Free School Teaching: A Journey into Radical Progressive Education
Free School Teachingis the personal and professional  journey of one teacher within the American educational system. Faced with  mounting frustrations in her own traditional, middle school classroom and  having little success in resolving them, Kristan Accles Morrison decided to  seek out answers, first by immersing herself in the academic literature of  critical education theory and then by turning to the field. While the  literature on progressive education gave her hope that things could be  better for students locked into America's traditional education system, she  wanted to find a firsthand example of how these ideas played out in  practice. Morrison found a radical "free school" in Albany, New York, that  embodied the ideas found in the literature, and over a period of three  months she observed and documented differences between alternative and  traditional schools. In trying to reconcile the gap between those systems,  Morrison details what she learned about teachers, students, curriculum, and  the entire conception of why we educate our children."The effects of standardized competitive schooling are severe and they need  to be critically reported as publicly and as often as possible. The stories  of democratic schools, such as the one profiled here, provide inspirational  alternatives. This is a book with an important story to tell." -- Ron  Miller, author ofFree School, Free People: Education and Democracy  after the 1960s--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.