Texts By Urban Adolescents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

"This study is based on two and one-half years of fieldwork (from January 1979 to June 1981) among the students of Paul Revere Junior High School, an inner-city school in the eastern United States. The students attending this three-year junior high school were drawn in roughly equal numbers from adjacent black, white and Puerto Rican neighborhoods." (p.3)

Silberman, Charles. (1970) Crisis In The Classroom. New York: Random House.

He studied schools all over the USA in the late 1960's. He found:"Schools fail...less because of maliciousness than because of mindlessness." It is enough to make someone weep to realize that his analysis was presented more than 20 years ago and things have remained pretty much the same. 'Mindlessness" must be a pretty satisfactory state.

Sizer, Theodore. Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma Of The American High School. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

An exploration of the problems with high schools in the USA. The first of a three-part study with 'The Shopping Mall High School" and "The Last Little Citadel." It presents a realistic picture of the compromises teachers must make in order to teach in a large "comprehensive" high school. It also offers a program for change which is now being implemented in many places across the USA.

Spindler, George &Spindler, Louise.Eds. (1987) Interpretive Ethnography Of Education: At Home And Abroad. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Earlbaum.

A presentation about the doing of descriptive-interpretive research in schools and many examples of such study from places near and far away. The editors are viewed by many as the founding parents of this research tradition in education.

Taylor, Denny &Dorsey-Gaines, Catherine. (1988) Growing Up Literate: Learning From Inner City Families. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

A study of the development of children's literacy among the urban poor. As I read about the difficulties faced by these children and their parents I marveled at their resilience and spirit and despaired at the uncaring nature of our society. How does any child come to deserve poverty? How does any child come to deserve wealth?

Tuan, Yi Fu. (1993) Passing Strange and Wonderful. Washington D.C.: Island Press/Shearwater Books.

"This book is about the great importance of the aesthetic in our lives...The pervasive role of the aesthetic is suggested by its root meaning of 'feeling'- not just any kind of feeling, but 'shaped' feeling and senstive perception. And it is suggested even more by its opposite anasthetic, 'lack of feeling'- the condition of living death." (p.1) He argues convincingly and with grace that aesthetics are at the heart of all human endeavor and therefore needs to be defended as more than a frill. He contrasts aesthetic with an-asthetic to make the point that if one does not live life with the aesthetic senses attuned one is asleep to life. Prof. Tuan is a geographer who thinks about human experience from a slightly different perspective than do educators. This difference makes his writings surprising and insightful. He is well worth getting to know.

Tuan, Yi Fu. (1977) Space and Place: The Prespective of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

A phenomenological exploration of spaces and places. He makes clear that our every day experiences are influenced by the way place is created from space and that our bodies are a central influence in the making of experience. This is an important book for what it reveals and also because it demonstrates that usually there is much more to be learned from the ordinary and overlooked than from the unusual.

Vandenberg, Donald.(1971) Being and Education: An Essay in Existential Phenomenology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prenctice Hall.

A description of a phenomenological view of education and the way such a viewpoint would change our ways of thinking about children, and their education including their schooling. It discusses the inadequacies of "positivist" views as they have come to dominate educational thinking in the USA in our time. Note that this book was published in 1971 before the academic world in the USA had its much discussed "paradigm shift." This is a very good book which deserves to be reprinted.

Welsh, Patrick. (1986) Tales Out Of School: A Teacher's Candid Account From The Front Lines Of The American High School. New York: Viking.

A high school teacher in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. gives his views on daily life for teachers and students.

Whorf, Benjamin Lee. Language, Thought & Reality. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Whorf was an insurance adjustor who studied languages as a "hobby." His hypothesis that language influences thinking was based on his study of non-european languages particularly Native-American languages. A very important viewpoint which is becoming more and more influential in our time, though frequently proponents don't recognize Whorf's contribution.

Wiggington, Eliot. (1986) Sometimes A Shining Moment:The Foxfire Experience Twenty Years Teaching In A High School. Garden City: Doubleday.

Wiggington is the young man who began the Foxfire books with his students in Rabun Gap, Georgia. In this book he tells how it all got started and presents his views on teaching young people. The second section "Some Overarching Truths" is well worth reading even if you have no interest in the Foxfire program itself. He covers the most important aspects of the teaching experience and tells in clear language what he thinks is effective and what is not.

Complied with assistance from Professor Loren Barritt, School of Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.