In the first paragraph of the foreword, Larry Cuban describes Nehring as being, "a thoughtful, passionate, progressive educator who prizes well-being of children and youth while seeking ways to counter existing antihumane, test driven school policies and advance social justice. He wants to subvert traditional schooling because the prevailing ideas that drive the existing system squelch what he prizes" (p. ix). The literature review of my dissertation is going to have a focus on the impact of testing on curriculum, so these introductory lines caught my attention.
Continuing with the same topic, Cuban mentioned, "Nehring lays out a map for 'mindful practitioners' to crack the 'mindless adoption' of traditional practices in district offices, schools, and classrooms that squelch students' inquiry, creativity, and desire to learn" (p. x). As a teacher, I always want to be able to explain the theoretical background for any component of my classroom, with a strong focus on making intentional decisions based on what I know from research and experience to best serve my students. As such, mindfulness, has always been a top priority, a concept that my undergraduate courses instilled in me before I even stepped in the classroom. I know how frustrating it can be to have to utilize a mandated curriculum, so I truly value teaching contexts where I am able to be a "mindful practitioner". Thus, before I even got to Nehring's own words, I was hooked. I could tell that the book was going to focus on areas of interest.
Throughout I enjoyed the tone and content of the book. Nehring describes five different schools at various points of history demonstrating how many of the present reform efforts actually go far back in history. He takes a close, analytical look into the historical and cultural components contributing to education in our country. Each school was a focal point of a chapter, and the portraits of the schools that he shares illustrate one of his six conspirators against thoughtful schooling. The chapter focusing on the sixth conspirator, the failure of generosity and justice, revisits each school to examine from this lens. Then Nehring concludes the book with a summarizing the main points.
I appreciated the range of contexts for the schools that Nehring selected to illustrate various reform efforts, as well as their levels of success (or lack there of) and factors contributing to their long-term impacts. Furthermore, I liked that he mentioned areas in which the schools excelled, as well as downfalls or obstacles to carrying out their visions.
He also did a good job of taking different stakeholders into consideration, as illustrated when he referred to Michael Fullan's thoughts saying, "[...] it is the height of arrogance and insensitivity for initiators of change to deny to others the emotional response that they themselves have experienced. Therefore, one important key to the successful initiation of change is to grant room for the emotional response to work itself out" (p. 47).
Nehring emphasized the importance of thoughtful professionals, and his book gave me plenty to ponder. I am glad that I am taking this course later on in my program since I have a much stronger foundation in curricular decisions from a historical and big picture perspective than I did a year ago. One week from today I will commute for our first class session. I can't wait to see what my classmates were thinking as they read the book. I have also been enjoying reading opinions on similar topics on the NCTE Members Open Forum emails, Susan Ohanian's news emails, and Diane Ravich's and Deborah Meier's joint blog Bridging Differences, as well as always appreciating dialogue via blog comments.
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