The Myth of the Spoiled Child: Coddled Kids, Helicopter Parents, and Other Phoney Crises

A prominent and esteemed critic Alfie Cohn challenges widely held beliefs about children and parenting, revealing that underlying each myth is a deeply conservative ideology that is, ironically, often adopted by liberal parents.

The Disciplined Mind: Beyond Facts and Standardized Tests, the K-12 Education that Every Child Deserves

In The Disciplined Mind, Howard Gardner argues that K-12 education should strive for a deep understanding of three classical principles: truth, beauty, and goodness. Such an understanding requires mastery of the major disciplines that human beings have created over the centuries. As powerful examples of his approach, Gardner describes an education that illuminates the theory of evolution, the music of Mozart, and the lessons of the Holocaust. Far from the standardized test mentality that has gripped both policy makers and the public, Gardner envisions an education that preserves the strengths of a traditional humane education while preparing younger generations for the challenges of the future.

Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed-Out, Materialistic, and Mis-Guided Students

This book offers a revealing—and troubling—view of today’s high school students and the ways they pursue high grades and success. Veteran teacher Denise Pope follows five highly regarded students through a school year and discovers that these young people believe getting ahead requires manipulating the system, scheming, lying, and cheating.

Alfie Kohn

Alfie Kohn writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. The author of fourteen books and scores of articles, he lectures at education conferences and universities as well as to parent groups and corporations. Kohn’s criticisms of competition and rewards have been widely discussed and debated, and he has been described in Time magazine as “perhaps the country’s most outspoken critic of education’s fixation on grades [and] test scores.”

RSA Animate- Changing Education Paradigms
How To Escape Education’s Death Valley

This RSA Animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA’s Benjamin Franklin award.The RSA is a 258 year-old charity devoted to driving social progress and spreading world-changing ideas.
The second  video is from TED Talks in it Sir Ken Robinson outlines 3 principles crucial for the human mind to flourish — and how current education culture works against them. In a funny, stirring talk he tells us how to get out of the educational “death valley” we now face, and how to nurture our youngest generations with a climate of possibility.