RECOMMENDED READINGS

I   What Helps

• John Dewey, Experience and Education; Interest and Effort in Education (excellent but hard to find); The School and Society; Democracy and Education (longer and more academic)
• Jean Piaget, The Moral Judgment of the Child and other works
• Writings of latter-day constructivists such as Constance Kamii, Rheta DeVries, Carolyn Edwards, Eleanor Duckworth
• Jacqueline Grennon Brooks and Martin G. Brooks, In Search of Understanding: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms (a good introduction)
• Steven Zemelman, Harvey Daniels, and Arthur Hyde, Best Practice: New Standards for Teaching and Learning in America's Schools
• Alfie Kohn, "Choices for Children" in Phi Delta Kappan, Sept. 1993; and Punished by Rewards (ch. 11, 12)
• Thomas Lickona and Muffy Paradise, "Democracy in the Elementary School" in Ralph Mosher, ed., Moral Education: A First Generation of Research and Development
• Regie Routman, Invitations: Changing as Teachers and Learners (on whole language)
• Publications by Foxfire Teacher Outreach (PO Box 541, Mountain City, GA 30562)
• Publications by the Institute for Democracy in Education (McCracken Hall, Ohio Univ., Athens, OH 45701)

  REAL-WORLD EXAMPLES

  learner-centered classrooms where students make decisions and explore important ideas in caring communities:

• George H. Wood, Schools That Work
• Deborah Meier, The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem
• Carolyn Edwards et al., eds., The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Approach to Early Childhood Education
• John G. Nicholls and Susan P. Hazzard, Education as Adventure: Lessons from the Second Grade

  GENEROSITY, ALTRUISM, and PERSPECTIVE TAKING

• Alfie Kohn, The Brighter Side of Human Nature: Altruism and Empathy in Everyday Life (theory and research)
• Norma Feshbach et al., Learning to Care (perspective taking exercises)
• Various writings by Martin Hoffman, Nancy Eisenberg, Ervin Staub, Marian Radke-Yarrow, and Robert Selman

  PROSOCIAL EDUCATION and THE CLASSROOM AS CARING COMMUNITY

• Materials from the Child Development Project -- e.g., At Home in Our Schools: A Guide to Schoolwide Activities that Build Community, and Reading, Thinking, and Caring [lit. curriculum to promote caring] (available from Developmental Studies Center, 2000 Embarcadero, Suite 305, Oakland, CA 94606; 800-666-7270)
• Alfie Kohn, "Caring Kids: The Role of the Schools," Phi Delta Kappan, March 1991, pp. 496-506
• Rheta DeVries and Betty Zan, Moral Classrooms, Moral Children: Creating a Constructivist Atmosphere in Early Education
• Catherine C. Lewis, Educating Hearts and Minds: Reflections on Japanese Preschool and Elementary Education
• Thomas Lickona, Educating for Character
• Nel Noddings, The Challenge to Care in Schools
• Thomas J. Sergiovanni, Building Community in Schools Vivian Gussin Paley, You Can't Say You Can't Play and other books
• Materials from Educators for Social Responsibility, 23 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138 (emphasis on connecting prosocial values to the world outside the classroom)
• Bob Blue, "Starting Small," a tape featuring songs written for -- and sung by -- children that deal with various social issues (available for $10 from B. Blue, 54 Walnut St., Apt. B2, Waltham, MA 02154)

  CLASS MEETINGS

• Child Development Project, Ways We Want Our Class to Be: Class Meetings that Build Commitment to Kindness and Learning (see CDP address above)
• Thomas Lickona, Educating for Character (ch. 8)
• William Glasser, Schools Without Failure (ch. 10-12)
• Thomas Gordon, T.E.T.: Teacher Effectiveness Training (ch. 8, 9)
• Jane Nelsen, Lynn Lott, and H. Stephen Glenn, Positive Discipline in the Classroom

  COOPERATIVE LEARNING (other voices)

• Cooperative Learning Magazine ($25/year). Box 1582, Santa Cruz, CA 95061; 408/426-7926
• Alfie Kohn, No Contest: The Case Against Competition, ch. 10 (critical overview)
• Yael and Shlomo Sharan, Expanding Cooperative Learning through Group Investigation (learner-centered approach)
• Mark Brubacher et al., eds., Perspectives on Small Group Learning (constructivist approach)
• Elizabeth Cohen, Designing Groupwork (reducing status differences in the classroom)
• Nancy Schniedewind and Ellen Davidson, Cooperative Learning, Cooperative Lives (coop. as a subject of study)
• Kohn, "Group Grade Grubbing vs. Cooperative Learning," Educational Leadership, March 1991, pp. 83-87 rewards and cooperative learning
• Alfie Kohn, "Resistance to Cooperative Learning: Making Sense of Its Deletion and Dilution," Journal of Education, vol. 174, no. 2, 1992, pp. 38-56

  COOPERATIVE GAMES

• Terry Orlick, The Cooperative Sports and Games Book and The Second Cooperative Sports and Games Book
• Family Pastimes, R.R. 4, Perth, Ontario, K7H 3C6 Canada (board games)
  

  II   What Hurts

  DISCIPLINE and CONTROL; PUNISHMENT AND REWARDS - What Hurts

• Alfie Kohn, Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community
• Linda M. McNeil, Contradictions of Control: School Structure and School Knowledge
• Edward L. Deci et al., "Effects of Performance Standards on Teaching Styles: Behavior of Controlling Teachers,"
• Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 74, 1982, pp. 852-59
• Cheryl Flink et al., Controlling Teaching Strategies: Undermining Children’s Self-Determination and Performance, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol.. 59, 1990, pp. 916-24
• William Glasser, Schools Without Failure and The Quality School
• Thomas Gordon, T.E.T.: Teacher Effectiveness Training and other books
• Irwin A. Hyman, Reading, Writing, and the Hickory Stick: The Appalling Story of Physical and Psychological Abuse in American Schools
• Murray A. Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them: Corporal Punishment in American Families
• Alfie Kohn, Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes

  COMPETITION - What Hurts

• Alfie Kohn, No Contest: The Case Against Competition
• John Nicholls, The Competitive Ethos and Democratic Education

  GRADES - What Hurts

• Howard Kirschenbaum et al., Wad-Ja-Get?: The Grading Game in American Education
• Ohmer Milton et al., Making Sense of College Grades
• Alfie Kohn, "Grading: The Issue Is Not How but Why," Educational Leadership, October 1994
• Ruth Butler and Mordecai Nisan, "Effects of No Feedback, Task-Related Comments, and Grades on Intrinsic Motivation and Performance," Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 78, 1986, pp. 210-16.
• Also see the work of Dweck, Ames, and Nicholls cited below on overemphasizing evaluation of performance.

  STANDARDIZED TESTING - What Hurts

• Scott G. Paris et al., “A Developmental Perspective on Standardized Achievement Testing,” Educational Researcher, June-July 1991, pp. 12-20
• D. Monty Neill and Noe J. Medina, "Standardized Testing: Harmful to Educational Health," Phi Delta Kappan, May 1989, pp. 688-97
• Center for the Study of Testing, "The Influence of Testing on Teaching Math and Science in Grades 4-12" (order from CSTEEP, 323 Campion Hall, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167)
• Various reports and quarterly newsletter from FAIRTEST, 342 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139

  TRACKING & GIFTED EDUCATION - What Hurts

• Jeannie Oakes, Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality
• Anne Wheelock, Crossing the Tracks: How Untracking Can Save America's Schools
• Mara Sapon-Shevin, Playing Favorites: Gifted Education and the Disruption of Community

  III   Critical Perspectives on Selected Topics

  MOTIVATION RECONSIDERED

• Martin L. Maehr and Carol Midgley, "Enhancing Student Motivation: A Schoolwide Approach," Educational Psychologist, vol. 26, 1991, pp. 399-427
• Carole Ames, "Classrooms: Goals, Structures, and Student Motivation," Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 84, 1992, pp. 261-71
• Carol S. Dweck, "Motivational Processes Affecting Learning," American Psychologist, vol. 41, 1986, pp. 1040-48
• John G. Nicholls, The Competitive Ethos and Democratic Education
• Martin V. Covington, Making the Grade: A Self-Worth Perspective on Motivation and School Reform
• Deborah J. Stipek, Motivation to Learn: From Theory to Practice (2d ed.)

  SPECIAL EDUCATION

• Herbert Lovett, Cognitive Counseling and Persons with Special Needs and Learning to Listen: Positive Approaches and People with Difficult Behavior (alternatives to behavioral manipulation)
• Joan F. Goodman, When Slow Is Fast Enough (rethinking skills-based programs & IEPs)
• Jane Knitzer et al., At the Schoolhouse Door: An Examination of Programs and Policies for Children with Behavioral and Emotional Problems (from Bank St. College of Ed.)
• Gerald Coles, The Learning Mystique: A Critical Look at "Learning Disabilities"
• Thomas Armstrong, The Myth of the A.D.D. Child
• Alfie Kohn, "Suffer the Restless Children," Atlantic Monthly, Nov. 1989, pp. 90-100 (attn. deficit hyperact. disorder)

  SELF-ESTEEM

• Alfie Kohn, "The Truth About Self-Esteem," Phi Delta Kappan, December 1994
• James A. Beane, "Sorting Out the Self-Esteem Controversy," Educational Leadership, September 1991, pp. 25-30
• Lilian G. Katz, "All About Me," American Educator, Summer 1993, pp. 18-23

  BUSINESS INFLUENCE IN SCHOOLS

• Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America
• Alfie Kohn, "Turning Learning into a Business: Concerns About Total Quality," Educational Leadership, Sept. 1993, pp. 58-61
• James Moffett, "On to the Past: Wrong-Headed School Reform," Phi Delta Kappan, April 1994, pp. 585-90
• Alex Molnar, Giving Kids the Business: The Commercialization of America’s Schools
• Alfie Kohn, ed., Education, Inc.: Turning Learning into a Business
• George R. Kaplan, Profits R Us, Phi Delta Kappan, November 1996

  MAKING CHANGE

• Michael G. Fullan and Matthew B. Miles, "Getting Reform Right," Phi Delta Kappan, June 1992, pp. 745-52
• Various publications by Milbrey McLaughlin on the significance of collaboration among faculty (School of Education, CERAS Building, Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA 94305)
• Selma Wassermann, "Children Working in Groups? It Doesn't Work!" Childhood Education, Summer 1989, pp. 201-5 (one teacher's perspective)