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Schoolishness: Alienated Education and the Quest for Authentic, Joyful Learning
In Schoolishness, Susan D. Blum continues her journey as an anthropologist and educator. The author defines "schoolishness" as educational practices that emphasize packaged "learning," unimaginative teaching, uniformity, constant evaluation by others, arbitrary forms, predetermined time, and artificial boundaries, resulting in personal and educational alienation, dependence, and dread.
Drawing on critical, progressive, and feminist pedagogy in conversation with the anthropology of learning, and building on the insights of her two previous books Blum proposes less-schoolish ways of learning in ten dimensions, to lessen the mismatch between learning in school and learning in the wild. She asks, if learning is our human "superpower," why is it so difficult to accomplish in school? In every chapter Blum compares the fake learning of schoolishness with successful examples of authentic learning, including in her own courses, which she scrutinizes critically.
Schoolishness is not a pedagogical how-to book, but a theory-based phenomenology of institutional education. It has moral, psychological, and educational arguments against schoolishness that, as Blum notes, "rhymes with foolishness."
Drawing on critical, progressive, and feminist pedagogy in conversation with the anthropology of learning, and building on the insights of her two previous books Blum proposes less-schoolish ways of learning in ten dimensions, to lessen the mismatch between learning in school and learning in the wild. She asks, if learning is our human "superpower," why is it so difficult to accomplish in school? In every chapter Blum compares the fake learning of schoolishness with successful examples of authentic learning, including in her own courses, which she scrutinizes critically.
Schoolishness is not a pedagogical how-to book, but a theory-based phenomenology of institutional education. It has moral, psychological, and educational arguments against schoolishness that, as Blum notes, "rhymes with foolishness."
423 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 15, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 7, 2025
Susan Blum is such a gift to academia. This book manages to do both a thorough and lovely job of detailing all that's wrong with school (higher education in particular) and also making positive suggestions for how we (individually and as a society) could go about making positive changes. It's inspiring more than dispiriting.
July 9, 2024
This should be required reading for anyone in education, from new teachers to...let's call them "seasoned" administrators. I was first introduced to Dr. Blum as the editor of "Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead)." I was such a big fan of this book, as I was on my own ungrading journey, that I searched out her appearances on podcasts and online conferences. One thing she said that has resonated with me is, "Not everything needs to be assessed. Some things can just be experienced." Where was *this* kind of education when I was growing up?
That's a tiny sliver of a summary of what this book is about. My wife is a kindergarten teacher, and I teach secondary CTE media production. Even with my "fun" elective class, I still recognize that, as Blum points out in this book, students generally love school in kindergarten and start the slow and steady journey towards disdain (many of them) starting in first grade.
It's a sobering truth about this area that I've chosen as my profession. I've noticed it with my students and my children, and it's certainly been amplified since the COVID pandemic disrupted the very schoolishness that Blum covers in this book.
Another favorite book, arguably a pre-requisite to reading this (and cited here as well) to help understand where Blum is coming from, is Alfie Kohn's "Punished by Rewards." This might lead you to read Kohn's article, now nearly 15 years old (the book is 30 years old), "The Case Against Grades" (https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/cas...).
I used this article as a starting point for discussion with my students this fall. I mention this because the key takeaway from Schoolishness is that our students would be flabbergasted to know that there is a collection of scholarly research that is decades old highlighting some of the flaws in education -- the very flaws that cause them so much stress and anxiety.
Like Blum mentions with grades: they haven't always existed and "God willing, will not always exist." This book is a disrupter to the cumbersome, onerous, patchworked, difficult-to-navigate systems that are in place in education as we know it today. Read this book, and if you're a student, parent, teacher, or community member, let's all start doing our part to take away some of the schoolishness of school and replace it with "authentic, joyful learning."
That's a tiny sliver of a summary of what this book is about. My wife is a kindergarten teacher, and I teach secondary CTE media production. Even with my "fun" elective class, I still recognize that, as Blum points out in this book, students generally love school in kindergarten and start the slow and steady journey towards disdain (many of them) starting in first grade.
It's a sobering truth about this area that I've chosen as my profession. I've noticed it with my students and my children, and it's certainly been amplified since the COVID pandemic disrupted the very schoolishness that Blum covers in this book.
Another favorite book, arguably a pre-requisite to reading this (and cited here as well) to help understand where Blum is coming from, is Alfie Kohn's "Punished by Rewards." This might lead you to read Kohn's article, now nearly 15 years old (the book is 30 years old), "The Case Against Grades" (https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/cas...).
I used this article as a starting point for discussion with my students this fall. I mention this because the key takeaway from Schoolishness is that our students would be flabbergasted to know that there is a collection of scholarly research that is decades old highlighting some of the flaws in education -- the very flaws that cause them so much stress and anxiety.
Like Blum mentions with grades: they haven't always existed and "God willing, will not always exist." This book is a disrupter to the cumbersome, onerous, patchworked, difficult-to-navigate systems that are in place in education as we know it today. Read this book, and if you're a student, parent, teacher, or community member, let's all start doing our part to take away some of the schoolishness of school and replace it with "authentic, joyful learning."
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