Lives of Passion, School of Hope: How One Public School Ignites a Lifelong Love of Learning
This book reaffirms one's faith in the power of public education and illustrates how the creative spirit of educators and the intelligence, passion, and engagement of students can lead to learning on the highest level. -- Herbert Kohl, author of 36 ChildrenFor everyone suffocating in the shroud of institutional schooling this wonderful book is a breath of fresh air. It will inspire you with courage. Read it for all our sakes. -- John Gatto, author of Dumbing Us DownLives of Passion, School of Hope is a refreshing antidote to the arid and pinched view of education and school reform suffocating and strangling any clear thinking in the public square today. Rick Posner offers us an expansive vision of human possibilities, and reminds us that the deepest purposes of schooling in (and for) a vibrant democracy must always point toward the development of initiative, imagination, passion and compassion, creativity and courage. In this essential and urgent book Posner illuminates the vital work of a single school, and maps a way out of the mess we're in. -- William Ayers, author of To Teach: The Journey of a TeacherThese are the stories that need to reach the public's ear, and help us remember where it is we are trying to go--and why! Such alternative schools haven't disappeared, but their stories too often have. They must become the pilots for the future--schools to argue about and learn from. A refreshingly clear account of what schools can mean to young people's real life futures. -- Deborah Meier, author of The Power of Their IdeasLives of Passion, School of Hope proves that a public alternative school can provide self-directed, experiential learning for its students instead of teaching to the test. It also shows there are many different paths to becoming a successful adult other than simply being an A student in a conventional school.  -- Patrick Farenga, co-author of Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling