Category Archives: Peter Lang

Pedagogies of Kindness and Respect: On the Lives and Education of Children (Peter Lang USA)

Pedagogies of Kindness and Respect: On the Lives and Education of Children (Peter Lang USA)

Thomas, P.L. / Carr, Paul R. / Gorlewski, Julie A. / Porfilio, Brad J. (eds.)

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Book synopsis

Pedagogies of Kindness and Respect presents a wide variety of concepts from scholars and practitioners who discuss pedagogies of kindness, an alternative to the «no excuses» ideology now dominating the way that children are raised and educated in the U.S. today. The fields of education, and especially early childhood education, include some histories and perspectives that treat those who are younger with kindness and respect. This book demonstrates an informed awareness of this history and the ways that old and new ideas can counter current conditions that are harmful to both those who are younger and those who are older, while avoiding the reconstitution of the romantic, innocent child who needs to be saved by more advanced adults. Two interpretations of the upbringing of children are investigated and challenged, one suggesting that the poor do not know how to raise their children and thus need help, while the other looks at those who are privileged and therefore know how to nurture their young. These opposing views have been discussed and problematized for more than thirty years. Pedagogies of Kindness and Respect investigates the issue of why this circumstance has continued and even worsened today.

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In-Press: Pedagogies of Kindness and Respect (Peter Lang USA)

In-Press: Pedagogies of Kindness and Respect: On the Lives and Education of Children (Peter Lang USA)

P.L. Thomas, Paul R. Carr, Julie Gorlewski, and Brad J. Porfilio, eds.

[Draft cover, original artwork by A. Scott Henderson]

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Table of Contents

Introduction: “God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”

P. L. Thomas, Paul R. Carr, Julie Gorlewski, and Brad J. Porfilio, editors

Section One: Theoretical Framework

Chapter One: Public Education and the Ethics of Care: Toward a Politics of Kindness?

Rachel K. Brickner

Chapter Two: Are We Educating Our Children Within a Culture of Care?

Michael Burger

Chapter Three: No Excuses for “No Excuses”: Counternarratives and Student Agency

Sharon M. Chubbuck and Brandon Buck

Chapter Four: Empathic Education for a Compassionate Nation: A Pedagogy of Kindness and Respect for Healing Educational Trauma

Lee-Anne Gray

Section 2: Pedagogies of Kindness and Children 

Chapter Five: Renewing the Confucian Tradition: Kindness and Respect in Children’s Everyday Schooling

Jiacheng Li and Mei Ni

Chapter Six: “When I explain it, you’ll understand”: Children’s Voices on Educational Care

Maria K. McKenna

Chapter Seven: Prekindergarten Policy and Politics: Discursive (Inter)play on Readying the Ideal Learner

Angela C. Passero, Carrie L. Gentner, and Vonzell Agosto

Chapter Eight: Nurtured Nature: The Connection Between Care for Children and Care for the Environment

Chiara D’Amore and Denise Mitten

Section Three: Curricular Dimensions of the Pedagogies of Kindness

Chapter Nine: Love, Learning, and the Arts

Jane Dalton

Chapter Ten: Aesthetic Reading and Historical Empathy: Humanizing Approaches to “Letter From Birmingham Jail”

Jason L. Endacott, Christian Z. Goering, and Joseph E. O’Brien

Chapter Eleven: Re-Storying “Progress” Through Familial Curriculum Making: Toward a Husbandry of Rooted Lives

Sarah Fischer

Chapter Twelve: Music Education, Character Development, and Advocacy: The Philosophy of Shinichi Suzuki

Karin S. Hendricks

Chapter Thirteen: Tough Kindness: Reconciling Student Needs and Interests in 1940s Black Progressive High Schools

Craig Kridel

Chapter Fourteen: Doodles, Birds, and Abstract Words: The Experience of Caring

Karinna Riddett-Moore

Chapter Fifteen: No More Disrespect: Teaching All Students to Question Right and Wrong in History

Laura J. Dull and Diana B. Turk

Section Four: The Political Economy of the Pedagogies of Kindness

Chapter Sixteen: Peace Education About the Lives of Children

Candice C. Carter

Chapter Seventeen: Acknowledging and Validating LGBT Identities: Toward a Pedagogy of Compassion

A. Scott Henderson

Chapter Eighteen: Reclaiming Kindness, Courage, and Compassionate Justice in Difficult Educational Times

Ursula A. Kelly

Chapter Nineteen: A Critical Pedagogy of Care and Respect: What Queer Literacy Pedagogy Can Teach Us About Education for Freedom

Cammie Kim Lin

Chapter Twenty: Toward Pedagogies of “Senseless Kindness” in Critical Education

Michalinos Zembylas, Robert Hattam, and Maija Lanas

Author Biographies

CALL: Chapters for revised volume, De-Testing and De-Grading Schools (Peter Lang USA)

Classroom teachers, researchers, and de-testing/de-grading advocates are encouraged to contact me about a revised volume for Peter Lang USA: De-Testing and De-Grading Schools: Authentic Alternatives to Accountability and Standardization.

Synopsis of original volume from 2013:

A century of education and education reform along with the last three decades of high-stakes testing and accountability reveals a disturbing paradox: Education has a steadfast commitment to testing and grading despite decades of research, theory, and philosophy that reveal the corrosive consequences of both testing and grading within an education system designed to support human agency and democratic principles.

This edited volume brings together a collection of essays that confronts the failure of testing and grading and then offers practical and detailed examinations of implementing at the macro and micro levels of education teaching and learning free of the weight of testing and grading. The book explores the historical failure of testing and grading; the theoretical and philosophical arguments against testing and grading; the negative influence of testing and grading on social justice, race, class, and gender; and the role of testing and grading in perpetuating a deficit perspective of children, learning, race, and class.

The chapters fall under two broad sections: Part I: «Degrading Learning, Detesting Education: The Failure of High-Stake Accountability in Education» includes essays on the historical, theoretical, and philosophical arguments against testing and grading; Part II: «De-Grading and De-Testing in a Time of High-Stakes Education Reform» presents practical experiments in de-testing and de-grading classrooms for authentic learning experiences.

Original Table of Contents:

Contents: Alfie Kohn: Introduction: The Roots of Grades-and-Tests – Lisa Guisbond/Monty Neill/Bob Schaeffer: NCLB’s Lost Decade for Educational Progress: What Can We Learn from This Policy Failure? – Fernando F. Padró: High-Stakes Testing Assessment: The Deus ex Machina of Quality in Education – Anthony Cody: Technocratic Groupthink Inflates the Testing Bubble – Lawrence Baines/Rhonda Goolsby: Mean Scores in a Mean World – Julie A. Gorlewski/David A. Gorlewski: De-grading Literacy: How New York State Tests Knowledge, Culture, and Critical Thinking – Morna McDermott: The Corporate Model of Schooling: How High Stakes Testing Dehumanizes Education – Richard Mora: Standardized Testing and Boredom at an Urban Middle School – Brian R. Beabout and Andre M. Perry: Reconciling Student Outcomes and Community Self-Reliance in Modern School Reform Contexts – David L. Bolton/John M. Elmore: The Role of Assessment in Empowering/Disempowering Students in the Critical Pedagogy Classroom – Alfie Kohn: The Case Against Grades – Joe Bower: Reduced to Numbers: From Concealing to Revealing Learning – John Hoben: Outside the Wounding Machine: Grading and the Motive for Metaphor – Peter DeWitt: No Testing Week: Focusing on Creativity in the Classroom – Hadley J. Ferguson: Journey into Ungrading – Jim Webber/Maja Wilson: Moving Beyond «Parents Just Want to Know the Grade!» – P. L. Thomas: De-grading Writing Instruction in a Time of High-Stakes Testing: The Power of Feedback in Workshop – Brian Rhode: One Week, Many Thoughts – Lisa William-White: Conclusion: Striving toward Authentic Teaching for Social Justice.

Most of the original chapters will be updated and revised, but a few are unable to work on the revised volume project. Thus, we should have room for 2-4 new chapters.

Please send proposals ASAP, and we are requiring full drafts by July 31, 2015, to submit the revised volume by September 15, 2015.

Chapters must be in APA citation/style format and about 6000 words maximum; both practical and research/theoretical cases highlighting de-testing and de-grading classrooms are needed.

Email me with proposals or questions: paul.thomas@furman.edu

 

Becoming and Being a Teacher (Peter Lang USA)

BB.catalog copyThomas, P. L. (ed.)

Becoming and Being a Teacher

Confronting Traditional Norms to Create New Democratic Realities

Series: Critical Studies in Democracy and Political Literarcy – Volume 2

Year of Publication: 2013

New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, Oxford, Wien, 2013. XVIII, 302 pp., num. ill.
ISBN 978-1-4331-1650-6 pb.  (Softcover)
ISBN 978-1-4331-1686-5 hb.  (Hardcover)

IN PRESS: De-Testing and De-Grading Schools (Peter Lang)

De-Testing and De-Grading Schools: Authentic Alternatives to Accountability and Standardization
Joe Bower and P. L. Thomas, editors

Introduction by Alfie Kohn

Peter Lang USA
Counterpoints Series

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Author(s)

Title

Alfie Kohn Introduction: “The Roots of Grades-and-Tests”

Part I: Degrading Learning, Detesting Education: The Failure of High-Stake Accountability in Education

Lisa Guisbond, Monty Neill, and Bob Schaeffer (FairTest.org) Chapter One “NCLB’s Lost Decade for Educational Progress: What Can We Learn from this Policy Failure?”
Fernando F. Padró Chapter Two “High-stakes Testing Assessment: The Deus Ex Machina of Quality in Education”
Anthony Cody Chapter Three “Technocratic Groupthink Inflates the Testing Bubble”
Lawrence Baines and Rhonda Goolsby Chapter Four “Mean Scores in a Mean World”
Julie Gorlewski and David Gorlewski Chapter Five “Degrading Literacy: How New York State Tests Knowledge, Culture, and Critical Thinking”
Morna McDermott Chapter Six “The aesthetics of social engineering: How high stakes testing dehumanizes/desensitizes education”
Richard Mora Chapter Seven “Standardized Testing and Boredom at an Urban Middle School”
Brian Beabout and Andre Perry Chapter Eight “Reconciling Student Outcomes and Community Self-Reliance in Modern School Reform Contexts”
David Bolton and John Elmore Chapter Nine “The Role of Assessment in Empowering/ Disempowering Students in the Critical Pedagogy Classroom”
Part II: De-Grading and De-Testing in a Time of High-Stakes Education Reform
Alfie Kohn Chapter Ten “The Case Against Grade”
Joe Bower Chapter Eleven “Reduced to Numbers: From Concealing to Revealing Learning”
John Hoben Chapter Twelve “Assessment Technologies as Wounding Machines: Abjection, the Imagination and Grading”
Peter DeWitt Chapter Thirteen “No Testing Week: Focusing on Creativity in the Classroom”
Hadley Ferguson Chapter Fourteen “Creating an Ungraded Classroom”
James Webber and Maja Wilson Chapter Fifteen “’Parents Just Want to Know the Grade’: Or Do They?”
P. L. Thomas Chapter Sixteen “De-grading Writing Instruction in a Time of High-stakes Testing: The Power of Feedback in Workshop”
Brian Rhode Chapter Seventeen “Demoralizing, Disengaging, Non-Actualizing Education”
Lisa William-White Conclusion “Striving Towards Authentic Teaching for Social Justice”