It's worth pointing out that Sara Allan, in her presentation to the school board on high school redesign, emphasized the importance of student engagement in reducing the drop-out rate. Allan listed "frequent low student engagement" as perhaps the most important "challenge" facing the high school system.
"We fundamentally believe that if we can increase student engagement that many of our other problems are solved, graduation rate, we could increase achievement ...we could decrease boredom of students. We believe it's a key ingredient in the success of our high school system."
Sounds like a no-brainer, but coming from Sara Allan (I've been misspelling her name), originally a fellow from the neoliberal Broad Foundation, that's a step forward. Business oriented outfits like Broad usually stress academic rigor over relevance. As I've argued before, if you want to keep students in school, it's a good idea to make the school experience more "engaging" --and less boring.
One way to do that, and to improve student achievement learning, is to give students good books to read, ones they can actually relate to, books they may actually enjoy reading.
Speaking of books, that's the other thing I wanted to mention. The Washington Monthly has an article up recommending 25 books President Obama should read.
Most, as you would expect, are non-fiction, including one by the man my brother said nobody paid attention to anymore --Howard Zinn. The book? A People's History of the United States.
The fiction category includes Graham Greene's The Quiet American (about Vietnam), and, thank goodness, THE Great American Novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. One would assume that Obama has already read the Twain classic, but it never hurts to re-read great novels.
I have, probably at least four times. Huckleberry Finn, that is.
The Washington Monthly reading list for Obama, which is actually a list of recommendations from 19 regular contributors to the magazine rather than the magazine's own recommendations, is interesting for its diversity.
The author who recommended Zinn's book is Debra Dickerson, who once said Obama is not "black" because he is not a descendant of West African slaves. The list of authors also includes former Republican operative James Pinkerton, who recommends a book called "The Pretense of Knowledge" by Nobel prize winning economist Friedrich Hayek.
Zinn bemoans the evils of what he calls "crony capitalism" while Hayek is best known for his defense of free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought. Why am I not suprised that you did not mention the Pinkerton recommendation in your post?
I would add to the list a book I've started to read called "How Terrorist Groups End." The book studies 648 such groups that existed from 1968 to 2006. Its principal conclusion is that the most effective deterrent is local intelligence and policing rather than the use of military force, especially international military force. As such, it abjures the use of the phrase "war on terrorism."
Posted by: Craig | January 21, 2009 at 06:23 PM
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Posted by: MadelynEllison28 | July 22, 2011 at 06:46 PM