Turning Points: 35 Visionaries in Education Tell Their Own Stories

by Jerry Mintz (Editor), Carlo Ricci (Editor), Alfie Kohn (Foreword)

Thirty-five visionary educators were asked: What was your schooling like? When did you realize that there is a need for an alternative approach? What have you done since to help realize that vision? What are you doing now? Turning Points is an anthology of their responses, a peek into the lives and journeys of these pioneering individuals who have-and are-transforming what it means to be a teacher, a student, and a life-long learner. "The [educators] we're looking for are those who say, "I want to work to change this system so others will be spared what was done to me." They have the compassion and the courage to shake up the status quo and denounce cruel traditions. They've mastered the art of negative learning and developed a commitment to making the world, or at least whatever part of it they come to inhabit, a better place than it was before they got there." Alfie Kohn, Education Week (adapted from the foreword)

Genres: Education, Nonfiction, Teaching

432 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2010

About the author

Jerry established and for eighteen years ran a free school based on the principles of Iroquois democracy. He is the author of No Homework and Recess All Day and is currently Director of Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO).

Reviews

[Karin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this collection of essays 27 (not 35 like in the title) people who have made a difference in education tell their stories. They include alternative schools, home schools etc. The stories were very interesting and they don't all have happy endings. It is very hard to 'kick against the pricks' - the pricks being the 'tradional' education system, the 'back-to-basics' movement that shows up everytime something innovative and new shows up in the USA.

In Canada there were lots of whole language learning going on, but now that my daughter is in gr. 1 i don't see any of it anymore. Play as learning also was non-existant after jk. Her hatred of learning to read is visible every night as we do the dreaded homework. Maybe I need to ask questions at my daughter's school or take her out also and home school her. (I like my free days, tho. sigh. OTOH I like not having to sell or buy stuff from the school).

This book may just have given me the kick i needed to fight for a good education for my daughter. I want her to be a life long learner, not an under-the-desk reader, like I was.

[Ahmed Chicktay · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book provides short history's of people involved in alternative education.