"Written for parents and teachers this is a collection of essays focused on educating children to care about themselves, their communities, and the world we share"--

Whether you are a parent anxious about your child's education, a family considering homeschooling, or a young person contemplating a career as a teacher, this book will help you think through what a true education involves. After a brief survey of where education in America has gone wrong, including a glance at controversial efforts like Common Core and Race to the Top, the authors describe the alternative to today's failed fashions in learning: a...

"Liberal education, if it does not discover how to speak to society in ways our culture understands, and if it cannot make its virtues apparent to the democracy in which we live, will make itself smaller and smaller, lose the audience it wishes to hold, and die by diminishment. The liberal arts are dying because most Americans don't see the point of them. They don't get why anyone would study literature or history or the classics--or, more contemporarily,...

"Every teacher has suffered the demoralizing realization that most students quickly forget the content they are taught. Many sophomores, for example, could not pass a literature exam or history quiz which they aced during freshman year. While most teachers are too embarrassed to admit this, their students know it is true, which leads many students to think school is ultimately pointless. What is more, students know that most missed class periods can...