Speaking Of Fourth Grade: What Listening to Kids Tells Us About School in America

(Hardback)

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Fourth grade is ground zero in the fierce debates about education reform in America. It's when kids (well, some of them) make the shift from "learning to read" to "reading to learn," and tomes have been written about the fourth-grade year by educators, administrators, philosophers, and pundits. Now, in a fascinating and groundbreaking book, IndaSchaenen adds the voices of actual fourth-grade kids to the conversation. Schaenen, a journalist turned educator, spent a year traveling across the state of Missouri, the geographical and spiritual center of the country, visiting fourth-grade classrooms of every description: public, private, urban, rural, religious, charter. "Getting Smart" looks at how our different approaches to education stack up against one another and chronicles what kids at the heart of our great, democratic education experiment have to say about "What Makes a Good Teacher" and "What Makes a Good Student," as well as what they think about the Accelerated Reader programs that dominate public school classrooms, high-stakes testing, and the very purpose of school in the first place. A brilliant and original work at the intersection of oral history, sociology, and journalism, "Getting Smart" offers unique insight into the personal consequences of national education policy. The voices of the children in "Getting Smart" will stay with readers--parents, teachers, and others--for many years to come.

Reviews

"Perfect for readers who are passionate about the future of American children."
Library Journal

"By opening up the discussion to fourth graders themselves, Schaenen offers an outlet for voices often overlooked in the debate about education in America."
Publishers Weekly

"Perspective-taking is all over this book. A caring, curious teacher in the Midwest talks with children nearing the cusp of puberty and learns that they all believe in school. Fourth graders analyze what and how they have learned and how well their teachers and schools are faring. A welcome invitation to other teachers to reverse roles in order to become the learner. What these children think about school offers some thoughtful lessons."
Shirley Brice Heath, Stanford University

"By listening well to fourth graders, Inda Schaenen manages to bring all the most hotly contested issues of U.S. education into high relief. Paying meticulous attention to the full range of their experiences, she makes a passionate and powerful argument for the student-centered schools we need."
Kathleen Cushman, author of Fires in the Bathroom

"No one knows the experience of schooling better than students, yet we rarely hear their voices in todays school reform discourse. Speaking of Fourth Grade powerfully breaks the silence and invigorates the debate by allowing students authentic voices to ring through."
Gloria Ladson-Billings, author of The Dreamkeepers

"At a time when (even classroom) space for student perspectives is shrinking, Inda Schaenen reminds us that adults have a lot to learn and that listening closely and deeply to students is at the heart of good teaching."
Deborah Meier, author of In Schools We Trust and founder of the Small Schools movement

"Fourth grade was my favorite when I was a classroom teacher. Fourth graders are that unbeatable combination of curiosity and innocence, enthusiasm and honesty that make teaching them exciting as well as unpredictable. Inda Schaenen has captured the essence of fourth graders in this book that teaches us not only about children but also about the current state of education in the United States with its broken promises and unmet possibilities, its successes and failures. This is a book for teachers, parents, and perhaps most of all, policy makers."
Sonia Nieto, professor emerita of language, literacy, and culture, College of Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Author Bio

A St. Louis resident since 1991, Inda Schaenen is a writer, a journalist, a professor, an education researcher, and a certified English Language Arts teacher. She is the author of four young adult novels, including The 7 OClock Bedtime, All the Cats of Cairo, and the Saddlewise series. Her columns and essays have appeared in Salon, the St. Louis Beacon, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and in the anthology Mommy Wars.