Pockets of Hope: How Students and Teachers Change the World

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Responding to the conservative agenda of high-stakes testing, charter schools, and vouchers, Pockets of Hope offers an alternative vision of education reform. It provides an intimate portrayal of day-to-day teaching and learning in six educational projects that span both classroom and community-based settings, thereby giving readers a genuine understanding of the possibilities inherent in democratic education. The six projects examined herein demonstrate the ways in which education can be an empowering experience for students, providing them with the academic, social, and political knowledge and skills they need to become active, engaged democratic citizens. Competent, creative, and courageous, the teachers in these projects challenge their students to think critically about provocative academic questions, political dilemmas, and social issues, and their students rise to the occasion, responding with curiosity and insight. By purposively connecting the world in which they and their students live with the work of their democratic classrooms, these teachers encourage students to explore how they can contribute to their communities, making learning relevant and exciting. The stories of teachers and students told here will inspire educators, students, parents, and others concerned with the future of education as they seek to counter the conservative rhetoric that shapes educational reform today.

Reviews

"The pockets of hope so vividly described in this politically and morally essential book offer us a powerful and cumulative answer to the right-wing ethos that now dominates and stultifies too much of the so-called reform in the United States. The practice of freedom, as it was defined so many years ago by Paulo Freire ceases to be an ideological abstraction from another social order in this writing but is vigorously renewed and localized in the experience of teachers working in the front lines of our nation's public schools. All in all, a spiritual and dynamic book that educators everywhere will value." Jonathan Kozol author of Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools "If public education is to fulfill its mission and its promise, it will not be through more and more standardized testing and other bogus reforms, but through the "practice of freedom" Eileen de los Reyes and Patricia A. Gozemba so convincingly and eloquently describe in their book. Pockets of Hope is a book to celebrate. It is both instructive and inspiring, and has the power to make a profound difference in the lives of teachers, students and the larger community." Steve Gorrie President Massachusetts Teachers Association "Pockets of Hope is a compelling affirmation of the democratic possibilities of public education." Eleanor Duckworth Professor of Education Harvard University Graduate School of Education "I am encouraged by the projects described in Pockets of Hope. They offer concrete proof that public school education employees are committed to ensuring that all students reach their highest potential. Just as a flower pushes itself up through the stones in a garden, these educators are meeting the challenges of the critics and standing strong in their efforts to provide each student with the knowledge and skills necessary for tomorrows leaders." Bob Chase President National Education Association

Author Bio

EILEEN DE LOS REYES is Assistant Professor of Learning and Teaching, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University. PATRICIA A. GOZEMBA is Professor of English and member of the Women's Studies department, Salem State College.