The Dysfunctional School: Uncomfortable Truths and Awkward Insights on School, Learning and Teaching
Click on “ordering” above to purchase a copy directly from the author.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
The Dysfunctional School received an excellent review in Education Today (Spring, 2008), the journal of The Ontario Public School Board’s Association.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
The Dysfunctional School was serialized each week for a year on the education blog Tomorrow’s Trust.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Several “Professional Learning Circles” of teachers have used The Dysfunctional School as the basis for their monthly discussion group.
______________________________________________________________________________________
Here is a book that looks at schools from the inside, from the point of view of
a classroom teacher who has spent a career trying to understand how schools work
- and don’t work.
In a collection of short reflections, the author describes some of the
dysfunctional attitudes and behaviours that diminish learning and hurt children.
The Dysfunctional School is a call to all adults responsible for the care
of young people to question the traditional approaches of what Michael Reist
refers to as “factory schooling.”
“The processes of school have lead to the loss of the love of learning in
most students. If you go into any kindergarten class, you will see a hive of
enthusiasm for learning – a sea of hands raised for every question posed by the
teacher. Fast forward to the grade 12 class. You see stress, fear, apathy and
“acting out.” What has happened in between? School has happened.”
“Institutions become dysfunctional when they do not accomplish the
purposes for which they were created. Schools were created to be places of true
learning, places where the true natures of children would be allowed to grow and
flourish. By this definition, there are too many students for whom school is not
‘working.’”