Learning Not Schooling: Reimagining the Purpose of Education

Learning Not Schooling: Reimagining the Purpose of Education examines how both the curiosity and the initiative of students in their formative years can be stimulated by partnering local schools with the world of adult work and professional expertise. This tactic addresses some of the issues that seem to continually plague us, such as how to help students learn more effectively in the modern age, or how to more fully address some of the perpetual inequities between different socioeconomic groupings. Drawing on his experiences from founding and directing a private school for students age six to fourteen, Lyn Lesch presents a new model for education in which learning for students increasingly occurs in the world of adult expertise, with classroom teachers taking on the role of conduits that not only prepare students to learn from professionals working in various fields but also assist them in absorbing the advanced information and knowledge they will be acquiring.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Learning and Schooling Chapter 3 Grades, Tests, and Initiative Chapter 4 Subject Matter and Curiosity Chapter 5 The Proper Environment Chapter 6 The Flow of Experience Chapter 7 Educators and Experts Chapter 8 The Process of Deschooling Chapter 9 A New Opportunity Chapter 10 Homeschooling and Online Learning Chapter 11 Toward a Deschooled Society Chapter 12 A New Student

About the Author :
Lyn Lesch, a classroom teacher for twenty-four years, founded The Children's School, an alternative school for children six to fourteen years of age in Illinois, in 1991. He directed the school until 2003. The school received widespread attention in the Chicago media as a unique approach to education.

Review :
The most vital problem facing the school establishment today is its growing irrelevance to the post industrial economy. American inventiveness has been in steep decline for decades. Think of this book as a shovel to help dig us out of the grave for creativity classrooms have become. All too often, school reformers are consumed with the "hows," rather than the "why's" of education. Lyn Lesch, a deschooler in the tradition of Ivan Illich and John Taylor Gatto, has tied the two together in this controversial and timely critique of present-day, test-driven, results-oriented schooling. If you are an educator or policy maker, "Learning Not Schooling" should be high on your reading list. Arguing that there is a disconnect between learning and schooling in US education, Lesch proposes an approach that is more conducive to the natural tendencies of the learner. He provides a model that addresses what healthy, effective learning is (not necessarily connected to the ways of schooling today) and discusses how schools can address the inequalities between the rich and the poor, and connect students to larger society. Lesch posses a progressive approach to educating students in a modern and changing world. This book is simple to follow, and Lesch clearly outlines both his theory and approach to changing the education system to reflect the way people naturally learn and to make academic leaning more meaningful for students. This book should be read by educators and policy makers, as it will force them to reconsider the way students are educated in schools today. Recommended. Test, punish, and test some more. For the past decade, the public conversation about how we can best educate our children has rarely departed from this narrative. But with this book, Lyn Lesch dares to dream of something different, to shake us out of our collective stupor and remind us that it doesn't have to be this way.