Wounded by School: Recapturing the Joy in Learning and Standing Up to Old School Culture

by Kirsten Olson, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot (Foreword), Parker J. Palmer (Foreword)

While reformers and policymakers focus on achievement gaps, testing, and accountability, millions of students mentally and emotionally disengage from learning and many gifted teachers leave the field. Ironically, today’s schooling is damaging the single most essential component to education―the joy of learning How do we recognize the "wounds" caused by outdated schooling policies? How do we heal them? In her controversial new book, education writer and critic Kirsten Olson brings to light the devastating consequences of an educational approach that values conformity over creativity, flattens students’ interests, and dampens down differences among learners. Drawing on deeply emotional stories, Olson shows that current institutional structures do not produce the kinds of minds and thinking that society really needs. Instead, the system tends to shame, disable, and bore many learners. Most importantly, she presents the experiences of wounded learners who have healed and shows what teachers, parents, and students can do right now to help themselves stay healthy.

Genres: Education, Nonfiction, Parenting, Teaching, Psychology

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a former public school teacher and a current homeschooling mom, I was very interested in reading this book. I think the author makes good arguments for changing the way our schools educate our youth but first universities need to alter the way future teachers are prepared.
Reading Wounded by School has prompted me to make some changes in our homeschool. I have asked my children what they want to learn this coming school year. I discovered my eldest son would rather study US Government than a 3rd year of Spanish; I am letting him follow his interests. My youngest daughter wants to paint - so I'm looking for curriculum that will guide her interest since I have no artistic talent.
My eldest daughter (who is heading to college in less than a month to study to be an elementary teacher) grabbed this book from my to-be-read basket and loved it; I have been requested to not get rid of this one so it will be going to Mississippi University for Women with her next month. I have a feeling it will be passed among her college classmates.

[Deven Black · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent review of how school is damaging to so many students, how it destroys creativity, drive and sense of self. Classroom tested ways to restore some sense of joy in school, joy in becoming educated, give one a small sense of hope.

[Michael Kleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this problematic book, Kirsten Olson argues not only that the ‘factory model’ of education is ineffective and even injurious to students, but that it is incapable of producing the kind of creative minds that our contemporary American workforce demands. Underlying her thesis is the notion that the emotion of joy, specifically the “joy of learning,” is the single most essential component to education, and that the experience of joy has been lost in the soul-crushing, day to day routine of America’s schools.

Old School Culture, as Olson defines it, “is a set of old-fashioned ideas and attitudes in school that construct teaching as hierarchical, learning as passive, and the bureaucratic structures of school as about adults, not kids.”

Olson makes some very strong claims, accusations, and generalizations, which normally would require a foundation of objective evidence to support. If Olson had prepared a court case in which she sought to convict the public school system of wounding its students, however, her case would rest predominantly on personal anecdotes and circumstantial evidence.

Her interviewees, some of whom had been out of school for decades, would parade up to the witness stand to tell their stories of being wounded by school, as well as their road to recovery. Then, dramatically, Olson would take the stand as an expert witness, telling about her work as a school consultant and how she observed the attitudes of students in many different types of classroom environments, and how, in non-traditional school settings, “learners” respond in an entirely positive way. This black-and-white portrayal should raise a red flag in the mind of any critical reader.

Olson draws broad generalizations about the American education system based on roughly two dozen interviews, which is hardly even a statistically significant sample. In one of the few times she does cite a survey, the data does not support her conclusion. In the 2006 High School Survey of Student Engagement she cites at the beginning of Chapter 9, 70.5 percent of the respondents agree or strongly agree with the statement “I care about my school,” and 72 percent agree or strongly agree with the statement “I am engaged in school.”

In one of the responses Olson chose to include, only 31 percent of high school students said they have virtually no interaction with teachers on a day to day basis. That means 69 percent do. Yet she concludes that this survey “indicate[s] that a vast majority of high school students dislike their course material and have inadequate interactions with teachers, and a third of students sit in classrooms every day in which they feel completely unseen and unengaged.”

None of this is to suggest that Olson does not offer any useful criticism or propose some thought-provoking alternatives in Wounded by School, but there are serious problems with her work. Even when it comes to alternative educational models, she leaves out the one that has existed alongside the factory model for nearly a century: the Montessori Method.

According to one website, “Montessori practice is always up-to-date and dynamic because observation and the meeting of needs is continual and specific for each child. When physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional needs are met children glow with excitement and a drive to play and work with enthusiasm, to learn, and to create. They exhibit a desire to teach, help, and care for others and for their environment.”

Those are all qualities that Olson claimed are not being promoted by our current school system, yet she only mentions Maria Montessori in a single footnote. This omission is even more glaring because the method is practiced in around 5,000 schools in the United States. Why would Olson ignore the most widespread alternative education model in the United States today?

Ultimately, the purpose of K-12 education—hand in hand with parents, friends, and social and religious organizations—is to help a child survive and flourish when they reach adulthood. But a school is only one small piece of the puzzle. Ultimately, the individual must decide what he or she will take out of his or her own educational experience.

In the mad rush to create the best employees for the 21st Century workplace, nurture un-wounded, happy technocrats, or “produce the kinds of minds and thinking that society really needs” (whatever that means), we forget that there are many ways of obtaining knowledge, and the school is just one means to that end—not the end in itself.

[Lydia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, this book offered some great insights into how our public school systems are broken and how they have, in the process, wounded students and teachers on many levels. Toward the end, I was disappointed that the suggestions she offered were not as creative, practical or applicable as I had anticipated after such a strong start at the beginning of the book. She suggests home-schooling as an option for students, and that just seems like a "cop-out" solution to me, not that home-schooling is wrong, but that instead of fixing the system she suggests you should just run from it. There are things that from this book that will definitely give me pause in the future and will reshape how I interact with my students.

[Sydney Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Wounded By School and cried. My daughter went through so many things Kirsten talks about in her book. Having the opportunity to meet Kirsten Olsen and thanking her for having the courage to write this book was wonderful. We had a great opportunity to sit and talk about what our educational system is doing to our children! Teaching to the test, being more concerned about test scores that about individuals is what is hurting our educational system. Differentiated instruction and meeting a students needs and valuing what they can bring to a class is so important, yet lacking in so many classrooms. Stand and deliver needs to go and the teacher being the guide on the side is what will help our children grow, want to learn and be in school.

[Anne Jordan-Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only book I've ever read that addresses how parents can talk to their children about school when the values of the school and family don't completely match. This book is also great for taking people's early school experiences seriously. Lots of stories, many from students with various special needs including adhd and learning disabilities. I'm buying this book to have at home. There's no higher compliment I can give than that.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably a much better read for people who need ammunition for advocating for alternative schools than it is for pre-service teachers.

The anarchist/fatalist in me liked all the suggestions of "drop-out, try home-schooling, open 24 hour schools where students just come in whenever they want", but the other part of me would have appreciated some more tangible suggestions for reaching out to students who feel alienated in the education system.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book articulates well how schools are squelching the spark of learning in so many students--and teachers. The stories and examples are wonderful but it falls short on providing a hands-on way to help a school change...I'd still say it's a must-read for anyone working to help schools become engaging places of learning for all students.

[Michele · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yuck. As a teacher, I was so interested in reading this book. I was disappointed by its desire to blame everything on the classroom. Not only unfair but unreasonable. I had a sense that the author was trying to work out her own childhood wounds. I do not recommend this book to anyone who is trying to educate children.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book. It doesn't cover all the ways we can be wounded by school, but it provides a framework to start talking about the ways the institution of school is damaging and how we might improve it.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The timeliness of this book falling into my hands cannot be ignored. My son is a brilliant child. He knows more about dinosaurs and space, and did by the age of four, than I ever will in my entire life. At age four, he drew and created his own book a Blue s Clues book that actually had three different clues on different pages and a summary page, just like the TV show. He s already been moved up a grade and yet& last year was a horrible school year. He failed to do any homework, shoved papers into his desk and never brought them home, was constantly getting in trouble/detentions for disrupting the class. We did not find out that there was a significant problem until well into the second half of the school year, at which time his teacher kept telling us that Connor is too bright to be struggling this much . As if the fact that he is intelligent precludes him from ever having difficulties in school. My husband and I tried to stay polite and work within the constraints given to us. Unfortunately, Connor continued to get detentions, failed assignments and generally struggled throughout the rest of the year. When asked, he swears that the teacher did not like him and would tell us of situations that occurred in the classroom where he was either ignored, belittled by the teacher, or both. We saw this incredibly talented, exceptionally bright, eager student who is absolutely fascinated by science turn into a sullen child who resented school and all but refused to do his homework. After reading this book, I now realize that my son has been severely wounded by school.[return][return]The main point behind this book is the fact that our world has changed dramatically over the years. The nearly instantaneous information gathering capabilities we now have should make learning even easier. However, our educational system was created around the Industrial Revolution, when information was difficult to disseminate and following orders reigned supreme. Even though our world, the technology we use, and our understanding of the brain and how we learn, have all changed completely over the years, our educational system has not. Rather, we continue to label and track children, focusing on grades and standardized tests rather than on nurturing children to think critically or actually learn useful information for their future. It s an interesting prospect and one that explains why we cannot seem to perform better when compared to students in other countries, even though we spend millions of dollars on our schools throughout the nation.[return][return]Ms. Olson s book is filled with stories and anecdotes taken from thousands of interviews of people who had school experiences just like my son. Some are still recovering from the pain, humiliation, self-doubt and outright trauma of the situations while others have persevered. While a large majority of her focus is on those with learning disabilities, Ms. Olson pulls no punches when she states that our current school system harms everyone from burning out the talented and gifted to ignoring the ones in the middle to alienated and ostracizing those with problems, behavioral, cognitive or other. If we continue to ignore these traumas, we will continue to produce a workforce that is unprepared both socially and mentally for the business world and stand to lose the potential of hundreds of thousands of students who just give up.[return][return]Coming from a long line of educators in my family and having studied to become a teacher myself, I found Wounded by School to be a fascinating read only because education remains an interest of mine. As I ve mentioned before, coming off of the school year and everything we faced with my son was also a factor in causing me to be so riveted to what Ms. Olson had to say. I was also forced to take a step back and contemplate my own experiences and how those experiences made me who I am today and shaped my own views on the educational system (there is a reason why I didn t become a teacher). I truly appreciate that opportunity to review this book and already have a list of people and family members to whom I am either going to present the book or make them read it. Thank you to Caitlin Price at FSB Associates for this book![return][return]If you doubt this whole concept of being wounded, I ask you to perform the following exercise, as stated in the book. Answering these questions will help you uncover your own attitudes about school and how your own school experiences shaped that attitude. Once you consider them, maybe we can all work together to ensure that our children are not Wounded by School, as we were.[return][return]1. Close your eyes and think back to your earliest memory of school. When was it and what was happening? How did this experience imprint upon you some basic feelings about the process of education? What feelings come up from these early memories?[return]2. What are the components of a positive learning experience for you? What makes a learning experience pleasurable for you?[return]3. How does what is in Question 1 compare with the material in Question 2?[return]4. What are you afraid of when you confront new learning experiences and in what contexts?[return]5. If you could design a school that incorporated the elements of positive learning experiences, what would it be like?"

[Michelle Crunkleton-Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

For some kids, perhaps even many kids, school is a terrible place to be. This book acknowledges and examines that and discusses what can be done to heal the wounds or perhaps prevent them in the first place.

[sendann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I inhaled this book like a starving woman. I can’t recommend it enough, as a personal experience.

[Daniel Moss · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who hated school as a child and came away with lots of wounds, this book is extremely therapeutic.

[Kelsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a book I had to read for school which was pretty much a sob story about how every single student is wounded by this or that and is not being served by the American education system. I agree that public education is not a good fit for every single student and that there are problems with it, however, I prefer to be more proactive rather than sitting and whining about it!

[Randie D. Camp, M.S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Olson raises a lot of good points and draws attention to major flaws in our education system...mainly how schools/teachers wound students in eight different ways. Many of the stories shared in the book brought me to tears. The only thing the book was lacking was a focus on how to help with healing the wounds.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful book which both examines the flawed educational system in the US from an academic standpoint, and gives heartwrenching personal stories of "successful" adults as examples of how damaging school experiences can be.

[Jen McCoy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a required reading for my class and I pretty much hated this book. The whole thing revolved around how "wounding" school was for students because of scores on standardized testing. Please.

[Madeline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not much to say...but it is a MUST read for anyone who's attended school, or homeschools...so everyone. It's that good. I'm going to keep this book to use in later years.

[Ramona · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of my dissertation books--a good read.

[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty amazing stuff to think about, very easy to relate to.

[Barbara Lovejoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book! We need to do a better job with our students--all our students.

[Jonna Higgins-Freese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Couldn't read it -- it was too vivid, too painful for this current moment of my life.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a few insightful ideas but somewhat hindered by the fact that it blindly and singlemindedly presents middle class values and representations.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some sections are worth reading while other stuff is more for the academic.

[Tiffanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting read on the impact of our educational establishment.

[becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

one of my choosen professional development books for the summer

[Becky Shattuck · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's much about this book I loved. Olson delves deep into the problems in public schools, particularly the damage done by tracking and standardized testing. She also comments a bit on how teachers are often poorly trained or are pressured to forgo their best practices to teach to the tests. Some of this is well researched, but other parts are built upon emotional appeal. I thought a lot of the personal stories were good to read, but they end up making up the bulk of this book.

Although she does an excellent job detailing the problems with our school systems, Olson ultimately fails to offer meaningful solutions. There are a few sections where she touts charter schools, but charter schools aren't shown to be beneficial to students as a whole. She also suggests, for some families, that home schooling might be a good solution. She includes a story of a student who changed her educational path herself, and that student chose to get a GED at the age of 16 and then take classes at the community college. I feel that these recommendations fall short of what we need, and I wish she would have focused more on changing the system--fixing what is broken--instead of withdrawing completely.