36 Children

by Herbert R. Kohl

A former teacher recalls his two years in a Harlem school. A new Introduction and a wide selection of stories, poetry, and drawings by the children are included.

Genres: Education, Nonfiction, Teaching, Parenting, Autobiography, Psychology, Sociology

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Educator best known for his advocacy of progressive alternative education and as the author of more than thirty books on education. He founded the 1960s Open School movement and is credited with coining the term "open classroom."

Reviews

[Tlsmith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Both of my parents went back to school to get their masters in education a few years ago. Besides having to help them with their term papers, they shared some of the books that they had to read for their classes with me. This was one of them. Its a book about a Harvard/Columbia educated middle school teacher in the mid 1960s. After asking too many questions at his previous school, Herbert Kohl is punished by being reassigned to a school in Harlem. He encounters a very diverse and unruly classroom when he gets there. The book chronicles how he figured out, through trial and error, ways to get through to each of his students. The book does an amazing job of showing how a teacher is a witness to and part conductor of the amazing changes that happen within their students throughout the year. In the end, since this is a real story, most kids do not turn out well. But it does give you hope and gives a much needed expression for the depth of what it can mean to be a teacher.

After reading this book I heard a discussion on NPR about whether teaching has changed/improved over the years. A person in the audience asked the question: "After reading Herbert Kohl's 36 Children there was an army of young people who wanted to turn things around in education. Its been forty years since then and nothing has changed." With that comment I think this book also tells the story of how desperate the need for change really is.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for one of my graduate classes as a requirement for a book report. At first I found it hard to read and follow along with as it was written in the 1960s. As I kept reading I realized that there are still so many similarities to what I experience today as a teacher. It’s crazy to know how little (and at the same time how MUCH) things have changed. I really feel like I learned a lot about the type of teacher I want to be, and learning how the author changed as he worked with this group of kids really helped me. I feel like someday I will be the type of teacher I have always wanted to be. This book was really interesting to me, and makes me want to start looking out there for more books like this (although, ideally, books that were written more recently).

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the only story of a teacher who makes a difference that is at all believable. Kohl took real chances and never quit work to go do a lecture tour. he remained a teacher his whole life. He allowed students to make decisions about their own learning and always put his students first, before other teachers, administrators, and even his own career. Kohl is pissed. Definate recommendation to anyone who thinks you can't work within the system. (Although Kohl himself insists that you can't, but that doesn't come until the end of the book.)

[Marianne Ulloa · Rating 4 out of 5]

36 Children is an account of a teacher in an inner-city HS in the 60's (NYC?), his classroom, and his attempts to reform. This book was not comlex, and the language was not always the best, however, it was moving in its message that there needs to be change, and it begins with one classroom at a time. I read this when I first started teaching in NYC, and it absolutely terrified me how a system is still structured to not allow for the success of young people, and although there are attempts to reform, we still have a long way to go before there is equality in the classroom for all students.

[Maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, with good ideas, but probably would recommend other books about teaching before this one. Was probably more relevant in the 60s and 70s - though I'm sure the racial tension still exists and manifests today. Loved the children's stories.

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read for educators.

[Shiri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good read for educators and who ever works with children. Never give up!

[Mark]

For me, this was the right book at the right time.

[Steve Voiles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kohl inspired many of us to become teachers. This book details the chaos of his first year in a rather desolate school largely resigned to keeping kids off the street. His open-minded approach ignored the prescribed activities and focused on learning from the kids and finding out what they needed and wanted to learn rather than what was prescribed.

Kohl gives a huge amount of space to the actual art work and writing of the children themselves, not assignments, but writing that the students undertook out of their own initiative given the freedom and the trust that Kohl managed to create in his classroom.

Not an easy read, but well worth the effort of anyone interested in the education of the underclass in the mid twentieth century.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A study of the education system in the USA (and the school system in general), and how it fails poor people, written in the 1960s. Fascinating observation on how unstructured, artistic and philosophically-driven learning can benefit children. Made stronger by the inclusion of stories and work by the children that Kohl taught (including the chillingly brilliant short story 'The Condemned Building' by Alvin). As a teacher Kohl seems to care about his students. Occasionally dated in language; some meandering sections and bland language spoil passages, but this is still a very relevant book.

[Nicholas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a classic -- Kohl's story of transformation in a Harlem classroom. At first it is an inspiring story, but he ends up more cynical and despairing as he sees that how one good year with them was not enough, and he continues the story with follow-ups of many of the children and the struggles they go through over the next few years.

[Hillary · Rating 5 out of 5]

No less relevant today...so many of Kohl’s insights & experiences can and should be applied to education today.

[Brenda Yasir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read!

[Jordyn Prestwich · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was fascinating and educational. I loved it.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is two years in the teaching life of a young impressionable Jewish kid from the Bronx teaching sixth grade in Harlem. He leaves after two years, not because he’s not making a difference, but because one year isn’t enough to help these children. And he taught them in 1963-65. The book came out in ’67. [I thought he got fired for teaching Langston Hughes, that was Kozol, but the truth is no one *cared* what he did or didn’t do with his students.:] ”…Now I am convinced that that system, which masquerades as educational but in Harlem produces no education except in bitterness, rejection, and failure, can only be changed from without.”

[Sunny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was quite insightful. Its about a teacher in the 60s ish who gets to teach a 6th grade class of black kids in Harlem New York. The relationship between him and the kids is tough to start up with but then he develops an incredible relationship with them that goes beyond the curriculum they are set. He started teaching them the most amazing and wide array of subjects and through his teaching brings them to life. A must read for any teacher I feel and very rewarding if you are a parent as it gives you lots of interesting ways to make teaching interesting.

[Elisabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great, if not somewhat depressing, book. It was depressing in part because it deals with the American public school system, always under appreciated and underfunded. It's also an upsetting look at how little the educational system has changed since the mid-60s when this was written. It was also inspiring and rejuvenating as an educator.

[Esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book before I had ever entered public school. even as a student in a public school system, there was little connection, it seemed to me, between my own life and those of the children described in this book. Now, caught as we are in the ever constricting noose of standardized testing as our sole means of evaluation, it seems more relevant than ever.

[Ken · Rating 1 out of 5]

I absolutely hated this book! It made no sense at all. The author just babbles about nothing and just randomly talks about whatever is on his mind. I wouldn't recommend this book to my worst enemy!

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmm. I wanted more from this book. I didn't realize such a large part of this was the children's writing. This may sound quite shallow, but I kept comparing it to movies about teaching inner city kids. that's probably not fair, but there you go.

[Sara]

"Freedom is only real when people are able to care about more than their own needs."

[Ernesto · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hate the man.

[Laurie Kutil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite a great story of a teacher trying to help kids in Harlem reach full potential. He also shared some of the stories they wrote too. Hard to put down.

[Angel]

Inspiring!

[Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book!