Stop Stealing Dreams (what is school for?) is a quick 30,000 word read from Seth Godin. While he doesn’t offer a prescription, and it’s certainly not a manual on how to fix our schools, Seth will provoke you to think about a different set of educational goals. Now don’t worry, you won’t have to tie these into the common core curriculum or develop a new formative and/or summative assessment for them. According to Seth, “It’s more a rant than a book. It’s written for teenagers, their parents, and their teachers. It’s written for bosses and for those who work for those bosses. And it’s written for anyone who has paid taxes, gone to a school board meeting, applied to college, or voted.” Plus, it’s priced to fit into any education budget no matter how badly your’s has been cut because it’s FREE! Get a copy for every faculty member, every administrator, every school board member, every parent, and every citizen in your community. Seth asks questions and shares insight that will hopefully spark a few essential conversations communities across the country need to have regardless of their current or past socioeconomic realities. After all, in the words of John Dewey:
Democracy cannot flourish where the chief influences in selecting subject matter of instruction are utilitarian ends narrowly conceived for the masses, and, for the higher education of the few, the traditions of a specialized cultivated class. The notion that the ‘essentials’ of elementary education are the three R’s mechanically treated, is based upon ignorance of the essentials needed for realization of democratic ideals. A curriculum which acknowledges the social responsibilities of education must present situations where problems are relevant to the problems of living together, and where observation and information are calculated to develop social insight and interest.
