Taking Back Our Classrooms: A Teacher's Perspective on America's Dysfunctional Education System - Paperback

by M. Ed Barbara J. Wood (Author)

American education is at a cross-road. Teachers and students are floundering to meet the requirements of a policy, procedure, and data-driven education system that expects teachers to follow mandated educational policies and standardized curriculum. It's a system that coddles and rescues students in an attempt to "leave no child behind," and fosters conformity rather than critical thinking and personal responsibility. It's time to ask the relevant questions. Should data drive the system? Does such a system hijack the learning process? Is "corporate education" opposed to learning? Why do students need to be made successful in the same way? Is an entitlement mentality compromising teachers' professionalism in the classroom? Is digital technology and social networking having negative effects on students' ability to learn? Are censorship issues stunting students' higher level thinking skills? In "Taking Back Our Classrooms" Barbara Wood explores America's public education system from a teacher's perspective. It's popular to blame teachers for the current dysfunction in the system. But many factors impinge on teachers' ability to be effective in the classroom. Barbara sheds light and brings intelligent and poignant insight on these issues. Don't stop the debate and make policies to change the system until you consider the concerns addressed in this book.

Author Biography

Barbara has been a teacher for thirty-eight years, both in Australia and the United States. She taught language arts, literature, speech, drama, theater studies, media studies, history, and alternative life styles to students from 5th to 12th grade in public, private, and culturally diverse schools in inner city, suburban, and country settings. She has a BS in English and history with a minor in political science; a post-graduate degree in drama in education; a post graduate degree in media studies; and a master's degree in adult education and training with a focus on creativity in education. She has also done coursework in environmental science, educational counseling, and arts' management. She has travelled the world and is an avid reader of fiction, history, politics, philosophy, education, sociology, psychology, and current affairs