Product Description

''Kirsten Olson has written a book that is at once intellectually engaging and replete with usable resources and proposals for action.... May this splendid book be read, discussed, taken to heart, and put into action by a growing company of educational 'wounded healers.'''
-- From the Foreword by Parker J. Palmer, author of The Courage to Teach

''This wonderful and probing book is filled with powerful, poignant, passionate stories; stories that are at once fragile and strong, painful and enduring. They make us mourn the losses of laughter and opportunity in schools, weep at the lingering sadness and sorrow in schools, laugh at the absurdities; and grin at the moments of mischief and inspiration.''
-- From the Foreword by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Harvard Graduate School of Education

''A brilliant, original, and important book. Wounded by School makes an eloquent and moving case for the radical re-invention of our schools.''
-- Tony Wagner, author of The Global Achievement Gap and Co-Director of the Change Leadership Group (CLG)

''Kirsten Olson's book is refreshingly unlike the general run of sludge I associate with writing about pedagogy: It seems to be entirely free of the familiar platitudes which replace thought when we read about school matters, is scrubbed clean of pretentious jargon, and offers up the twists and turns of Olson's analysis and citations with beautiful clarity. I can't imagine anyone not being better for reading this book Twice!'' --John Taylor Gatto, Author, Dumbing Us Down

While reformers and policymakers focus on achievement gaps, testing, and accountability, millions of students mentally and emotionally disengage from learning and many gifted teachers leave the field. Ironically, today's schooling is damaging the single most essential component to education -- the joy of learning.
How do we recognize the ''wounds'' caused by outdated schooling policies? How do we heal them? In her controversial new book, education writer and critic Kirsten Olson brings to light the devastating consequences of an educational approach that values conformity over creativity, flattens student's interests, and dampens down differences among learners. Drawing on deeply emotional stories, Olson shows that current institutional structures do not produce the kinds of minds and thinking that society really needs. Instead, the system tends to shame, disable, and bore many learners. Most importantly, she presents the experiences of wounded learners who have healed and shows what teachers, parents, and students can do right now to help themselves stay healthy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18784 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Review
''Kirsten Olson s book is refreshingly unlike the general run of sludge I associate with writing about pedagogy: It seems to be entirely free of the familiar platitudes which replace thought when we read about school matters, is scrubbed clean of pretentious jargon, and offers up the twists and turns of Olson s analysis and citations with beautiful clarity. I can t imagine anyone not being better for reading this book Twice!'' --John Taylor Gatto, Author, Dumbing Us Down

Kirsten Olson portrays the realities of modern schooling more vividly and convincingly than anyone since the prophetic school critic John Holt. Through her sensitive interviewing and insightful analysis, Olson demonstrates exactly why this obsolete industrial-age institution is damaging to authentic human development. Policymakers, administrators and parents who have largely ignored the impassioned pleas of critics, homeschoolers and alternative educators for the past forty years need to read Wounded by School because this time they'll get it. We need to replace industrial schooling with more genuinely caring and humane ways of teaching, and Olson clearly shows us why and how to do it. --Ron Miller, Editor, Education Revolution Magazine

About the Author
Kirsten Olson is a writer, educational consultant, and national-level Courage To Teach facilitator. She has been a consultant to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Kennedy School at Harvard University, and many large public school systems and charter schools.

Customer Reviews

A powerful and important book
I can think of many, many ways in which I was wounded by school--most people can. What you might be surprised to learn is how damaging those wounds are and how they help shape who we are. Kirsten Olson explores this phenomenon and reveals many powerful and painful stories about ways in which our education system has failed learners of all ages. This book could not be more timely. We are in an age of transition. We're no longer being told that we don't or can't have a voice. This book offers hope, healing and empowerment to those who are ready to face today's educational challenges.

Fighting our uphill battle
Author Kirsten Olson is fighting the uphill battle of a person taking on the traditional school system. Here in "Wounded by School," she gives you the tools to fight along with her. Over a ten-year investigation, Olson defined the damaging gaps in the U.S. education system. Here, through personal case-studies, she shares the intimate stories of people who were indeed wounded by their school experiences.

Among the damages done to many students in the traditional education system, the wounds Olson describes include: a loss of pleasure in learning, compliance, rebellion, underestimation, perfection, and the sad wounds parents experience when they feel helpless about their child's education troubles.

Through "Wounded By School," you'll learn how to stop dysfunctional and outmoded methods that castigate teachers when learning fails and inhibit learning development.

Helen GallagherRelease Your Writing: Book Publishing, Your Way

a must read for parents AND teachers
As a former public school teacher and a current homeschooling mom, I was very interested in reading this book. I think the author makes good arguments for changing the way our schools educate our youth but first universities need to alter the way future teachers are prepared.
Reading Wounded by School has prompted me to make some changes in our homeschool. I have asked my children what they want to learn this coming school year. I discovered my eldest son would rather study US Government than a 3rd year of Spanish; I am letting him follow his interests. My youngest daughter wants to paint - so I'm looking for curriculum that will guide her interest since I have no artistic talent.
My eldest daughter (who is heading to college in less than a month to study to be an elementary teacher) grabbed this book from my to-be-read basket and loved it; I have been requested to not get rid of this one so it will be going to Mississippi University for Women with her next month. I have a feeling it will be passed among her college classmates.