If Einstein Ran the Schools: Revitalizing U.S. Education

by Thomas Armstrong Ph.D.

Overview

During the last three decades, education reformers have pushed standardized testing and policies like No Child Left Behind and Common Core to improve test scores and proficiency in basic skills. However, during this period that author Thomas Armstrong calls the "miseducation of America," a number of troubling trends have surfaced, including a decrease in creative thinking scores among children in kindergarten through third grade.

Rather than focus on what's wrong with the education system that has produced these outcomes, Armstrong lays out what creative thinkers know about how children should be educated. In an extended thought experiment, he asks what would happen if we turned the reins of educational policy over, not to the politicians and educational bureaucrats, but to eminent thinkers and creators like Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Martin Luther King Jr., Rachel Carson, Doris Lessing, Jane Goodall, and other seminal culture-builders. What might they say about the best way to educate a child? If Einstein Ran the Schools suggests that the answers to this intriguing question should guide future efforts to reform our nation's schools.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440869785
Publisher:	ABC-CLIO, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/11/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	190
File size:	788 KB

About the Author

Thomas Armstrong, PhD, is executive director of the American Institute for Learning and Human Development and an award-winning author and speaker. He has been an educator for more than 45 years.

Table of Contents

Chapter One The Purpose of Education: Introducing Incredible Kids to an Amazing World
Chapter Two Imagination: Unleashing Our Children's Ability to Mentally Soar
Chapter Three Love of Learning: Affirming the Most Important Goal of Education
Chapter Four Creativity: Teaching outside the Box
Chapter Five Playfulness: Restoring Childhood to Preschool and Kindergarten
Chapter Six Curiosity: Feeding Our Children's Hunger for Knowledge
Chapter Seven Wonder: Reawakening Our Children's Sense of Awe for the Mystery of Life
Chapter Eight Individuality: Resisting Standardization, Datafication, and Depersonalization in Education
Chapter Nine Neurodiversity: Emphasizing the Strengths of Kids with Special Needs
Chapter Ten Compassion: Educating the Heart in the "Selfie" Generation
Chapter Eleven Care for Nature: Cultivating a Reverence for All Living Things
Chapter Twelve Tolerance: Nurturing a Deep Respect for Human Differences
Chapter Thirteen Beauty: Sensitizing Kids to an Aesthetic Appreciation of the World
Chapter Fourteen The Einstein Classroom: Education for Our Children's Future
Appendix A Weapons of Mass Instruction: Fifteen Reasons Standardized Tests Are Worthless
Appendix B Leonardo da Vinci's IEP Meeting: The Problem with Special Education
Appendix C A Resource Guide for Revitalizing U.S. Education
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

iDiane Ravitch

"What a terrific book! Armstrong describes the kind of school that almost everyone wishes they had attended, the school that Einstein would have run, where creativity, imagination, and joy were the goals of education, not scores on a lifeless standardized test."

'Diane Ravitch

"What a terrific book! Armstrong describes the kind of school that almost everyone wishes they had attended, the school that Einstein would have run, where creativity, imagination, and joy were the goals of education, not scores on a lifeless standardized test."

’Diane Ravitch

"What a terrific book! Armstrong describes the kind of school that almost everyone wishes they had attended, the school that Einstein would have run, where creativity, imagination, and joy were the goals of education, not scores on a lifeless standardized test."

Deborah Meier

‘’I love this book! It goes to the core of what is wrong with our test-obsessed standards-crazed system of education. More importantly, it provides living examples of classrooms and schools where imagination, curiosity, creativity, passion, and wonder are celebrated and viewed as an essential part of our students’ learning experience. If Armstrong is right (and I believe he is), then our schools need to radically change their direction from worshipping grades and test scores to creating individuals who can think for themselves, generate unique ideas, and use their gifts to make the world a better place.’’

Diane Ravitch

"What a terrific book! Armstrong describes the kind of school that almost everyone wishes they had attended, the school that Einstein would have run, where creativity, imagination, and joy were the goals of education, not scores on a lifeless standardized test."